During these shutdown days, there’s a book I’ve been thinking about. A book about a man trapped in his own life. A Gentleman in Moscow is a historical fiction novel by Amore Towles, and it captivated me the first time I read it. It’s the story of a man who seems to have no place in the changing world in which he finds himself.
It follows the story of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov in 1922 Russia. He is a Russian aristocrat who has offended the sensitivities of the Bolsheviks, and has been ordered to spend the rest of his life under house arrest inside the Metropol Hotel. It takes a genius of a writer to weave such a magnificent tale around one place. But Amor Towles is such a writer.
Count Rostov believes that a man must master his circumstances or be mastered by them. But eventually, the reality of life always within this hotel, no matter how elegant, begins to press upon him. His invisibility within these walls begins to show itself for the curse it is.
At first, after having been relegated to his tiny room in the attic of the hotel, the Count is unflappable. The cornerstones of his identity have been ripped away, so he arranges his room and commits to the business of practicalities. He sends for fine linens, his favorite soap, and mille-feuilles, his favorite French pastry.
The Count hadn’t the temperament for revenge… His mold for mastering his circumstances would be a different sort of captive altogether; an Anglican washed ashore. Like Robinson Crusoe, stranded on the Isle of Despair, the count would maintain his resolve by committing to the business of practicalities.
Having dispensed with dreams of quick discovery,
the world’s Crusoes seek shelter
and a source of fresh water;
they teach themselves to make fire from flint;
they study their island’s topography,
its climate, its flora and fauna,
all the while keeping their eyes trained
for sails on the horizon
and footprints in the sand.
-Amor Towels, A Gentleman in Moscow
The Count lives with intentionality, spurning the human tendency to take itself too seriously. He arises with joie de vivre each morning, savoring his breakfast of hot coffee, fruit, and biscuit. He dresses well and never neglects his weekly barber visit. He enjoys a snifter of brandy after dinner. That is, until the average nightly temperature falls below 40 degrees. It is then that he switches to a glass of whiskey, or port. He possesses a wine sommelier’s memory, and holds strong opinions on wine and food pairings, taking exasperated offense at the crime of a wrong suggestion.
The Rioja? Now there was a wine that would clash with the stew as Achilles clashed with Hector. It would slay the dish with a blow to the head and drag it behind its chariot until it tested the fortitude of every man in Troy.
The Count is a gentleman to the core, treating everyone around him with such courtliness and grace that he wins a close circle of friends, which are mostly employees of the hotel — Emile the irascible chef, Andrey the maitre d’, Vasily the concierge, and Marina the seamstress. Then there’s the actress, Anna Urbanova, and the odious Bishop who plots the Count’s demise. And his meeting with the precocious nine-year-old Nina Kulikova alters his destiny forever.
The Count believes that a man must master his circumstances or be mastered by them. But eventually, the reality of life always within this hotel, no matter how elegant, begins to press upon him. His invisibility within these walls begins to show itself for the curse it is.
Having lived his life in the heat of battle, at the crux of conversation, and in the twentieth row with its privileged view of the ladies in the loges – that is, in the very thick of things – suddenly, he finds himself invisible to friend and foe alike.
The Count is old world gallantry in a society that is growing increasingly dismissive of anything to do with the old ways of Russia. He is elegance and dignity in the midst of crude and practical. He’s a Chopin arrangement in the midst of a political movement that is shunning everything old and beautiful.
Note his sentiments on the jazz music the American journalists are bringing with them into Russia:
He had been raised to appreciate music of sentiment and nuance, music that rewarded patience and attention with crescendos and diminuendos, allegros and adagios artfully arranged over four whole movements – not a fistful of notes crammed higgledy-piggledy into thirty measures. And yet, the art of jazz begins growing on him, seeming gregarious and unruly and prone to say the first thing that popped into its head, but generally of good humor and friendly intent.
Despite his ability to build a life in a situation that would suffocate other men, despite his humor, and despite his circle of friends, there seems to be no place for Count Rostov here in Moscow.
His mandatory life within the walls of the Metropol signifies his dilemma. Who would he become were he to live outside these walls? This is a new world, a world which has no time for his sensitivities and his code of conduct. Is there a place for him anywhere in it or is he doomed to live as a shadow of a dying past? What determines his identity? His purpose?
I’ll leave it to your reading pleasure as to wether or not the Count masters his circumstances any further, or if he ends his days in the Metropol hotel. Far be it from me to spoil any bit of this magnificent story. This is a tale that could be slow or annoying, depending on the author, but it is saved from this fate by Amor Towels’ ability to spin humor all throughout without looking like he’s trying. In one scene, he combines a Swiss diplomat, an American general in his bathrobe, and geese on the loose and serves up a chapter that is a delight to read. And he shakes in just enough romance to add a bit of spice without being insufferably sentimental. He drops fascinating details and stories all throughout.
This is a story worth reading for the thought-provoking anecdote about the Count’s twice-tolling clock alone.
This novel seduced my senses with descriptions that breathed life into every scene. I walked the stairs of this luxurious Moscow hotel. I dined in the sophisticated glamour of the restaurant Boyarsky, with the taste of osso buco and Barolo wine on my tongue. I nodded at the astute observances of humanity, laughed at the sparkling conversations, and watched in fascination as the politics and character of a nation and its people unfolded before me.
As bread and salt is said to be the ultimate symbol of Russian hospitality, then this is how I felt reading this novel – as though I had sat down at the table in the Boyarsky’s kitchen and been offered bread and salt with Count Rostov and Emile and Andrey.
This novel gifted me with an intimate view of this time in history, and left me pondering the invisible walls of my own Metropol. Do we not all feel trapped at times, and uncertain who we are in this unpredictable world? Do we not all feel moments of invisibility? Of feeling like a stranger in a foreign land?
When I reached the end of this book, I felt as though I were leaving a comfortable friend, a charming uncle, a protective older brother, and a man whose tastes in wine and conversation alone made me want to linger, and not turn that last page. I felt a bit sad as I emerged from his world, blinking, as the halls of the Metropol and the voice of Count Rostov faded. I found myself back on my own sofa, in twenty-first century America, with a cold cup of tea beside me.
And that’s my mark of a story worth reading. One of the few times it is acceptable to allow a fine cup of tea to go cold.
In these uncertain times, the life of the Count reminds me to look around me at the small things, to revel in the taste of pancakes and maple syrup, and inhale the aroma of coffee brewing. Let me remember to cherish conversations with those I love, and to find humor in the face of life’s uncertainties and absurdities. Let me remember that each morning is a new creation, and to feel what the Count felt the day his destiny took a final turn:
When the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things.
