Review: A Gentleman in Moscow

 

Title: A Gentleman in Moscow

Author: Amor Towles

Published: February 9th 2017

Length: 480

Source: I got this copy from Hutchinson- Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.

It comes as no shock that I’ve been in a reading slump for the past 2 months, so here’s my first review this year!

I love historical fiction, and so I was a big fan of the TV adaptation of War and Peace, I still haven’t gotten to the actual book yet! So when this was recommended to people who enjoyed W&P you already know I had to get a copy of this… Here’s the blurb: (taken from goodreads)

‘With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style.

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count 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 a doorway 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.’

This is definitely a more slow paced, self-discovery read. You follow this journey of this Count who lived such a lavish life, suddenly confined the the smallest room in the Metropol. How he manages to stay sane, and his coping mechanisms with this situation is something that really interested me! It also portrayed that a lot of things are dependent on perspective. Initially being confined to this small space gave made him feel claustrophobic, no matter what activity he tried to pursue (within the Metropol) it could never match the satisfaction he would get from freely strolling down the street! However once he changed his viewpoint, began discovering and inspecting the hotel he was trapped in, as the reader you realise that it’s all your mindset!

In honesty this was a DNF for me, not because I didn’t enjoy, but because it had a lot of world-building and character development and not much actually going on for about the first half of the book. With me already being in a reading slump I found it hard to finish it! I do know that this is a book  will definitely come back to!