Scan barcode
A review by seangibsonesq
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
2.0
Slow build-up; ultimately quite unsatisfying.
Not sure why this story was deemed worth telling - as in, what has actually happened from start to end, what have we learned, what have we experienced? Feels quite light on subject matter and attempts to get by on the slick prose alone. The book has some very charismatic turns of phrase and is superficially enjoyable, but not enough to cover the lack of progress. The pedestrian pace leaves little excuse for the broad-stroke, caricatured historical references made throughout, too.
The epiphanies with which we are presented are not very profound, nor very convincing. The issue of class is really not addressed sufficiently for a book about, and named for, an old-world 'gentleman' living in post-revolutionary Russia. It is implicit throughout that the loss of a gentrified class in this new era is lamentable, but this notion is never confronted. The protagonist's new line of work is merely a way of staving off boredom and making himself useful, and the opportunity for examining his own anachronistic sense of identity is largely ignored.
The protagonist also figures here as the endpoint of a multitude of readers' aspirations - he is courageous, courteous, well-read, witty, worldly - and the implication is that it is only the gentry who can fulfil these roles in society. Without the gentry, the book asserts, society is left only with people approximated by 'the Bishop' character, and the prole in the barbers' shop in the early stages. Regardless of where you sit on the history itself, this remains a lazy, distressing and insidious aspect of the book.
Also, an aside: Why is nigh on every single woman in the story beautiful, and why are they so frequently reduced to this quality? The number of men, by comparison, whose handsomeness is remarkable is much lower. Bit tiresome.
Not sure why this story was deemed worth telling - as in, what has actually happened from start to end, what have we learned, what have we experienced? Feels quite light on subject matter and attempts to get by on the slick prose alone. The book has some very charismatic turns of phrase and is superficially enjoyable, but not enough to cover the lack of progress. The pedestrian pace leaves little excuse for the broad-stroke, caricatured historical references made throughout, too.
The epiphanies with which we are presented are not very profound, nor very convincing. The issue of class is really not addressed sufficiently for a book about, and named for, an old-world 'gentleman' living in post-revolutionary Russia. It is implicit throughout that the loss of a gentrified class in this new era is lamentable, but this notion is never confronted. The protagonist's new line of work is merely a way of staving off boredom and making himself useful, and the opportunity for examining his own anachronistic sense of identity is largely ignored.
The protagonist also figures here as the endpoint of a multitude of readers' aspirations - he is courageous, courteous, well-read, witty, worldly - and the implication is that it is only the gentry who can fulfil these roles in society. Without the gentry, the book asserts, society is left only with people approximated by 'the Bishop' character, and the prole in the barbers' shop in the early stages. Regardless of where you sit on the history itself, this remains a lazy, distressing and insidious aspect of the book.
Also, an aside: Why is nigh on every single woman in the story beautiful, and why are they so frequently reduced to this quality? The number of men, by comparison, whose handsomeness is remarkable is much lower. Bit tiresome.