A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Maddy, Margie, Libby, Paige, and Annie met at Mary Lib’s house on March 6, 2018 to discuss The Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Linda sent some written comments. Sheri shared comments on the phone afterwards. 

 “How did you feel about the Count?” is the question that opened our discussion. Maddy: “I wanted him to be my Dad.” Sheri spoke about the impact of the Count’s aristocratic bearing and how he (and it) affected others. His properness, poise, and affability set a tone for his acquaintances, and Sheri observed that these traits elevated those around him. Libby commented that he was able to remain a practicing gentleman in his role as a waiter.

Linda: “I enjoyed Count Rostov. Actually, pretty much all of the characters...because of how well they were described.” Libby reminded us he was a man of purpose. Nina and Sophia gave him a reason to live well and keep and pass along his old customs. She pointed out that in spite of his house arrest, the Count considered himself a lucky man because he wasn’t shot, because Mishka signed the Count’s name to his poem, and because his role as Sophia’s father brought such joy to his world.

What Sheri loved about the book was the constant suspense. And Annie spoke several times about Towles’ ability to weave threads of themes, of clues, of connections throughout the book. Those threads would tie events or characters from early in the book to events that occurred much later, adding to the genuine fun of reading the book.

The concept of destruction during the Bolshevik era came up: Destruction of lives, of individuality, of societal norms. While the book wove the politics of the era throughout, they were overshadowed (overpowered?) by the importance of the individuals and their relationships. Or as Linda wrote, “The Russian history was almost backdrop information for all that took place in the Metropol Hotel.” (So there, Bolsheviks!)

Sheri commented on the Count’s ability to speak clever tongue-in-cheek criticisms of the Bolsheviks. 

And having children (Nina and Sophia) as the Count’s main companions provided an avenue for steering conversations away from the Bolshevik mayhem and towards both playful and philosophical conversations that gave readers fascinating insights into the characters.

Playfulness was a constant theme. Nina’s and Sophia’s cleverness, curiosity, and playfulness elicited those same traits in the Count. Towles’ writing itself was playful. His repetitive use of adjectives provided the key clue in identifying the “willowy” woman at the table at the end of the book. In discussions with Towles found online, he said didn’t have a specific reason for starting every chapter (and there were a lot of them) with the letter A, but we speculated anyway. Was it because “A” signifies new beginnings? Or something else?

We played a short round of Zut, the game the Count & Sophia played at dinner to pass time between courses. This gave us an appreciation for the need for a ready command of many topics in order to be able to play the game. Those girls were so bright!

Prompted by the references to Casablanca, and in particular the scene near the end of the book where the Count sets a cocktail glass upright, Sheri commented on the line in the book that read, “… by the smallest of actions, one can restore a sense of order to the world.” In some ways, that’s what the whole book was about. Although the Count’s world was confined to the hotel, he made it rich through his actions and through the relationships he formed and nurtured while there. Sheri said it made her think about what small actions do we all take that help someone else. This would have been a stimulating discussion to have included in our day.

Paige observed that his relationship with Anna felt shallow, at least based on what we knew about it.  Mary Lib wished for more emotional background on the Count’s life. But this book wasn’t about the Count’s entire life; it was only about his life in the Metropol, the reality he constructed there, the friendships he formed, his desire to be the master of his own fate, and the grateful man he became as a result of those experiences.

Margie best summed up our overall delight with the book when she described a repeated experience while listening to the book in the car with Jim. As they were driving along and listening, one of them would hit the Pause button and say, “Wasn’t that beautiful?!?”

Yes, it was. All of it.

Mary Lib