"A Gentleman in Moscow"

How this novel was released more than 18 months ago and I just now read it is a mystery to me.  Written by Amor Towles, this is a wonderful and remarkable book, one of the best I have read in many years. 

The Gentleman of the title is a count who is, in two pages, sentenced to death and then that is commuted and he is then sentenced to house arrest at a Grand Hotel in Moscow, the Metropol. It is a real hotel, still exists today, but when Count Alexander Rostov begins his life sentence at the hotel the year is 1922.  Just after the first World War and before the collapse of almost everything in Europe and in the Soviet Union.

But the date, the time and the place are simply characters in this novel, much as the Count is as well. He is a  young man when he enters the hotel. His experiences span everything from life, death, boredom, excitement, danger, love, larceny, sex, friendship, betrayal and so much more. Interspersed with all of the above are historical moments, specifically those of the Soviet Union and the second World War. And the writing is not just engaging, it is lyrical and amusing and shot through with paragraphs you just read again and again. 

I really loved this book. I could copy paragraphs from it to show you how beautiful the writing is, how evocative it is of place, time and philosophy, how you don't want this book to end. But then you would be reading and reading and not heading out to find this novel. Get it out of the library first.  If you don't like it, fine. But if you love it, like I do, you will be searching used book stores for a copy to keep and read again in a few years.  Not since Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" have I been as taken with a book. I hope you find it and enjoy it.





The Metropol Hotel, on Red Square in Moscow. 
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