A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles

100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: [from the dustjacket] In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and he’s sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Expectation: An historical fiction epic with an enthralling main character giving us a window to the realities of life in Communist Russia.

Reality: A pretentious and emotionally distant experience, possibly hindered by the audiobook format.

Recommended For: Fans of prestige literature.

Why I Read It: It sat on my Goodreads queue for over two years and most of my friends loved it.

My Take:

An audiobook can never match the sensory experience of reading a physical copy of a book – the smell and touch of the pages, the heft of it in your hands – that often anchors you to a story more easily than when it’s being read to you.

Still, audiobooks are a legitimate and time effective way to “read.” Yes, you may miss some of the story or not be able to highlight passages for later reading, but you are still immersing yourself in the world, and in some cases, at an even greater degree if the narrator really sells it.

About once a year I come across an audiobook that simply doesn’t work in the format, either due to subject matter or story. Considering 75 percent of my reading each year (about 50 books) is a listen it’s remarkable that it doesn’t happen more often.

But it does happen, and the culprits are usually found in the long-lists and short-lists of prize winners. The hallmarks of these novels are nuanced and rich writing or ambitious storytelling, and sometimes – not always – that doesn’t translate well to audio.  

This preamble is my way of saying “A Gentleman in Moscow” now joins the ranks of “All the Light We Cannot See” and “The Goldfinch” as audiobooks I enjoyed, but probably would’ve loved had I read physical copies.

The word that came to mind while listening to much of Amor Towles epic was pretentious, which makes sense since our main character, Count Alexander Rostov, is of noble blood.

However, Towles’ flourishes with style and language – and Nicholas Guy Smith’s upper-crust narration – gave Rostov an “I am better than you quality” that made it difficult to care about him.

For someone that is a prisoner to his memories, shunned from broader society and literally trapped in a single location for decades under threat of political exile or worse, we should empathize with Rostov more than malign him – especially since, this year, many of us have faced similar circumstances.

The interesting tidbits of Russian history peppered throughout, and the recurring characters that start to play a bigger role in the second half of the novel help give more approachable humanity to Rostov and kept me invested to the end.

But, in full disclosure, I soldiered through the last 200-pages (5.5 hours) of this book – listening at 2.25 speed – because I wanted it to end but still wanted to know what happened.

I can recognize that it’s a well-done novel and Towles has immense talent, but whether because of the format or main character, my general apathy towards “Moscow” puts me in the minority, and I’m okay with that.

Rating (story): 3/5 stars

Rating (narration): 3/5

Format: Audiobook (SIL’s library)

Dates read: October 3 – 18, 2020

Multi-tasking: Not recommended.