A Gentleman in Moscow

Main Review:

Many people find the time between Christmas and New Year a little wibbly-wobbly for their tastes. They tend to be unsure what day it is, whether it’s socially acceptable to have cheese, and what they’re supposed to do with themselves. My solution to these temporal conundrums has always been simple – find a good book, nook and blanket, settle down and wait for the whole thing to blow over.

This time around, it was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which was granted the honour of keeping me company as 2023 gave way to 2024. Now Towles’ book had been on my radar for a while, all the way back to when I worked in a bookshop during my student days, and after so long I was very pleased to discover that it was more than worth the wait.

The eponymous gentleman of the story is Count Alexander Rostov, a former member of the upper-crust of Tsarist Russia who manages to avoid losing his head in the Russian Revolution but is instead sentenced to be confined to the Hotel Metropol in Moscow for life. The book, set over three decades, tells the story of how he tries to take this punishment on the chin, make the most of his situation and the friends, lovers, rivals, and more he makes along the way.

Both blurb and cover-quotes alike make it clear that Rostov is the very epitome of charm, sophistication and civilised behaviour, all of which oozes off the page from the very first interaction. He’s an immensely likeable figure, always ready with a witty comment or easy smile. Despite his previous high status, he’s a very open person, willing to chat with anyone about anything without any sense of overt superiority.

The initial section (set in 1922) is largely made up of a medley of little scenes as Rostov gets settled into his new way of living, and I spent much of these chuckling along. I did have to keep reminding myself that he was only in his 30s during the opening sections however, as his demeanour and mannerisms consistently put me in mind of a much older man.

Some of the best interactions in the earlier chapters of the book involve Nina, the young daughter of a Bolshevik who initially attaches herself to Rostov in the hope he can teach her about princesses, but ultimately grows up to be a technocratic visionary with an unshakeable conviction in her ideals. The dynamic between the pair is very similar to that of Obi-Wan and Princess Leia in Kenobi, albeit with Rostov being the one holding the knowledge of courtly affairs.

Towles’ style of writing throughout brings to mind that of Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens and all those other 19th century authors who were paid by the word and so lavished their stories with description galore. Some will likely find it slightly over-baked, but I found that A Gentleman in Moscow had so much heart and character buried in the text that I was completely captivated. Much like Les Miserables or Bleak House, the footnotes deserve special mention for providing a level of entertainment that enhances the overall experience. The wry explanation provided at one point about the changes in the Russian Secret Police amounting to little more than a name-change was a particular highlight for me.

The more I read, the more I found myself comparing A Gentleman in Moscow to Downton Abbey in terms of tone, plot and, perhaps most of all, target audience. I had been curious going in to see precisely how the Soviet Union would be presented, and I could almost feel the Red Valkyries on my shoulder and Kristen Ghodsee’s voice crying out ‘we can’t reduce the whole period to the ravages of Stalinism’. To the book’s credit, there is at least some nuance and variety in the presentation of the many governmental apparatchiks who feature. Indeed, the closest thing the story has to an antagonist is not an unrelenting Soviet overlord but a thoroughly unpleasant cockroach of a man of the sort which exists in all economic systems; those who desperately scramble to acquire power and authority to make up for the thorough unpleasantness of their overall vibe.

It must be said though, that the whole thing is a period piece that’s unabashedly centrist in its leanings, clearly focused on presenting its immensely privileged main character as actively good-hearted, community minded, and not at all like any of the horror stories of Tsarist decadence and depravity you might see elsewhere. However (maybe because I read this close to Christmas time) I found myself unusually willing to accept its earnest tweeness in a way I wouldn’t normally have done. It’s a perfect book for Sunday evening reading, because although there are moments of tension and high drama, you can always be comfortable in the knowledge that it’s unlikely to take a hard turn into violence and carnage at any point.

I did have a few niggles with the book, which chipped the literary paintwork ever so slightly. One of these was that the time jumps are quite drastic in places, particularly for a story set in such a dynamic and ‘packed’ point of history. The most egregious of these is that we jump from 1938 all the way through to 1946 with only a handful of pages discussing that tiny world event known in Russia as ‘the Great Patriotic War’. I suspect though that this only rankled so because of my interest in the period, and most people would have been happy to take it in stride and get back to the antics of Rostov and pals in the Hotel Metropol.

The other main problem I had was that I expected there to be more focus on Rostov’s imprisonment and how this would impact him. He has a moment early on where he fortifies himself to take his new position in his stride, but from then on, he just seems to get on with it with barely a reference to how spending year after year in the same building (even one as lavish as a hotel in Moscow) would probably send even the greatest stoic a little stir crazy. Indeed, once he actually does leave for the first time in 20 years (and that’s not a spoiler – of course he was going to break curfew at least once) he doesn’t really have as much of an overt reaction as I would have expected.

These are minor issues in the overall picture though and did little to dull my overall enjoyment. I found the ending to be very entertaining, precisely because it doesn’t wrap everything up with a neat bow, leaving scope for the audience to imagine how things could shake out. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that this book was a common book club read for precisely this reason.

A Gentleman in Moscow was a delight to read from beginning to end, and one that I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to recommend. I’ll be looking out for the TV adaptation that’s due to be coming soon with eager eyes.

In the interim – happy reading to you all!