Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) is a pleasant diversion wrapped around a very intriguing idea: the protagonist, a thirty year old Russian aristocrat, is, in 1922, sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. His house happens to be the Metropol, Moscow’s grand old hotel (at a time when such things either existed or are easily mythologized).
While exiled from a luxurious suite to a tiny attic room, the Count remains elegant, unflappable, and an attractive, insightful character. This is both the strength and weakness of the novel: strength, because an engaging protagonist is a pretty great thing for a writer to have; weakness because other characters–especially female characters–seem thin in comparison (they often have very strong and memorable entrances, and then fade from there).
But the bustle of the hotel, and the Count’s ability to transform that controlled chaos into a sense of home, largely carry the novel, making it a good character study. One note: I learned less about the progression of Soviet life over the five decades spanned by the novel than anticipated. The Count is, essentially, an idealized westerner, and the novel could have been enriched, in my view, by a more nuanced–even, sympathetic–view of those changes.
Still, the Count will stick with you, as well the hotel itself (the building, and all of its passageways, corridors and, especially, restaurants is really the second most important character in the book).
#WhatIWishICouldDo
I really like the way the plot sets constraints on the rest of the novel, and how sympathetically Towles embraces those limits. Part of the enjoyment of the novel is wondering if it can stay engaging, given the somewhat limited cast and totally limited setting. For the most part, it does!