A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Such a charming book!

I was completely caught up in everything about it. I fell right into the Count's reasons for his house arrest (oh, comrade, you don't know how lucky you are that is all you got,) to how this ex-aristocrat rolls with the punches so easily, so charmingly, like a true gentleman. It was so important that he WAS a true gentleman, too. It made all the difference in the world. He was a nice guy, very friendly, and he genuinely liked people. And he was observant. His little world, this hotel, had everything he needed to live, including new people to talk to all the time. He was even approached to be a spy, but you know what they say about true gentlemen. :)

Maybe a bit more gorgeous, at least to me, was the grand historical sweep of Russia, including the sly commentary, from after the revolution, through Stalin's period, and into Khrushchev's time.

This novel is a serious delight. It's not often we get to have an interesting and sometimes exciting adventure about a genuinely admirable guy without it being boring, and this was never boring. :) The world was perfectly good enough to play a sufficiently capricious and nasty antagonist.



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