A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
Two people at church talked glowingly about this book, so obviously it was a ‘must read.’
The first paragraph, to my surprise, transported me back over 50 years to when I was standing in Red Square in Moscow. This was Cold War, iron curtain time but although this was a school expedition I had been taught virtually nothing about communism. My strong memory, as I took in the colourful onion topped towers of St Basil’s Cathedral and the soldiers marching in front of Lenin’s tomb ready to change the guard, is of the Seagull cars, huge shiny black limousines, racing across Red Square towards the Kremlin, horns blowing, lights flashing, and of the drab, shabbily dressed people quickly scattering out of the way. I remember thinking: communism is supposed to be about equality, isn’t it? I don’t see much of that here. I’m not sure if by then I had read Animal Farm. (I also remember being annoyed that we were taken to the State Circus when the Bolshoi Ballet had originally been promised.)
So here we are looking out onto Red Square from the Hotel Metropole. Still a hotel to this day, it was built in Art Nouveau style at the beginning of the 20th century. There has long been a tradition for those rich enough, to live in luxurious hotel suites and there has also long been a tradition for several countries including Russia to use house arrest as a punishment. Our protagonist, the fictional (but very convincing) Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is charged as a social parasite and a born aristocrat before a Bolshevik tribunal in the Kremlin. He is wrongly believed to be the writer of a pro-revolutionary poem, and this mistake saves his life. The high-ranking official decides on a whim that it would be amusing to sentence him to house arrest for life in the Hotel Metropole. Rostov knows he is fortunate to have avoided being summarily executed against a pock marked and bloodied wall.
Thus, the stage is set. Rostov is moved from his spacious and beautifully furnished suite to a chilly, sparse attic. Here the author begins to show us the character of Alexander Ilyich, and it is most endearing. He demonstrates how much small things can be powerful and make a huge difference to one’s life. A rug found in the basement, some wine glasses purloined from his own confiscated belongings, a friendly bird on his windowsill. All these offer a taste of civilisation and delight and are balm for his battered soul. As the hotel is now his whole world, he gradually becomes familiar with every set of backstairs, every service lift, the closets, attics, basements. And, he has companions in this exploration who also enrich his day-to-day life. He knows the kitchens intimately, each and every member of the working staff and the (still) rich and privileged diners who enjoy oysters, veal and champagne while the ordinary citizens starve.
While this writing is elegant, charming and gently comedic, it is, just like a mille-feuille taken with cucumber sandwiches and China tea, a many layered story. The top layer, like icing, is heavily loaded with sugar. Underneath, not so. Lenin ruled in Russia through the 1917 Revolution until his death in 1924 when Stalin took over, in place as head of state until 1953. This is very much the period covered in this fascinating novel. Agricultural collectivisation, and industrialisation that happened inefficiently and too quickly for the country’s infrastructure to cope, resulted in famine through much of the vast country. The people dining in style night after night in the Hotel Metropole knew about this but they also knew that if they spoke out in any critical fashion, at best they would be sent to hard labour camps in the gulags, or worse, it would be them up against the bloodied Kremlin wall. It is rather depressing to see this situation repeat itself throughout history. Think of present day happenings in
Russia: consider the fate of Alexei Navalny just earlier this year and indeed other opponents of the Russian government who have lost their lives even if living ‘safely’ in England. Brutal is not really a strong enough word for the callous actions of Stalin towards his own people during his reign of power. Some would say the same of Putin today.
Returning to Alexander Rostov in his own microcosm, one of the many parts that made me smile involved a Narnia like episode. He has a wardrobe that he finds has a hollow sounding back to it. Applying a little force, the back gives way and he finds himself in another connecting room. Space, hidden space, his very own. I can imagine the delight and then the fun in furnishing it, mainly with his own possessions again. It is his study; his library and only trusted friends are invited to push their way through the coats.
The whole business of the hotel being a world in itself brought to mind the film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ written by Wes Anderson. It is a powerful device for any writer to create a complete world but also a salutary lesson to us all that we cannot stand totally alone. We will always be affected by the wider world. ‘No man is an island,’ said John Donne.
Pleasingly there is a television series of this book. It is on Apple TV and stars Ewan McGregor as Alexander Rostov. Unusually it is exactly as I imagine it to be and the script sticks very, very closely to the book. Do read … and maybe watch!