A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is well worth the time spent reading all 462 pages. The writing is beautiful. Note this alliteration:
In a single week, there might be committees, caucuses, colloquiums, congresses, and conventions variously coming together to establish codes, set courses of action, levy complaints, and generally clamor about the world's oldest problems ...
Towles diction is remarkable. My favorite "bon mot" is A gentleman always masters his circumstances. Don't you think this should be everyone's motto?
And this motto is the theme of the novel. I claim that it's a historical novel because the setting is the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution. Due to the demise of the Russian aristocracy, our hero, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel in Moscow.
This hotel is the count's world. And what a world it is! Anybody who's anybody befriends the count, even a little girl who becomes one of the Count's best friends. When this little girl grows up, another girl will insinuate herself into the hotel's life. The chef, the maitre'd, the manager, the dressmaker, and even a communist dignitary, all become important in the story's plot.
It's amazing how the author ties everyone and everything together. The characters are very well drawn and I know which actors I would cast in each part when the movie is made.
In a single week, there might be committees, caucuses, colloquiums, congresses, and conventions variously coming together to establish codes, set courses of action, levy complaints, and generally clamor about the world's oldest problems ...Towles diction is remarkable. My favorite "bon mot" is A gentleman always masters his circumstances. Don't you think this should be everyone's motto?
And this motto is the theme of the novel. I claim that it's a historical novel because the setting is the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution. Due to the demise of the Russian aristocracy, our hero, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel in Moscow.
This hotel is the count's world. And what a world it is! Anybody who's anybody befriends the count, even a little girl who becomes one of the Count's best friends. When this little girl grows up, another girl will insinuate herself into the hotel's life. The chef, the maitre'd, the manager, the dressmaker, and even a communist dignitary, all become important in the story's plot.
It's amazing how the author ties everyone and everything together. The characters are very well drawn and I know which actors I would cast in each part when the movie is made.
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