From 21st June 1922 to 21st June 1955 Count Alexander Rostov live in an attic room at Hotel Metropol while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.
An historic fiction, 'The Gentleman in Moscow' by Amor Towels deals with the why and how of the life of this gentleman in Moscow.
Few striking lines from the book:
"Having acknowledged that a man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them, the count thought it worth considering how one was most likely to achieve this aim when one had been sentenced to a life of confinement"
Parents responsibility "To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment."
"But what of poetry? You ask. What of the written word? Well, I can assure you that it too is keeping pace.......our poetry has become an art of action. One that will speed across the continents and transmit music to the stars"
Then comes Mayakovsky's poem:
Suddenly - I
shone in all my might,
and morning range its round.
Always to shine,
to shine everywhere,
to the very depth of the last days,
to shine -
and to hell with everything else!
That is my motto -
and the sun's!
Poem and Poetry and then there is Helena's death in 1916, Nina's desire to experience everything, friendship with Marina and Andrey and Emile, and Mikhail Fyadorovich Mindich and Katerina and love in different boxes like buttons of Anna and Sofia.
Where we go, what we do does it matter?
"I am confused about the ending and need help figuring it out. Was Rostov just swinging by his childhood town to see his old home and pick up his gf before finally leaving the country to reunite with Sofia..."
Wanted clarity and so went through goodread reviews and this is what I understood:
Osip is the key! As the Kremlin officer who is "charged with keeping track of certain men of interest" - he is the Kremlin officer at the end who says "round up the usual suspects" - a huge nod to Casablanca and a smirk. So no one probably even looked for him or Anna!
He did leave Russia before the revolution but came back knowing the risks. He came back, because Russia was his home. And, he made the best of it in the Metropol...what an adaptive individual! But, in the end, he wanted to go back to his old stomping grounds...where the apple trees were blooming. Who knows what happened next. I think that is up to the reader. But, I do think that if Rostov was caught he would have been happy that he was able to get his "daughter" out, that he was re-united with his love, and that he was able to breathe the fresh air of the country while looking at the apple blossoms once more. How it could it get any better than that for a man who had lived the better part of his life inside a hotel?
Bishop will never find the count because the Bishop thinks the count is all about surface aspects of wealth and fame so he would assume The Count will be in some world capital living large. The Count was all about the simple pleasures of courtesy, appreciation, shared history which is why he returned to his home.
Robert Irish Rostov getting out of Russia would be too "romantic" an ending, I think. I thought the twist of going "home" was brilliant for a character who had been entrapped for so long. The presence of the "willowy" Anna does add an element that suggests their love is likely doomed, but in such a small town, and a ruin, maybe not. I think that uncertainty is part of the beauty of the ending.
Count tricked his pursuers into thinking he went to Finland, and even before that he tested what Osip would do by showing him Casablanca. As we saw, Osip has no intention of actually going after Count.
Count did reunite with Anna in his birthplace but his house had been burned down and we saw he is quite capable of letting go. He may be settling in some remote village, Russia is enormous, they would never find him, and it's been 50 years since they got rid of aristocracy, I don't think it's at the top of Party's list of important things to do any more.
But one thing that hints he may be leaving Russia is his conversation with Anna:
“Sasha, I know you don’t want to accept the notion that Russia may be inherently inward looking, but do you think in America they are even having this conversation? Wondering if the gates of New York are about to be opened or closed?
“You sound as if you dreamed of living in America.”
“Everyone dreams of living in America.”
Now this could just be what prompted him to send Sophia to America, but the fact that Anna wants to go there and that he meets her at the end could also be foreshadowing where they're going after that. I just don't see Anna as someone leading a quiet and unassuming village life.
Could be, he visited his childhood home one last time, rendezvous with his lover in a place the authorities would never think to look for him, then left Russia to join his beloved adopted daughter . That last part is not stated, but I believe it is so. Russia was no longer the place of his heart when he reached the point of arranging his adopted daughters escape, and he would never have cast his daughter adrift in western society that he himself no longer knew. His lover also had only a shadow of her former Russian life, and would have ventured out to start anew.
‐---‐-----
*A Gentleman in Moscow*
*by Amor Towles*
_Mild Spoilers_
Who – or what – is a “gentleman”?
Well, he can be defined in two ways – one: born of aristocratic stock; two: marked out by distinguished behavior.
Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, the protagonist of this novel, is both. And he is caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. 1922 Russia, after the Bolshevik Revolution, is not exactly a healthy place for an aristocrat to be. Deemed an enemy of the proletariat by the accident of birth, the most likely fate for such people is either a bullet to the head or a berth in Siberia.
Rostov is spared either, however, on the strength of a revolutionary poem he had written. So he is awarded a strange sentence – permanent house arrest in the Hotel Metropol in Moscow – not in his usual luxurious suite, but an attic room. He is allowed freedom only within the hotel. The Count, with unflappable equanimity, accepts his fate: he is a smart aleck, and has squirrelled away enough clandestine gold to get him through life. However, after a period, ennui starts to set in which has him questioning the meaning of life – until he meets nine-year-old Nina Kulikova.
Nina Kulikova is the daughter of a Ukrainian officer staying at the Metropol. Like the Count, she is also bored – but with a child’s inherent ingenuity, she has found a way out. Nina has the skeleton key to all the rooms of the hotel, and soon the count is following her about on her escapades. Nina gives him back his zest in life – and when she leaves, she gifts her friend with the skeleton key. Along with it, it seems that Rostov also gets the skeleton key to the hidden facets of life.
As the years roll by, Lenin gives way to Stalin. Proletarian rule becomes despotism. Russia is devastated by war. People move in and out of Alexander Ilyich’s life – the actress Anna Urbanova, his lover; his childhood friend, the fiery poet Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka); Osip Ivanovich Glebnikov, Chief Administrator of the Secret Police, who wants the count to tutor him in French, English, and the ways of the capitalist West; Richard Vanderville, an American aide-de-camp who wants the count to spy for him; Emile, the cook at the hotel and Andre, the maître d’ of the hotels restaurant Boyarsky, Rostov’s bosom pals; and the sinister waiter dubbed as the “bishop” by the count, who rises due to party connections to ultimately becomes the hotel manager, and Rostov’s main antagonist… during this journey (from 1922 to 1953: when Khrushchev takes over the USSR), the aristocrat becomes a humble headwaiter – and unexpectedly, the foster father to Nina’s daughter, Sofia. And as she grows up, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov realizes that there is something more to life than just existing.
***
This novel is extremely readable. The author has a voice that is almost Wodehousian (though not as laughter inducing). Count Rostov, a specimen of the idle rich, looks upon the world with a sort of amused detachment, which the author forces us to share (the title, “A Gentleman in Moscow”, is apt in every sense). Told in such a voice, Russia’s tumultuous and many a times distressing history becomes amusing and sometimes downright hilarious. Verily, Aristotle was right – the world is indeed a comedy to those who think.
But all said and done, this is a contrived novel. We can see Amor Towles trying to be cute on every alternate page – his strain is almost physically visible. In order to keep the novel’s mood from changing, the author has also been forced to gloss over large swathes of history (the war years pass away in the blink of an eye, for example). Also, authorial intervention in the form of footnotes and direct speech inhibits the flow of the narrative frequently. This is purposefully done – it is in perfect keeping with the story’s mood – but it’s a literary device that becomes all too obvious.
The final verdict: an extremely enjoyable novel – but not great literature by any means.
(Review of Nandakishore Sir)
