What happens when your life abruptly changes? When one day you’re living a posh life and another minute, you beg the conquerers to skip execution and have another sweet minute of life? This has happened many times throughout the history of the world. Kings came, queens left, and the lives of those having any claim on the throne or even a luxury life because of it turned into ashes. When the Red Revolution heightened, the Romanovs did not leave their palace. Instead, they watched as the cooks, butlers, and guards left one by one. All who were left in the Alexander Palace were the Romanovs who were shaking and shivering every night waiting for someone to come in and kill them all.
The story that “A Gentleman in Moscow” tells is not the story of the Romanovs but another aristocrat stuck in the vice of the revolution. Count Rostov narrowly skips execution after the revolution and is put under house arrest in Metropol hotel right in the heart of the Red Square. He has lived the life of an aristocrat his whole life, speaks multiple languages, knows all the rules of civility, matches the perfect wine with the right food, knows how to be a gentleman and how to converse with princesses and queens while the Russian Empire goes in a direction away from Counts, Dukes, and Monarchs. Count Rostov then sits back and watches as St. Petersburg turns into Leningrad and Russia into the Soviet Union. He witnesses as the meetings held by the royal family turn into large union meetings, and everybody becomes a “comrade” overnight.
This was my first Amor Towels book and it has a very slow pace, but his prose flows like water and carries the reader along. His vast range of vocabulary helps describe the scenes well and brings restaurants, ballrooms, and meetings to life. I read the Kindle version of the book and ended up with 452 highlights, or more than one per page, of words that I did not know the meaning of or wanted to review later. The book has already received glowing reviews from many, particularly due to its brilliant ending, and I highly recommend it. This is not only because of the story, but due to Mr. Towels’ expansive knowledge of Russian history and how the book inspired me, as I am sure it will inspire you, to read about the personality traits of Stalin and Khrushchev, and how these idiosyncracies changed the world. We know little about Russian history and with all that is going on in the world, this fact needs to change. Amor Towels’ book might be the first step in this direction.
