A Gentleman in Moscow: A Review - Late Last Night Books

In the Soviet Union in 1922, men who had been counts under the Tzar were either dead or in exile, with one exception. Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who had returned to Russia from exile to participate in the 1918 revolution, was brought before a tribunal, and when his answers were found wanting, he was confined on penalty of death to The Metropol, Moscow’s largest hotel. Why was he spared the firing squad? A revolutionary poem published under his name in 1913.

Count Rostov has little choice but to make the best of his situation. As it turns out, this gentleman displays¬¬ all of the attributes one would normally assign to that title, and thus accomplishes the necessary adjustment with relative ease. Even when he contemplates suicide, it takes no more effort than showing up for his weekly trim at the hotel’s barber.

The irony of a gentleman confined to a hotel during thirty plus years of life in the Soviet Union offers Towles a large playing field that he exploits with entertaining side stories, many focused on food. The story line that will win over many readers is how Rostov becomes the parent to a six year old and raises her to become a concert pianist. This situation is used to justify Rostov’s compliance with the request of a high level communist to provide him insights based on his life in France, as later that official aids the count during a crisis in the life of his adopted daughter.

Yet to entertain the reader with Rostov’s survival story, Towles downplays the milieu in which his gentleman lives. Yes, his adopted daughter’s parents are sent to the Gulag and are never heard from again; yes, his friend, the poet Mishka, who it turns out was the real author of the poem that saved Rostov’s life, is similarly punished. But two cases don’t convey the horror and the death toll experienced by millions under communist rule.

For example, we don’t hear from Towles what happened to people who wished to practice their religion under communism. Rather we learn that people lined up for miles upon Stalin’s death, many of them crying. Why? Stalin, we are told, helped defeat Nazi Germany and converted a backward country into a world power. Stalin did those things––not the soldiers who died in the tens of thousands nor the factory workers who were worked to death¬¬!

Also missing from the story of the count’s life are money and religion. Towles doesn’t seem interested in the role religious belief played in the lives of Russians prior to the revolution. His count gives up whatever religion he might have had prior to the revolution without a second thought. Nor do we learn how he is able to pay his bills, although lack of currency right to the end is never a problem.

The ending? Rostov could escape the Soviet Union, but doesn’t. We are left to imagine that a gentleman can go to the village near his family’s estate and that his gentleman’s personality will dissuade locals from turning him in or making him join them in the fields.
A Gentleman in Moscow is an enchanting story as long as one is ignorant of the real history of the Soviet Union and is not foolish enough to try Towles’ technique for survival in places like Cuba, Argentina or China.

Peter Pollak

Author of 7 novels, Peter began writing seriously after retiring from careers as a journalist, educator and entrepreneur. Learn more at petergpollak.com.