A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

This is another one of my favorite books. I read it few years ago and read it again last week, so that I could blog about it. Towles's knowledge of Russian historical events and literature is impressive. This is much more impressive after finding out that Towles has said that he writes the draft of the novel and THEN performs the research.

Towles starts with simple premise. What would a man do if he is confined to house arrest, specifically to a luxury hotel in Moscow, for the rest of his life? Count Alexander Rostov is an aristocrat who, in 1921, is "exiled" from his own country to "within" his own country. He is confined to the Metropol Hotel across from the Kremlin and threatened with dire consequences should he ever step outside the hotel. Rostov must move from his luxury suite in the hotel to live in an attic room with bare necessities.

It is not clear who is paying for his stay there. However, he has the necessary means to indulge in his leisurely lunches, and dinners at the fine restaurant Boyarsky, his aperitifs and his fine wines and specialty drinks at the hotel's bar,  Shalyapin. He is making the best of the situation. The breaking point comes when the Boshevik bureaucracy orders that the hotel's wine cellar's bottles be stripped of all labels in the interest of uniformity. So, the only wines served in the hotel would be "red or white", with no pretentious or specialty names. Rostov's intention to throw himself off the roof of the hotel in response to this desecration where his beloved Russia is headed, is thwarted by the hotel employee Abram who is from the same region of Russia as the Count and reminds him of the beauty of the place.

Soon, the count meets a 9-year old girl Nina. Nina has managed to get the master key to all of the hotels doors and literally opens up the secrets of the hotel to Alexander. The story is about the Count's relationship, first with Nina and later with her daughter, Sofia, whom Nina leaves in the Count's custody.

The story spans about 35 years of the Count's life in the Metropol and then he has to make some decisions to give Sofia a shot at a normal life outside Russia.

Wonderfully created characters and situations should keep all readers engrossed in this book. Towles has a command of the language. Sometimes he creates a sentence so artfully that I would say to myself, "I wish I could write like that".