Review: A Gentleman in Moscow

Towles, Amor. A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel. Penguin Books, 2016. 

Count Alexander Rostov loves his country and he refused to flee to Paris as so many did during and after the Bolshevik revolution. In 1922, the law caught up with him and correctly identified him as an unrepentant aristocrat. Someone must have liked him or his family's service to the country because he was neither shot nor incarcerated. As he had already been staying at the grand hotel, the Metropol, in Moscow, he was sentenced to remain in the hotel for the rest of his life. If he left the hotel for any reason he would be shot on sight. 

Thus begins decades of living in and eventually working in the Metropol. His life was not dull before his confinement and it certainly was not dull afterward. His circumstances provided him with the opportunity to read all the books that he had intended to read. He was befriended by many, including a young girl who would eventually grow up, marry, produce a daughter whom the Count would ultimately raise as his own. 

As the Bolsheviks/Communists began to make their mark in the world, at least one man realized that he needed to learn diplomacy and new behaviors in order to interact with the leaders of other countries. He requested that the Count teach him how to be a "Gentleman" in the traditional sense.

Towles masterfully tells his story. I did not see the end coming. One third of the way through the book I thought the book would end with the Count dying in the hotel as a very old man. This was not the case at all. Through clandestine friendships and contacts, he arranged for his adopted daughter to live outside of his beloved Russia and simultaneously he just disappeared. No one could find him. Except, of course, the willowy woman. 

I have many favorite quotes written down from this book. One of my favorites involves the Count explaining why his father's clock only had two tolls instead of the hourly toll of most clocks. It has to do with his father's understanding of the proper use of leisure. True leisure is to not live by the clock. 

From page 245 "In the afternoon, the Count's father believed that a man should take care not to live the watch in his waistcoat - marking the minutes as if the events of one's life were stations on a railway line. Rather, having been suitably industrious before lunch, he should spend his afternoon in wise liberty. This is, he should walk among the willows, read a timeless text, converse with a friend beneath the pergola, or reflect before the fire - engaging in those endeavors that have no appointed hour, and that dictate their own beginnings and ends." 

Indeed, if we could capture more true leisure in our hurry up, 24/7, world. 

Great book and I look forward to reading Mr. Towles other books. 

(This review is on Goodreads.com)