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A Gentleman in Moscow

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A Gentleman in Moscow

By: Amor Towles
Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
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Summary

Soon to be a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh.

The Times Book of the Year 2017
A Sunday Times Book of the Year 2017
A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2017
A Daily Express Book of the Year 2017
An Irish Times Book of the Year 2017
One of Barack Obama's Best Books of 2017
Nominated for the 2018 Independent Booksellers Week Award

On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.

Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

©2017 Amor Towles (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Russia Feel-Good Heartfelt Thought-Provoking
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A brilliantly subversive morality tale. Filled with humour,pathos, a cast of colourful characters.

Against a backdrop of the rise of Stalinism, the scope is epic. Complex plot with sublime twists. I have over 500 audiobooks and this is near the top of my top 10 outstanding

A classic

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Russia moves through upheaval after upheaval. Death, war and intrigue stalk the streets of Moscow and stops dead at the door of the metropol where it will be forever 1922 and everyone is having a spiffing time with the lovely ageless Count Rostov.

An ode to a lost age. The book skates over the horror of Stalin and WW2, the rise of the police state and the millions starved to death by communism. Characters waltz through the revolving door of the hotel, impart their bit of the plot and move on, some return, some are forgotten and some get a footnote if they're lucky. The only hardship the count appears to endure is a lack of fish stew.

Then it's time to wrap things up and the charming Count has the last laugh.

Bubbly fun but don't expect war or peace

It's a small world.

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then you'll also like Eva Ibbotson - I was reminded of her style particularly in the latter stages of the book: the early 20th century European setting, the fond relationships and prodigiously talented young people and a good yarn. I found the (English sounding) narrator strangely conflicted between English and American pronunciation, and woefully unprepared for many of the 'foreign' words in the text, and this mangling of terms jarred, particularly when the protagonist is a learned man, fluent in various languages, and whose pronunciation, one assumes, would have been as impeccable as his manners. A bit long, perhaps; many references to the Russian classics so perhaps the author was emulating some of the style ...

If you like this...

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How, you may think, can someone write a novel about a man under house arrest in a hotel in Moscow and make it so good. We journey into a true gentleman's mind. We learn about his past, his friends and his beliefs. He learns from others and makes a life for himself despite his confinement. And he finds joy after being put in a position of responsibility and finds a way to get what his heart most desires. I got lost in this book and it's one of those rare gems that I will remember for a very long time.

Brilliant

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Justly praised for an enjoyable, entertaining story brought to life by Nicholas Guy Smith’s reading A Gentleman in Moscow falls short of a 5 star rating to me at least because the political context is hardly explored despite being central to the development of the story. The likeable Count Rostov is never really inconvenienced and the fortuitous gold sovereigns allow him to live a charmed existence. While the introduction of Nina and their relationship works well, that with Sofia is a paler imitation and much more implausible. It is a modern fairy story and if you take it that level you will enjoy it immensely. Perhaps that’s all that one needs.

Enjoyable but implausible

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