From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility and the forthcoming novel The Lincoln Highway, a story about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel—a beautifully transporting novel. The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a … Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
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This is my current read and I’m loving it! I fell in love with Amor Towles, Rules of Civility, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one. So well researched, with enigmatic characters, this one will stay with you!
This is my second reading and I am enjoying it even more than when I first picked it up in 2016. Towles’s prose is amazing, characters are expertly drawn, and the Hotel Metropol is an entire world. Enjoy!!!
My second book by Amor Towles; this was even better than RULES OF CIVILITY, which was beautifully written. But this one is so original, so delightful and clever despite some sad realities, that it deserves every accolade.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing the world of Count Rostov through his limited confines of the Metropol Hotel. It’s a clever writer that can create a storyline based only on the goings on of a man in confinement & although at times I found the bylines slightly tedious, there is a great deal to love about this book. Wonderful characters, an interesting political time for the setting & a wonderful main character make this a novel to savour at your leisure.
Long, meandering, contemplative – a book that probably breaks all the rules of the fast paced narratives we expect these days. But sometimes we need to burrow into a world and study it microscopically, and the world of Count Alexander Rostov in Russia’s Metropol Hotel over decades of the twentieth century is a world that made me laugh and cry, a world I truly did not want to leave. Settle into this book and let it slowly, and then all at once, capture your heart.
I’m finding it hard to write a review for this magnificent book. I’m not sure where to begin. The prose was sublime. Towles is obviously an accomplished writer and storyteller. No wonder it takes him four years to write a novel. The novel was reminiscent of Russian literature (of which I’m a great fan). For example, Towles uses footnotes to write asides to the story. Russian writers love to do this. Lucky for us, the footnotes Towles uses are much shorter than those used by Russian writers.
I absolutely fell in love with the count. It was not ironic to call him a gentleman, because he certainly was one. He wasn’t a snob, though. He adapted quite well to his circumstances. Of course, his situation could have been much worse were it not for a certain poem. His little instructions regarding what it means to be a gentleman never failed to put a smile upon my face.
All of the secondary characters were a delight to read – even when the character was himself not exactly delightful. Of course, I loved Sofia. She was the perfect daughter for the perfect gentleman. But my favorites were the count’s cronies. I bet they were a bunch of fun to be around! Had it not been for the oppression of the Soviet Union, these three would have been troublemakers. Or should I say, even worse troublemakers!
As a lover of Russian history (yes, I’m a bit obsessed with Russia), I enjoyed how Towles intermixed history in the story. I was especially moved by the account of the dekulakization of Ukraine. He weaved this tidbit of history (and how misunderstood the slaughter was by the West) into the story seamlessly. As I read the story from my chair in my home in The Hague, I was transported to mid-20th Century Russia. When I looked up from my chair, I could almost see the Bolshoi in front of me. I was sad the story had to end.
I can’t recommend this book enough.
Absolutely delightful! Who would think that so much life could unfold within the walls of the luxurious Hotel Metropol in Moscow to which our hero, Count Alexander Rostov, has been sentenced to remain under house arrest. The Count makes a whole world out of the hotel and the people he encounters in it. His adventures with friends, lovers, political enemies, hotel employees, and other hotel guests are woven into a beautiful story about what’s really necessary for a life well lived.
Knowing little about Russian history, I enjoyed that aspect of the book as well. Count Rostov is a memorable and singular character, charming, intelligent, chivalrous, playful in his own way, and always courteous. I confess that I fell a little in love with him. And the writing was so good that I occasionally made mental notes of lines I wanted to remember for their profundity and beauty. I highly recommend this novel.
One would think that in being confined to house arrest in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel that the walls would start to contract. But even after being banished to a small attic room, the walls expand for Count Rostov. A long and charming read (but well worth the investment of time), you must pay careful attention to the characters and their dialogue—especially to artistic and literary references. The story that unfolds is a beautiful reminder to be kind, gracious, and grateful—even for the smallest of things.
I call this story haunting, but maybe I mean haunted, by a past the main character, The Count, does his best to live by within the walls of a Moscow luxury hotel in the years following the Bolshevik revolution. Confined to the hotel, the count escaped execution because of a poem attributed to him which was written some years earlier and espouses revolutionary sentiments. That the count is so careful, from the beginning, to not deny the poem’s authorship, yet avoid embracing it, is an intrigue I could not resist. He’s imprisoned, but in what is likely the poshest place in Moscow at the time. He is impoverished, but has enough gold and sufficient contacts still in the outside world to live an outwardly diminished, yet still rich interior life. Within the walls of the hotel, the reader glimpses the Russia that has become, as well as the Russia that was, and wonders, will the Count remain, or will he find a way to leave the hotel and rejoin the outside world?
With prose as elegant as the protagonist, the reader is taken into the aftermath of the Communist Revolution as seen from the eyes of a former aristocrat. The story is, at turns, humorous and tragic, but always entertaining.
Beautifully written and almost lyrical in composition, we are transported to another time and place.
In 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat is arrested and sentenced to house arrest at his residence in the Hotel Metropole in Moscow. Trapped within the confines of a small attic room, Rostov learns to master his circumstances and we, as the reader are taken on a journey with him for the next thirty years.
We are pulled into the daily rituals of the Count’s life: squats and stretches upon waking, a breakfast of biscuits and fruit, downstairs to read the papers, lunch in the hotel’s Piazza and his weekly appointment at the hotel’s barber. We are slowly and delightfully swept along with all that happens. We grow to love not just the Count and the Metropole itself but the characters within: the infamous grumpy Chef Emile at the Boyarsky restaurant; the dependable seamstress, Marina; the beautiful Anna; the tortured poet, Mischa and the refreshing nine-year-old child, Nina who shows Rostov the surprises of life in the bustling hotel frequented by the Party’s hierarchy, foreign correspondents and famous actresses.
Exquisitely prepared food and good wine is a central theme as is philosophical points around what it is to be Russian and we are treated to an array of views on politics, art, music, mathematics and literature. After all, a gentleman must be well educated to be a good conversationalist. We are privy to it all as we meander through the years of hardship, war, collectives and famine. Then in the last quarter of the book the tension builds to a captivating twist filled with espionage, a cat and mouse chase and a nod to Humphrey Bogart which will leave you laughing.
It is a long book (753 pages) and while it may seem daunting, you barely notice. There is so much to love about this book and it will stay with you long after the last page is turned. In fact, a second reading would no doubt reveal even more. What an engaging and enlightening read it is.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is named a Non-Person by a Bolshevik tribunal. His sentence: to live under permanent house arrest in the Metropol, one of Moscow’s oldest and most elegant hotels. However, he is not allowed to remain in his spacious suite but is removed to a 110-square foot space on the fifth flow that has obviously never housed a human being before, and he is allowed only to take with him as much furniture and as many belongings as he can fit into his small space. The novel follows the ups and downs of Rostov’s confined life for more than three decades.
While all of us would prefer to be free to go wherever we like, in some ways, life at the Metropol is not as bad as it might seem. All the necessities of life lie within: two restaurants (one formal, one more casual) and a hotel bar, a barber, a seamstress, and a roster of employees who, over the years, grow to be friends. As resident connoisseur, the Count engages with visitors both foreign and domestic, ranging from journalists, industrialists, and ambassadors to spies, Communist Party bigshots, and a rising actress. And there is Nina, a bright, inquisitive nine-year old girl who becomes the Count’s best friend, with consequences that resound to the end of the novel.
I wasn’t expecting to like this novel, and it did take some time for me to warm up to it, but I was surprised to find it in my top ten books of the year.
When you think about a book about Russia and a Russian protagonist, you might think serious, epic, humorless, deep, bleak, extremely dramatic. This book, written about Count Rostov, an aristocrat under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow, is humorous, charming, light, wistful, and I would say almost loving in its treatment of its main character and all those he comes in contact with over the many decades he is isolated inside this international hotel.
This book is a delight and a treasure. I was so happy with the ending — it was perfect. And Count Rostov is a character I will never forget and remember with the deepest affection.
I have massive book hangover. I cannot even begin to think about reviewing this book right now. MASSIVE. BOOK. HANGOVER. Wow.
What an amazing read – I highly recommend this book [and the audiobook makes it even more magical]. A full review to follow. Eventually. Maybe. WOW.
***UPDATE – I read this in 2017 and it is now 2020 and I still don’t think I could write a coherent review. I L O V E D this book, think of it regularly and quite often hold other books against it [they often fail]. I still shove this at everyone I meet and love when I find someone who loved it like I did and I can talk to them about how great it was.
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Its scope is amazing. The Gentleman concerned is a Count, an aristocrat at the time of the Russian Revolution (1917). He would have been imprisoned or put to death like his peers had a revolutionary poem not been attributed to him. So instead, he’s put under house arrest in a fine old hotel in Moscow. As both his fortunes and those of his countrymen change and worsen, his character emerges. He faces privation and loss with grace and good humor. He loves the working people around him and despises the bureaucrats who are intent on feathering their own nests. The early 20th century history of Russia is here, together with discussions of philosophy, art and literature, which the very cultivated Count is intimately familiar with. He ends up adopting the daughter of a revolutionary and falling in love. A Gentleman in Moscow is truly wonderful book. I felt better for having read it.
Finally, I checked out a book that exemplifies crafting a story well! To be honest, I put a hold on this book via my library 23 November 2018; it became available to me until 18 December 2019, so I knew with a-greater-than-six-month-waiting-period, I was in for a treat.
In a nutshell, this is a “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” story; an “Actions have consequences” story; a commentary on the personal choice to exercise free will even in a sorry, communist government. It contains great literature, passionate music, kind souls, and some less-than-kind people, too. It discusses politics in a most unique way—republicanism v. communism, U.S v U.S.S.R., democracy v. collectivization, citizens v. comrades—all so cleverly contrived.
The plot is connected from the very beginning to all the events throughout the story, which spans decades, and then, simultaneously adds to the end and to new beginnings. Subtlety, events are built upon one another and serve their place in the present, but they also leave a thread to be woven with that will happen. I just appreciate all the nuances of the story, how the plot was moved, commentaries on the politics of the ages, and the many dual perspectives presented. I LOVED THIS STORY!
Such a fun novel. Towles is an incredible storyteller with an impeccable, highly readable style. My one gripe with the book is that it lacked any semblance of tension. The protagonist was so charming that he always managed to escape trouble before it sunk its hooks into him.
I loved, loved, loved this book. It so cleverly draws you into a world painted with the history and politics of Russi. I don’t want to give the book away so I won’t say anything about the time period. It is a very relevant read for today. The characters are enchanting.
Definitely for light reading. Towles creates an admirable character in this story and since I love books that feature Luxury Hotels and culinary extravaganzas, this book suited me perfectly. Although the story is set in Communist Russia there is very little Political reflection and not much of an inkling as to how the other 99 percent lived and struggled daily outside the walls of The famous Metropol hotel. But I found it to be a great read and quite an enjoyable tale.
Few authors can weave words like Amor Towles can. I was thoroughly captivated by the world he built within the walls of the Metripol Hotel.