What would life be like exiled to a luxury hotel? When presented with this prospect you may writhe at the claustrophobia of it all, or you may revel in the idea of the luxury and simplicity of it. Throughout a Gentleman In Moscow By Amor Towles, this question is explored with charisma and wit.
A suave and brazen spirit, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed and unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and exiled to a — just wait for it — luxury hotel, with all the amenities at his disposal; marking the revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol irreversible. Drawn across a daunting and capricious period of Russian history, we are presented with stark political change, as Russia undergoes its period of russian revolution, not from the streets but from the perspective of a single man in a hotel.
“For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed”.
Invited on his metaphorically far-reaching expeditions, we become well-acquainted with the count and all of his fellow comrades. A three-musketeer like ensemble, Andrey Duras and Emile Zhukovsky — both of whom work at the hotel — are the Count’s partners in crime, reigniting the boisterous vital spirit that often lies dormant within the aged. To balance out such irrepressible ardour we have Anna Urbanova. Ruled by nominal determinism, Anna is a refined actress who embodies class, draping every scene in which she appears with a layer of gossamer. While Marina, the Metropol’s seamstress, follows closely in tow, weaving the threads of the novel as she keeps everyone in check.
Central to the plot, however, is Nina Kulikova. Presented to us at the mere age of nine, she is everything one would expect of such a young girl, only with a twist of confidence which borders on the edge of a comedic hubris which is perfectly compatible with the Count’s child-like sense of adventure, putting in place the most fundamental friendships and bringing up the paternal and youthful side of the Count we never knew we so desperately wanted to see.
A magnificent exploration of friendship, Amor Towles deftly shows us that we are the people we surround ourselves with. With the same constant surrounding, the character development and metamorphosis the Count undergoes through the novel can only be down to one thing: the people around him. But, of course, Nina grows up and moves away from life in the Metropol, not without, however, leaving behind one unforgettable gift.
Amor Towles evokes such intimacy within his language that this novel almost feels written in the first person. We share the Count’s loneliness as we see the sense of solitude time — the only constant — can induce upon someone. Towles, a true aesthete, incorporates the glamour of the surrounding into his writing that the novel sinks into one, as if there are mirrors which reflect the walls of the Metropol onto Towles’ page. This invites us to ponder the lulling claustrophobia and sense of sameness that holds the Count’s life captive.