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rkw25 's review for:
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
I read this on the recommendation of my friend Sarah and it is incredibly well-written, sweet, clever, and heart-warming. The "gentleman," a Count before the Russian Revolution is put on house arrest in 1922 in the Metropol, "a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin." Over the next thirty years his world grows much bigger than one might expect--the hotel's workers roll with the ups and downs of life after the Revolution and through World War II, over the years foreign visitors continue to come to the grand hotel, persons involved in the new government pass through one of the two restaurants or bar in the hotel, and our gentleman remembers his previous life, visits with friends who come, and goes about his days trying to be the best person he can be. A telling comment on his motivation appears at the end of the book as one of the characters reflects on life and a scene from the movie "Casablanca": "in setting upright the cocktail glass in the aftermath of the commotion, didn't he also exhibit an essential faith that by the smallest of one's actions one can restore some sense of order to the world?" (459) [Definitely a suggestion for surviving in our own times.] Two little girls, each in a different time, have pivotal roles in the book. In the midst of all this the reader learns about the revolution and the USSR's struggles to enter the industrial age and take a place on the world stage. Longer than I usually choose for a book, this was well worth the time!