 First edition cover | |
| Author | Amor Towles |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Nicholas Guy Smith |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Set in | Moscow during the Stalin era |
| Publisher | Viking |
Publication date | 6 September 2016 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 462 |
| ISBN | 978-0-670-02619-7 (hardcover) |
| 813/.6 | |
| LC Class | PS3620.O945 G46 2016 |
A Gentleman in Moscow is a 2016 novel by Amor Towles. It is his second novel, published five years after Rules of Civility (2011).
The protagonist is the fictional Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 24 October 1889. He was raised on his Rostov family's estate "Idlehour" in Nizhny Novgorod. Rostov's godfather was his father's comrade in the cavalry, Grand Duke Demidov. When the Count's parents died of cholera within hours of each other in 1900, Grand Duke Demidov became the 11-year-old's guardian. Demidov counseled him to be strong for his sister Helena, because "...adversity presents itself in many forms, and if a man does not master his circumstances, then he is bound to be mastered by them." [1] The Rostov siblings are aristocrats and making social visits to nearby estates by horse-drawn troika or sleigh.
As a young man, the Count was sent out of the country by his grandmother for wounding a cad in defense of his sister - events covered through flashbacks. Upon returning home from Paris after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Count was arrested, beginning the narrative.
Each of the book's chapters is set according to a doubling then halving chronological structure. The first chapter is the day after the Count's arrest, the second is two days after, and subsequent chapters are set five days, ten days, three weeks, six weeks, three months, six months, one year, two years, four years, eight years, and sixteen years after the beginning of the narrative. At this point, the structure reverses, with the time between chapters progressively halving until the final day of the narrative.
Towles's inspiration for the novel was his experience staying at luxury hotels, specifically, a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, where some guests were permanent residents. He combined the idea of luxury hotels with his knowledge of Russia's long-time historical tradition of house arrest. [2]
The Count is charged as a social parasite before a Bolshevik tribunal, with the expectation that he will be found guilty and shot. He is unrepentant, and eloquently refuses to confess. Because of a revolutionary poem attributed to him, for which some senior Bolsheviks consider him one of the heroes of the struggle against the Tsarist regime, the Count is spared a death sentence. Instead, he is placed under house arrest for life at his current residence, the Hotel Metropol in central Moscow.
A military guard escorts the Count back to the Hotel Metropol, where he is ordered to vacate his luxurious suite and move to the cramped servants' quarters on the sixth floor. As time goes on, the Count cultivates a social circle of friends from his youth as well as selected residents, staff, and customers of the Hotel and its restaurants. These include a one-eyed cat, a seamstress, a Russian chef, a French maître d'hotel and former circus juggler, a poet, an actress, an underemployed architect, an orchestra conductor, a prince, a former Red Army colonel, and an aide-de-camp of an American general. [3]
Due to his diminished circumstances and restricted freedom, the Count has time for self-reflection. He is a brilliant conversationalist, readily discussing diverse subjects such as evolution, philosophy, Impressionism, Russian writers and poetry, food, post-revolutionary Russian society, and Russia's contributions to the world.
An early acquaintance at the hotel is nine-year-old Nina Kulikova, the daughter of a widowed Ukrainian bureaucrat, who is fascinated by princesses.
In 1938, an unexpected arrival changes the Count's circumstances. Nina Kulikova, now a married woman, visits the Count. She confides that her husband Leo was arrested and sentenced to five years of forced labor in the Gulag. Nina decides to follow her husband to Sevvostlag in Kolyma, a remote region of the Soviet Union bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean. She begs the Count to accept temporary custody of her young daughter Sofia, while she makes arrangements for the child to join her in Siberia to be near her father. This is the last time the Count sees Nina, so at the age of 49, he becomes Sofia's surrogate father.
Sofia is a quiet, highly intelligent child. Her potential manifests itself through various escapades, including games of hide-and-seek as a young girl and quickly navigating the hotel in order to surprise her foster father.
Later, Sofia takes piano lessons. She surprises the Count by playing a Chopin nocturne (Opus 9, number 2, in E-flat major) after only a few lessons. It is clear to both the piano teacher and the Count that Sofia is a musical prodigy.
The Count's experiences with the various forces of the Revolution, the Soviet state, and foreign guests provide opportunities for reflection on different historic moments through the Cold War. The Count's views are particularly affected by the experience of his childhood friend after being asked to censor one of Chekhov's letters, which culminates alongside Sofia's artistry in the climax of the book.
Due to many events of the book taking place at one of the Metropol's restaurants, the Count's interactions with other characters often center around food and beverage choices. Many classic French and world wines are mentioned in the book. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is especially key to the storyline. [4]
Towles's approach in A Gentleman in Moscow was described as a "gorgeous sleight of hand" by The New York Times :
What saves the book is the gorgeous sleight of hand that draws it to a satisfying end, and the way he chooses themes that run deeper than mere sociopolitical commentary: parental duty, friendship, romance, the call of home. Human beings, after all, 'deserve not only our consideration but our reconsideration' – even those from the leisured class. Who will save Rostov from the intrusions of the state if not the seamstresses, chefs, bartenders, and doormen? In the end, Towles's greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the free transformation of these peripheral workers, over decades, into confidants, equals, and, finally, friends. With them around, a life sentence in these gilded halls might make Rostov the luckiest man in Russia. [3]
Kirkus Reviews found the book to be "a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. This book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules of Civility." [5] NPR opined that "A Gentleman in Moscow is a novel that aims to charm ... and the result is winning, stylish ... Flair is always the goal – Towles never lets anyone merely say goodbye when they could bid adieu, never puts a period where an exclamation point or dramatic ellipsis could stand." [6] At Book Marks, a review aggregator website, the novel received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 11 reviews: 3 "Rave", 5 "Positive", and 3 "Mixed". [7] Queen Camilla, then Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, recommended the book to those in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. [8]
A Gentleman in Moscow was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize in Fiction & Literature. [9] It was also an International Dublin Literary Award nominee (2018 longlist). [10]
The audiobook, narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith, [11] was an AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award winner in 2016. [12]
In August 2017, an adaptation of the book in the form of a limited series was announced to be in development. [13] In April 2018, Kenneth Branagh joined the production to star as Count Rostov, with Tom Harper attached to direct. [14] Both of them had left the project by August 2022, when Ewan McGregor replaced Branagh, and Sam Miller took over directorial duties. The series premiered in March 2024, on Paramount+ internationally and Showtime in the US. [15] [16]
War and Peace is a literary work by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work mixes fictional narrative with chapters discussing history and philosophy. An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was rewritten and published in 1869. It is regarded, with Anna Karenina, as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement and remains an internationally praised classic of world literature.
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician who served as Chairman of the Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1918 until his death in 1919, and as Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 1917 until his death.
Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He became known in the West as the author of The Burn and of Generations of Winter, a family saga following three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.
Countess Natalya "Natasha" Ilyinichna Rostova is a central fictional character in Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel War and Peace. She is the beautiful daughter of Ilya Rostov, a loving, kind, and generous nobleman. Natasha is based on both Tanya Behrs, Tolstoy's sister-in-law, and Sophia Tolstaya, Tolstoy's wife.
Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright. She began her career writing short stories and plays, which were often censored by the Soviet government, and following perestroika, published a number of well-respected works of prose.
The Hotel Metropol Moscow is a historic hotel in the center of Moscow, Russia, built in 1899–1905 in Art Nouveau style. It is the largest extant Moscow hotel built before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Since 2012, the hotel has been owned by Alexander Klyachin, who also is proprietor of the Moscow-based Azimut Hotels chain.
Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov is a character in Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel War and Peace.
Nina Sergeyevna Lugovskaya was a Soviet painter and theatre designer, in addition to being a survivor of the Gulag. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, Lugovskaya was the author of a diary, which was discovered by the Soviet political police and used to convict her entire family of Anti-Soviet agitation. After surviving Kolyma, Lugovskaya studied at Serpukhov Art School and in 1977 joined the Union of Artists of the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, her diary was discovered intact inside the NKVD's file on her family. It was published in 2003, and resulted in Nina being called "the Anne Frank of Russia."
Child 44 is a 2008 thriller novel by British writer Tom Rob Smith. It is the first novel in a trilogy featuring former MGB Agent Leo Demidov, who investigates a series of gruesome child murders in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.
In Russian language and culture, "former people" are people who lost their high social status. The expression went into a wide circulation in the Russian Empire after the 1897 short story of Maxim Gorky, Бывшие люди, translated in English as Creatures That Once Were Men, about people fallen from prosperity into an abyss of misery. After the October Revolution, the expression referred to people who lost their social status after the revolution: aristocracy, imperial military, bureaucracy, clergy, etc.
Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova was a Russian historian of mathematics. In 2001, she was a recipient of the Alexander Koyré́ Medal of the International Academy of the History of Science.
Nina Agadzhanova–Shutko was a Soviet revolutionary, screenwriter, and film director. She is most widely recognized for writing The Year 1905, the original screenplay from which Battleship Potemkin was created.
Amor Towles is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011), A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), and The Lincoln Highway (2021). Towles began writing following a career in investment banking.
Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky was a Russian revolutionary, Bolshevik functionary, Soviet statesman, professor and historian.
The Race is a 2014 science fiction and literary fiction novel by English writer Nina Allan. It is her debut novel and was first published in August 2014 in the United Kingdom by NewCon Press. A second edition of the book, in which an appendix was added, was published by Titan Books in July 2016. This new edition is the first book of a two-book deal Allan signed with Titan in 2015; the second book is The Rift, published in 2017.
Forward: Stories of Tomorrow is a 2019 collection of science fiction short stories curated by American author Blake Crouch and published by Amazon Original Stories. The collection consists of six stories, each written by a different author, namely: "Ark" written by Veronica Roth, "Summer Frost" by Crouch, "Emergency Skin" by N. K. Jemisin, "You Have Arrived at Your Destination" by Amor Towles, "The Last Conversation" by Paul G. Tremblay, and "Randomize" by Andy Weir.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a British television limited series consisting of 8 episodes, based on the 2016 novel by Amor Towles. Ben Vanstone is writer, executive producer, and showrunner. The series stars Ewan McGregor in the role of Count Alexander Rostov and premiered on Paramount+ on 29 March 2024.
Table for Two is a collection of six short stories and a novella by the novelist Amor Towles. It was published by Viking Press in April 2024. The book is divided into two parts, with the six short stories connected to New York City and the novella set in Los Angeles.