A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Published by Viking on September 6, 2016

A Gentleman in Moscow is an exercise in elegance. Everything about it is elegant: the characters, the hotel where the novel takes place, and most of all, the prose. Take this sentence: “He said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting, but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of supreme lucidity — a moment in which all that has happened to us comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of the life that we had been meant to lead all along.” This is a story that, for most of the novel, seems to be about one thing, and it suddenly becomes something else — the story it was meant to be all along.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov appears before the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs and is asked whether his return to Moscow from Paris in 1918 was motivated by a desire to take up arms against the revolution. With charm, Rostov claims to be too old to take up arms against anything. The Party concludes that Rostov has succumbed to the corruptions of class but, instead of putting him against a wall to be shot, he is placed under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel, in recognition of his poetic service to the prerevolutionary cause. As a Former Person, Rostov must vacate his former Metropol suite and relocate to a small room that will not hold all of his possessions.

We eventually learn of Rostov’s past, the reason he left Russia, and the reason he returned, but for the most part, we watch Rostov’s life unfold over decades in the Metropol. A man of books, newspapers, and conversation (and the lover of a famous actress), Rostov lives a pleasant but uneventful life until he meets a nine-year-old girl named Nina, who offers to teach him the hotel’s secrets if he will explain the rules of being a princess.

As the years pass, Rostov takes a position as head waiter in the hotel’s exceptional restaurant. Nina grows up, and another little girl takes her place. A philosophical friend makes a surreptitious visit after his release from a gulag. Other friendships are forged. Those friendships prove to be integral in the last quarter of a leisurely novel that makes a sudden and surprising turn.

The history of Rostov’s stay at the hotel is a microcosmic history of life in the new Soviet Union, as labels are stripped from wine bottles (thus eliminating class distinctions), as Nina’s faith in the Revolution is tested, as purges and starvation change Russia’s face, as Soviet leaders dictate art and fashion, as censors remove criticism of Russian bread from Chekov’s letters, as the state imprisons those who indulge in free thought. Counterbalancing the bleakness of Soviet rule is a story of hope and perseverence.

A Gentleman in Moscow is a celebration of hotels (not just the Metropol) and food and friendship. But more, it is a celebration of life. Even within the confines of a hotel — especially within those confines, if the hotel is a landmark — life happens. Life is sneaky, Rostov observes. It disrupts routines, it forces change, it gives reason to marvel. “What a world,” Rostov observes, even if he observes only one small part of it inside the walls of the Metropol. And as a friend who experienced the true horror of confinement in Siberia tells him, his captivity and the friendships it has forged have made him the luckiest person in the world.

Rostov is a perfect gentleman, polite, congenial, unselfish, able to converse about nearly any topic. He is one of the most likable characters in modern literature. And Amor Towles is among the most elegant writers in modern literature, capable of spinning exquisite sentences that evoke a full gamut of emotions. He manages to do that exquisitely in A Gentleman in Moscow. On the strength of just two novels, Towles has cemented his position as one of American’s most gifted novelists.

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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Published by Viking on July 26, 2011

Some books unfold at a leisurely pace and demand to be read in the same way -- nibbled and savored, the better to prolong the pleasure. Rules of Civility is one of those. It's a throwback novel, the kind in which unashamedly bright characters engage in impossibly witty conversations. The novel takes its name from the 110 rules that George Washington crafted during his teenage years. Katey Kontent eventually sees Washington's rules not as "a series of moral aspirations" but as "a primer on social advancement." They are the rules that shape a masquerade in the hope "that they will enhance one's chances at a happy ending." Ultimately Rules of Civility asks a serious question about Katey's observation: Are the behavioral rules that define "civility" simply a mask that people wear to conceal their true natures? Or are the rules themselves important, and the motivation for following them irrelevant?

The story begins in 1966 but quickly turns back to 1938, the most eventful year in Katey's life. Katey and her friend Eve meet Tinker Grey, a charming young banker, at a jazz club on New Year's Eve. Their blossoming three-way friendship takes an unexpected turn when Eve is injured in an accident while Tinker is driving. Tinker's apparent preference for Katey shifts to Eve as she recuperates. Months later, something happens to cause a change in their relationship, giving Tinker a more important role in Katey's life. Along the way, Katey's career is leaping forward: from reliable member of a law firm's secretarial pool to secretary at a staid publishing house to gofer and then editorial assistant at a trendy magazine. As Katey socializes with the well-to-do and the up-and-coming, she learns surprising secrets about the people in her life, including Tinker, and learns some things about herself, as well.

Katey is an outsider socializing with a privileged group of people (white, wealthy, and sophisticated), but she remains the grounded daughter of a working class Russian immigrant. She treasures her female friends. She neither hides nor flaunts her intelligence. She makes choices "with purpose and inspiration" although she comes to wonder about them in later years. Like most people who use their minds, she's filled with contradictions. Reading Walden, she values simplicity; she fears losing "the ability to take pleasure in the mundane -- in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath." At the same time, she enjoys fine dining and dressing well: "For what was civilization but the intellect's ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance, and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags, and haute cuisine)?"

To varying degrees, the characters in this novel make mistakes (who doesn't?). As one character notes, "at any given moment we're all seeking someone's forgiveness." But when should forgiveness be granted? When does love require forgiveness? Towles avoids simplistic answers to these difficult questions; this isn't a melodrama in which characters ride out tragedies to arrive at a neat and happy ending. Ultimately, this is a nuanced novel that remains cautiously optimistic about life, crafted by a generous writer who sees the good in people who have trouble seeing it in themselves, a writer who believes people have the capacity for change.

Rules of Civility offers up occasional treats for readers in the form of brief passages from the books the characters are reading, snippets from Hemingway and Thoreau and Woolf, an ongoing description of an Agatha Christie novel. When Towles introduces a book editor as a character in the novel's second act, it seems clear that Towles shares the editor's old-fashioned respect for "plot and substance and the judicious use of the semicolon." Towles captures the essence of minor characters with a few carefully chosen words. In the same precise and evocative style he recreates 1938 Manhattan: neighborhoods, restaurants, fashions, and music. He writes in a distinctive voice, refined but street-smart, tailored to the era in which the novel is set. His dialog is sharp and sassy. The ending has a satisfying symmetry. If I could find something critical to say about this novel, I would, but I can't.

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