2025 Reading – Book 5

Book 5: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

But Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do.

Towles, Amor. A Gentleman in Moscow (p. 80). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I’m wary of book blurbs who exclaim loudly, and by that I mean, both in superlatives and capitalisation, the praises and songs of a certain book. My general rule is that if Instagram is unceasingly talking about a book as a trend, I don’t read it. Ninety percent of the time, I am right. I am very selective of how I come about the 10% percent. None of this is out of elitism; it is simply due to paucity of time. I have come to accept that I have finite time on this Earth, so why waste it?

The blurbs on A Gentleman in Moscow extoll the book, and I think this time, they’re absolutely right. This book is unlike anything I’ve read in recent times. You should read it if you are that person who wants to return to the English classrooms that made you feel like home. This book is a time portal to do just that. The writing of A Gentleman in Moscow is exquisite, so much so that, I wish it were assigned into classrooms in this day and age, and students are expected to labour over it.

The plot is very simple — a Russian aristocrat is put under house arrest in an upscale hotel, Metropol, and has to live out his days in the hotel doing whatever he may. After his arrest, Count Alexander Rostov Ilyich finds himself useful all around the hotel, meets a little girl who changes his life, educates us on fine dining, and has great humour in his otherwise imprisoned life. While most books say that this is a story to stir your heartstrings, I would say it is the writing that accomplishes this feat. If this is how Amor Towles is writing all his books, I am more than willing to wade through his oeuvre.

Although there is a TV show on the book. I am yet to see it. And because to me, the book felt as if was truly about the writing, I am unsure how it is translated on screen. I will try to sample it though, and see what’s what.

Meanwhile.

Resist the attention economy. Fall in love with long sentences again. Read this book.

Before him sprawled the city, glorious and grandiose. Its legions of lights shimmered and reeled until they mixed with the movement of the stars. In one dizzy sphere they spun, confusing the works of man with the works of heaven.

Towles, Amor. A Gentleman in Moscow (p. 165). (Function). Kindle Edition.

🌟 5/5