@Midwest67, I feel the Mishka storyline gave us a peek at the Counts’ youth and further insight into the Count’s character. The Count gave up his freedom to keep his friend safe. That caught me off guard, but at the same time didn’t surprise me. It also gave the Count the opportunity, as @Mary13 mentioned in post #27, to envision Sofia’s possible future in the life of Katerina.
I completely agree, but at the same time, I felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle where Mishka was concerned. I thought his project, with all the “bread” references (excerpted at length over pp. 370-375), was actually going to turn out to be some sort of coded message for the Count.
@Mary13, yes the Bread project was strange. I had forgotten the content of the bread passage Mishka was asked to remove from the other project and had to go back and refresh my memory.
Thx for letting me know that the woman at the end was Anna. I wasn’t sure. I never thought the Count would leave the country
The Count was clearly one of those people who make lemonade when given lemons. In some ways he was almost like a fairytale
character–good, kind, cheerful, smart. Too good, perhaps?
Political changes/world wars/death/carnage all take place in Russia over the course of the story, but the Count, inside the Metropol, is seemingly a unaffected by it all. Or, if it does affect him, he turns the situation into something positive. Small example–the Bolsheviks removed labels from the wine in the hotel wine cellar, but the Count knows the wine he wants has a ridged bottle and he is able to find it by touching the bottles. Is the Count a realistic character – what makes him so resilient?
I really loved this book. I found the Count to be both wise and kind, and I felt I was learning a lot about the lessons of life through him. One of the quotes I loved best was, “If a man does not master his circumstances, he is bound to be mastered by them.” He made the best of his time and continued to find purpose and happiness , a total contrast to the main character in our last book, The Stranger. Did I say I loved this book? 
@Bromfield2 I had the same thoughts, but at the same time wasn’t really bothered by them.
I do think the world contains lemonade makers. But I don’t think he’s a saint. The most he can say for himself at the beginning of the book is that he’s a member of the Jockey Club, the revolution forces him to become a productive member of society - learning both to parent and to take pride in doing a real job. I think part of the point is that hotels can be these weird places that can shut out much of the real world. The old colonial hotels in Africa like the Stanley in Nairobi are very much like that. Nobody seems to know what makes one person resilient and another not, though intact loving families seem to help.
I loved the whole wine episode. It made me laugh out loud. He was only able to identify that one bottle though!
“Willowy” is the key word for Anna; that’s how I knew. The repeated epithet was one part of the book I found a little “twee,” as @mathmom put it (but I didn’t really mind).
Well, he’s almost a saint 
. But I agree with you. I think he mirrors many of the rest of us – we go through life being mostly kind and polite, raised in such a way that the behavior comes pretty easy, but we are not quick to step outside our comfort zone. Neither was the Count – it took a near suicide before he finally made a significant change to the pattern he’d become accustomed to.
I felt like many of the chapters were “life lessons” for the reader. Lots of opportunities for underlining pithy philosophical observations.
So did I. And so did Sofia – I love how she included them in the “famous combinations of three” in their game of *zut/i.
I read this book many months ago, and Having some trouble recalling parts. I should be like @ignatius and reread.
I liked what @Bromfield2 mentioned about resilience. The count was resilient and kind.
My mother is 89, and I’ve come to appreciate the changes she has seen in her life. My soon to be 90 year old mother in law, also has lived through amazing times, too. I’m fascinated with the arc of lives, what people have endured, how they and the world have changed. History interests me now more than it ever did as a student. 100 years isn’t such a long period of time
it helps that Towle’s wove foodie and movie themes throughout the story. The ending was successful because it’s not so tidy. We are left wondering what happens next…is he caught ? Does he leave?
One surprise, I hope I remembered this detail about Mishaka correctly.
The Count protected Mishka, by claiming he wrote the poem? His confinement was of his choosing? So unlike " the stranger, in all ways, as @psychmom pointed out.
I thought the revelation about the poem was a big surprise, but I liked it. Neither of them apparently write more poetry.
The Count told the truth under oath at his trial about the origin of the poem … just not the whole truth:
Learning the truth about the authorship of the poem helped explain some of Mishka’s manic behavior to me—always pacing, often disheveled, and seemingly wanting to express ideas that he could not or would not articulate. I wonder if he was haunted by both guilt (at the Count’s confinement), and also frustration (as an artist forever unable to claim his own work).
Mishka’s fate is also not “tidy.” How did he die? Did he commit suicide? I think that’s suggested, but maybe I am reading too much between the lines:
“Betrayed by his times” could also mean that he was executed by the powers-that-be…but if that were the case, I don’t think his bread project would have survived.
The other untidy ending is Nina’s fate:
I liked that Nina just disappeared. That was a note of realism, in a text that often seemed to skirt into fantasy. I’m quite sure Mishka committed suicide. 
^ yes agree about Nina and thought the same about Mishka’s fate
I’m wondering, when the Count got in trouble for the poem, is it possible he underestimated the seriousness of the offense? What I mean is, there hadn’t been years and years of harsh crackdowns at that point, right?
I also was led to believe Mishka committed suicide. He seemed the tortured distressed artist, further undone by the Revolution.
And, I also liked that Nina just disappeared with no further explanation. It was a powerful turn in the story and took me by surprise.
Remind me about the passage where the Count was going to jump off the roof of the Metropol.
I don’t have my book nearby, but I’m pretty sure Mishka said he would die as soon as he finished his next, and final, research project. I feel pretty confident that it was suicide.
The Count didn’t jump off the roof of the Metropol because he was interrupted by the hotel handyman, Abram, who gives the Count honey from the beehives he keeps on the roof. The honey reminds the Count of the apples in the area where he grew up (Nizhny Novgorod).
@Bromfield2 already answered the second part of this question in the post above. The relevant passage is on p. 166:
I don’t know much about bees, but I viewed that apple honey miracle as completely fanciful—a little bit of magical realism. It’s in keeping with the book’s sense of whimsy, but is—I think?—more farfetched than other episode in the novel. If someone tells me that bees listen to humans and take 100 mile working vacations, then I take it all back!
(By the way, in the quote above, note the “likeness of stars” motif that Towles alludes to in discussion question #6.)
Did the Count’s intention to throw himself off the roof seem in character to you? I certainly understand how that would be a temptation to a person dealing with a lifetime of confinement, but I didn’t see the Count on a downward spiral in the preceding chapters. His plan seems to be precipitated by the fact that the wine bottles no longer have labels. He holds the bare bottle in his hand and realizes how much he will never do again in life—“in fact, it was all behind him” (p. 144). And then he decides to “shed this mortal coil.” Do you think he would have gone through with it if the bees hadn’t intervened?
FWIW Google tells me bees generally only travel 2-3 miles but have been known to travel seven. A more realistic explanation might be that there is an apple orchard growing the same apple variety somewhere in range.
The Count never seemed like the suicidal type to me. I think nearly anything would have prevented him, but the bees were a cute story.
I never put 2 (Misha) and 2 (suicide) together but … of course.
I figured he died of ill health.