The historical fiction novel A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, has been on the best seller lists for Historical Fiction for quite some time now, so I decided to check it out. Besides the fact it has loads of good reviews, historical novels about Russia aren’t very common. Thus, I picked up the book from my local library and gave it a read.

It’s a very tough book to review. A Gentleman in Moscow is both quite good and sadly disappointing at the same time.

Better Points of A Gentleman in Moscow

Here’s what’s very good about it. The author’s style is sophisticated and polished. Not only was that enjoyable to read, it was the perfect fit for the book’s subject. Count von Rostov is a Russian aristocrat who the Bolsheviks have sentenced to house arrest for life during the Russian Revolution. Aristocratic to the core, he knows everything there is to know about wine, fine dining, and Russian culture. His house arrest, however, forces him to live out his life in the attic of Moscow’s Hotel Metropole, one of the finest establishments in the city.

The Count’s character is mildly sympathetic, for an aristocrat. He isn’t too snobbish, for an aristocrat. Nor is he too condescending, for an aristocrat. I’ll stop with the qualifiers at this point, but it’s important to remember how the Count got the time to become such an expert on food and Russian culture. He’s had to do very little actual work in life because he’s an aristocrat who’s lived his whole life off the work of others. If he’d been an honest businessman, say, or an artist (two occupations thrown into great upheaval by the Russian Revolution), rather than nobility, I probably would have truly liked his character.

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Other Aspects of A Gentleman in Moscow

Another thing A Gentleman in Moscow did nicely was to capture the dissonance of the Russian Revolution, although in a subdued, sophisticated way. The scene where the Count wants to order a certain vintage of wine, but the blockheaded waiter informs him there are now only two types of wine, white and red, was classic. It was meant to portray the supposed elimination of class distinctions by the Russian Revolution, but how eliminating some things led to absurdity rather than equality. There are many other examples of this throughout.

So far, so good, but here’s the problem with the book. There’s almost no action or tension. At all. Nothing dramatic happens until the last two chapters. The only drama before that comes from flashbacks, which the Count obviously survived, lessening the tension. I suppose that finding action in a book where the main character does nothing but live in a hotel for four decades would be a tall challenge. But any book needs something to create tension and drive the story, and this book doesn’t have much of it.

While I admire Towles and A Gentleman in Moscow for the novelty of his concept and for his nuanced take on one way to experience the Russian Revolution, I probably wouldn’t have finished were I not generally stubborn about finishing books. The author is a skilled writer in his storytelling, but A Gentleman in Moscow never made me feel that anything was on the line for Count von Rostov. As a result, I’ll score this book seven out of ten.

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