A Review by James L. Evans* (with Introduction by Litchatte Editor, Murray Ellison)
In early January, 2022, author James L. Evans led our first RVA Classic Bookclub (of Richmond, Virginia) discussion of the year on A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (2016). Our group has been meeting via Zoom only since the pandemic shut down our live meetings. With 100% of our members present, we discussed how timely this book has been with many of our members nearly quarantined in our home for the last year or more.
Several members concluded that A Gentleman may indeed be one of the best books in the last six years. We wondered if it might still be read in 100 years from now, and briefly compared it to how some of the books by Hemingway and Fitzgerald’s have held up since the 1920s. Some members agreed that the book was written in a style similar to Russian classic writers, like Dostoevsky and Gogol. Towles certainly demonstrated through the novel that he was very familiar Russian literature and history. Some believed that it might be a long-term classic, as it contained universal themes of community, and noble motives, as demonstrated by several of the main characters. We observed that the author and protagonist treated women and children with much respect and that, by the action and dialogue, readers would have a lot to learn by them. As a father of three daughters and a young granddaughter, I regarded the way that the Count interacted and nurtured both Nina and her daughter as both touching and informative.
The book contains pathos and humor, as well as well as some mystery. Who let the geese out of the kitchen into the bustling hotel lobby? Some members were sure of who it was. I remain uncertain? The ending was both clever and totally unexpected, and it took a discussion of several of our most erudite members to unravel and explain the clues that the Count left- both to fool and enlighten us about what he was really up to. We debated over some of of the questions that Jim Evans sent us before we went about discussing this novel. One of the intriguing things that Jim told us about was how Amor Towles had said that he got a great deal of pleasure in seeing how other people viewed some of the stories and characters he has written: They even give him some new insights into his own works. In view of that observation, I think that Towles would have enjoyed our RVA Classic Bookclub discussion of A Gentleman in Moscow, particularly under author, James L, Evans’ leadership…Litchatte.com Editor, Murray Ellison
The Review by James L. Evans*
A Gentleman in Moscow is the second of Amor Towles’ three novels. Set in a hotel in Moscow, the book begins in 1922 and ends thirty years later. An aristocrat, thirty-two-year-old Count Alexander Rostov, is sentenced by a revolutionary tribunal to spend the rest of his life in the Metropol Hotel, spared from execution as credit for a poem he did not actually write, just one example of Towles’ humor. In the course of his confinement, Rostov raises two young girls and manages to not only survive but prevail over his circumstances.
Towles got the idea for ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ after traveling and staying in the same hotel in Geneva over an 8-year period, seeing the same people year after year, and began to build the ‘scaffolding’ for the book about a count who becomes a waiter, meets a young girl, etc., Then Towles spent the next year gathering information in a notebook. The plot places the Count in severely challenging positions; confinement to the hotel; raising first Nina then Sonia; managing his role as a servant rather than a master; tutoring a KGB chieftain, as if the author set himself the task of working his way out of almost impossible situations through the Count’s ingenuity, strength of character, poise, erudition, and humanity. The Count has the same sense of dry, droll humor as Towles’ commentary; and his appreciation for objet d’art, from cutlery to crockery to clocks to cabinetry.
Towles attributes the success of the book to its being ‘humane’ and the relationship that individuals develop over time. The appeal of an earlier period was that it moved at a slower pace, allowing a person to ‘nourish rather than (just) consume’ to quote Towles.
A Gentleman in Moscow was published in 2016; too soon to consider it a ‘classic’ but it has worn well during the years since publication. The reader will be rewarded with passages scattered throughout the book that is sure to stand the test of time. On my third re-reading of ‘A Gentleman In Moscow,’ I re-mined many of these gems with the same delight with which I read them the first time.
*James L. Evans has written a review for Litchatte previously, and has published several other books:
Love,A
Banner House
Walsh
What Am I Going To Do With You?
Chestertown
Where’s Judy?
Accounts Due
Winter Warning
Mountain Retreat
All are available in Amazon Books by writing in my name and the title of the book. Thanks, Jim
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