A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Townes

My son was reading Amor Townes's A Gentleman in Moscow with a reading group at his dorm, so I decided to check it out.  It's an enjoyable read the gives a window into Russian history in the first half of the twentieth century but ultimately is flat and somewhat forgettable.

Count Alexander Rostov, who lives in a suite at Moscow's Metropol Hotel, considers himself lucky when the Bolsheviks place him under permanent house arrest at the hotel rather than subject him to violent ends.  However, rather than returning him to his suite, they relocate him to a small room in the belfry, where he is destined to dwell for decades.  The book follows him through those decades as people come and go, he works as the head waiter at the hotel's restaurant, he becomes a famous movie star's lover, and befriends a young girl whose daughter he later raises as his own.

The count is very likable, and his attitude is admirable.  He doesn't despair over his condition or the loss of his status and freedom.  He truly makes the best of it.  Townes presents the count as the best of the nobility, making him a Disney-like character whose integrity, grace, and honor, not to mention his manners and tastes, are without fault.  His noble character is contrasted with the violent, oppressive socialist regime whose grip on Russia grows throughout the decades.

While Townes doesn't spend a lot of time on politics, the count's perspective from this famous hotel in the heart of Moscow reveals a lot about the politics of the day.  As a remedy for the fascination with socialism on the American left today, he demonstrates the absurdity and abuses spawned by socialism.  While the new rulers abhor aristocracy and drive aristocrats like the count out of their societal roles, they quickly embrace their own version of privilege and take on many of the trappings of the culture they supposedly oppose.  The declines of the hotel and the bureaucratic absurdity of hotel management mirror the decline of culture in Russia.

Why was I disappointed in the book?  Over the course of these decades, not much happens to the count.  Given the incompetence of his captors and the count's own wiliness, I couldn't help but wonder why he passively embraced his fate.  He wasn't under armed guard or even, apparently, closely monitored.  How hard would it have been to walk?  He finally puts a plot together but only after several decades of existing in the hotel.

This is a book that is pleasant to read, but it takes a long time to get anywhere.  I would have liked to have seen a bit more reflection on the societal changes and a more critical examination of the culture that made the count who he is.  Townes is clearly an admirer of aristocratic culture and presents the count as the finest example of it, but doesn't allow any consideration of the darker side of aristocracy and the abuses and disparities that it perpetuated.  Communism gets a more critical treatment, but Townes treats it more like benign incompetence rather than the deadly, oppressive regime that it became.