"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."
Based on a poem of questionable meaning and authorship, Count Alexander Rostov is branded a subversive and a Former Person in Moscow and relegated to house arrest in a dingy storage area in the Metropol Hotel. This is where Amor Towles's "A Gentleman in Moscow" begins, with unfathomable adventures following anon.
"Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem?
"Rostov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands."
Leaning into his situation despite his aristocratic upbringing, Rostov fashions a new world within the walls of the hotel, forging unlikely friendships and unexpected occupations. Towles is careful to show -- with subtlety and nuance -- the erudite Rostov's maturation as he learns about himself, his country, and his society.
"For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim."
"History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair."
In a word, "A Gentleman in Moscow" is a delight, spanning time, genre, and classes in an intricate design that is a credit to Towles's talent for structure. I could have lived with and listened to Rostov's escapades and adventures in the Metropol forever, making this a novel deserving of the highest reader compliment:
I did not want it to end.
"'Who would have imagined,' he said, 'when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.'"
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