Book review

Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter
December 21, 2017

Last week I did a review of my favorite movie for this year. This week, it’s a review of my favorite book – A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles. The book follows the life of Count Alexander Rostov from the Russian Revolution to the 1950s. It is an easy read, offering a marvelous lead character and interesting cast of companions. It is also a great portrait of Russia as it was during the Soviet Union time.

The Count is nobility but also considered a hero of the pre-revolutionary cause because of a poem he wrote. That combination gives the revolutionary tribunal which tries him some difficulties. It would be easy to execute him as he is from the nobility. However, as he is regarded as a hero, it is hard to justify the execution. After some deliberation (handled quickly in the beginning), they arrive at a compromise.

He is sentenced to house arrest at the Hotel Metropol. He is warned that if he sets foot out of the hotel, he will be shot. He is moved from the suite he was occupying up to rooms in the top floor storage area. The book is about his coming to terms with house arrest and learning how to spend his days.

Along the way, he has observations on the things happening in his country that are sharp and in some cases, funny. He comments on a meeting of the Communist party people in one of the hotel’s ballrooms, likening it to a meeting of the nobility in placement of chairs and the homage given to certain people.

He is befriended by a Communist party official eager to pump him for knowledge of how diplomats and society behave in western Europe and the United States. This friendship will come to his aid in an unexpected crisis.

He meets a young girl who takes him through all the back rooms and hiding places in the hotel. She befriends him with all the audacity of children. She eventually leaves, joining the effort to collectivize the peasants in the countryside. He adopts another young child and sees her grow up in the hotel.

The tone of the book is set in the initial chapters about his exile. The first morning he awakens and thinks about how he would spend the morning if he were free. He quickly decides that way lies madness. All through the book, he adjusts his thoughts to gain the maximum pleasure from his life despite its constraints.

It’s not often you get the opportunity to sit down with a “gentleman,” in every sense of the word. The Count is good company and I don’t think you will regret meeting him.

Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. Evelyn is vice-chair on the Amelia Center for Lifelong Learning and is on the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.