Having lately trudged through a small stack of truly worthless novels, I finally stumbled on a good one--and more than good!
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, tells the story of Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel near the Kremlin. Tucked away in a small attic room, retaining only the most essential items from his former aristocratic lifestyle, restricted in movement for long decades to the interior of the hotel, the Count nonetheless finds himself in an expanding world of precious relationships, unexpected intrigues and emotional self-discovery. "He can't leave," as the book jacket puts it, "you won't want to."
Towles has managed a delightful return in prose and narrative style to the elegant, intimate tone of the 19th century classics--Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dickens, Melville and company--and I, for one, am more than happy to accompany him. Here, he has recovered a sort of camaraderie with the reader, a mutual understanding, inviting us along to all the doings in the halls and ballrooms and cafes and corners of the Metropol. It is one of those novels that one is truly sorry to finish, for he will have left a world of friends behind. Nearly every page, it seems, contains a gem. Such as this, with which I will end:
From here the surprises only grow in power and scope. Such as when one discovers (as the blouse falls to the floor) that a back is as decorated with freckles as the skies are decorated with stars. Or when (having slipped modestly under the covers) the sheets are cast aside and one finds oneself on one's back with a pair of hands pressing on one's chest and a pair of lips issuing breathless instructions. But while each one of these surprises inspires a new state of wonder, nothing can compare to the awe one experiences when at one in the morning a woman rolling on her side utters unambiguously: "As you go, be sure to draw the curtains."
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, tells the story of Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel near the Kremlin. Tucked away in a small attic room, retaining only the most essential items from his former aristocratic lifestyle, restricted in movement for long decades to the interior of the hotel, the Count nonetheless finds himself in an expanding world of precious relationships, unexpected intrigues and emotional self-discovery. "He can't leave," as the book jacket puts it, "you won't want to."
Towles has managed a delightful return in prose and narrative style to the elegant, intimate tone of the 19th century classics--Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dickens, Melville and company--and I, for one, am more than happy to accompany him. Here, he has recovered a sort of camaraderie with the reader, a mutual understanding, inviting us along to all the doings in the halls and ballrooms and cafes and corners of the Metropol. It is one of those novels that one is truly sorry to finish, for he will have left a world of friends behind. Nearly every page, it seems, contains a gem. Such as this, with which I will end:
From here the surprises only grow in power and scope. Such as when one discovers (as the blouse falls to the floor) that a back is as decorated with freckles as the skies are decorated with stars. Or when (having slipped modestly under the covers) the sheets are cast aside and one finds oneself on one's back with a pair of hands pressing on one's chest and a pair of lips issuing breathless instructions. But while each one of these surprises inspires a new state of wonder, nothing can compare to the awe one experiences when at one in the morning a woman rolling on her side utters unambiguously: "As you go, be sure to draw the curtains."
No comments:
Post a Comment