A Gentleman in Moscow - August CC Book Club Selection

[Bromfield2]

So many passages in this book are “gems”-- one of many favorites:

“Manners are not like bon bons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-biten ones back in the box. . .”

Anyone else?

[psychmom]

I loved the passage where the Count has recognized that Bishop has kept a file of his friends’ misdeeds:

“No doubt, all of the aforementioned had been guilty of these human frailties at one point or another; but for any one of them the Count could have compiled a file fifty times larger that catalogued their virtues.”

[Mary13]

You can hardly open the book without reading a “gem.” Some of them made me laugh, such as, “Surely, the span of time between the placing of an order and the arrival of appetizers is one of the most perilous in all human interaction.”

And how many among us have had this thought?:

Returning to the sixth floor, the Count spent a moment looking around his bedroom from corner to corner, finding that it already seemed unnaturally quiet.

So this is an empty nest, he thought. What a sad state of affairs.

(I must add, however, that NJTheatreMOM would surely have been irritated by the “empty nest” expression being used by a Russian Count in 1950’s Moscow. In her honor, I looked up the origin – not in common use in that context until 1970-75. Of course, in many ways the Count was ahead of his time, so we’ll just leave it at that :).)

[Mary13]

6. One of the pleasures of writing fiction is discovering upon completion of a project that some thread of imagery has run through the work without your complete awareness—forming, in essence, an unintentional motif. While I was very conscious of the recurrence of tolling bells, keys, and concentric circles in the book, here are a few motifs that I only recognized after the fact: Packages wrapped in brown paper, such as the Maltese Falcon, Mishka’s book of quotations, the Russian nesting dolls discovered in the Italians’ closet, and the Count’s copy of Montaigne (in Paris). The likeness of stars, such as the freckles on Anna’s back and the beacon on the top of the Shukhov radio tower. Sailors (often in peril), such as Robinson Crusoe, Odysseus, Admiral Makarov, and Arion in the myth of Delphinus. What role do any of these motifs play in the thematic composition of the book? And if you see me in an airport, can you explain them to me?

I would add bread & salt, both together and separately, as a thread through the work. As we discussed earlier, Mishka’s project is all about bread, often with a spiritual or life-giving element. Emile uses the stabbing end of his knife to measure out a dash of salt. And when Mishka comes to visit Alexander, Andrey and Emile place bread and salt on the table—“that ancient Russian symbol of hospitality” (p. 287). “Mishka looked at the table. ‘Bread and salt,’ he said with a smile.”

Anna soothes the Count’s ruffled feathers by telling him a story about salt, which seemed to me an allegory of the Count’s own experience. While the older sons in Anna’s story are gifted with riches, the youngest is given only a “rickety sloop with raggedy sails, a toothless crew, and empty sacks for ballast” (p. 202). But as a result of a little ingenuity—and a lot of salt—he sails for home laden with gold, surpassing everyone’s expectations. Similarly, the Count, imprisoned in the Metropol, has little to work with. But his optimism, creativity and ability to add flavor to the lives of those around him result in a fulfilling and successful life. As Mishka puts it, “‘Who would have imagined,’ he said, ‘when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia” (p. 292).

[ignatius]

Remind me:

the recurrence of tolling bells?

keys - besides Nina and her passkey?

concentric circles?

[Mary13]

^ I think the key from Nina is by far the most important one, in that it represents all the doors she will open for Alexander – not merely the physical ones, but the intangible ones during a lifetime as father to Sofia.

Another key reference can be found in the scene where Count has the opportunity to return to his old suite, and sees the family grandfather clock. It’s significant only in that marking the passage of time is a theme in the novel:

Opening the narrow glass door in the clock’s cabinet, the Count reached inside and found the little key still on its hook. Inserting it into the keyhole, the Count wound the clock to its limit, set the time, and gave the pendulum a nudge, thinking: Let the old man keep time for a few hours more.

And near the end, the Count demands the Bishop’s key to the file cabinet, from which he extracts and then burns all the files on his friends:

The Count came around the desk and stood over the Bishop.

“You can give me that key,” he said, “or I can take it from you. But there is no third way” (p. 434).

And then of course there are Sofia’s piano keys. Does that count?

As for concentric circles, I’m stumped – at least in terms of it being a recurring motif. Moscow is laid out in concentric circles–that’s the only reference I could find in the book. It’s a crucial moment, one of the Count’s last observations before his (thwarted) suicide:

For one last time, the Count looked out upon that city that was and wasn’t his. Given the frequency of street lamps on major roads, he could easily identify the Boulevard and Garden Rings–those concentric circles at the center of which was the Kremlin and beyond which was all of Russia (p. 164).

Not sure about bells, although the twice-tolling clock is certainly mentioned often enough!

[mathmom]

Sorry to be out of the conversation - we are on vacation and only have intermittent internet access. Has anyone seen the Minard Map/Graph of Napoleon’s Russia campaign? I’ve always loved it.

I liked the Count’s relationship with the women in his life, but perhaps especially because we didn’t see into his head much, I was a bit surprised that he is apparently making a life with Anna. In the end I think his relationship with the restaurant guys seemed more real.

Being a bit of a foodie, I really enjoyed all the food and wine talk.

The juggling of the oranges and then the knives was circles. And if you look at the map the Metropol is arguably even more in the center of Moscow than the Kremlin.

I had some stuff bookmarked, but my real copy of the book has disappeared from the Kindle and only the sample is there now. I really don’t understand how the Kindle works, but I find it very frustrating!

[Mary13]

Hi @mathmom, I hope you’re having a great vacation! Even if the book disappeared from your Kindle, you should still be able to download it from the cloud, with all bookmarks intact. Just don’t ask me how the cloud works…https://i.imgflip.com/vewyc.jpg

[ignatius]

I found this re concentric circles:

[quote]
Surveying Moscow from the roof of the Metropol, he sees how the city is laid out in concentric circles that mirror the wider world and how he is able to take it all in, even though he can no longer step foot in it.

“After all,” Towles writes, “exile was the punishment that God meted out to Adam in the very first chapter of the human comedy, and that He then meted out to Cain just a few pages later. Yes, exile was as old as mankind. But the Russians were the first people to master the notion of sending a man into exile at home.” http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/reviews/a-gentleman-in-moscow-is-a-novel-to-savor/article_0900893b-e6ea-5fbd-9be1-050f015f10c8.html[ /quote]

[Mary13]

More circles within circles:

Yes, thought the Count, the world does spin.

In fact, it spins on its axis even as it revolves around the sun. And the galaxy turns as well, a wheel within a greater wheel, producing a chime of an entirely different nature than that of a tiny hammer in a clock (p. 37).

---

Back to Nina for a minute:

@@ignatius

I thought of Eloise

So did Amor Towles. Just came across this in an NPR interview with the author:

”When I invented Nina I thought: Oh she’ll be kind of like the Eloise of the Metropol,” Towles says. "She is the daughter of a widowed Bolshevik, and sort of has the run of the hotel and treats the hotel as her personal domain. … She helps him kind of unlock the hotel — that it can be a universe, a much richer place to live than you’d think.” Idea For 'Gentleman In Moscow' Came From Many Nights In Luxury Hotels : NPR

[Midwest67]

I was quite taken by Nina giving the Count the pass key.
Something about her coming of age and leaving----she doesn’t need it anymore—and Alexander staying & he is the one who could use it. Touching.

I did wonder how she got the key in the first place. We don’t know, right?

[Mary13]

No, I don’t recall that we ever learn where Nina got the key. But she was a pretty resourceful little girl; I didn’t question it. Come to think of it, I didn’t even question the fact that every door in the hotel could be opened by a single pass key. Even St. Peter supposedly carried two keys for heaven. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Pope-peter_pprubens.jpg

[Mary13]

4. The majority of A Gentleman in Moscow is told in the third person from the Count’s point of view. There is, however, an overarching narrator with a perspective different from the Count’s. Initially, this narrator appears in footnotes, then in the “Addendums,” then in the historical introductions of “1930,” “1938,” and “1946.” How would you characterize this narrator? How does he differ from the Count in terms of his point of view and tone of voice? What is his role in the narrative?

This is how The New York Times review describes the narrator:

The book is narrated not by Rostov but by a hovering third person, sporting what seems to be a permanently arched eyebrow, who occasionally lapses into aristocratic fussiness. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/books/review/amor-towles-gentleman-in-moscow.html

Another review called the novel “a frothy romp that tends to overlook the reality of life under Stalin.”

I’m not sure I agree with either of those descriptions. I think the narrator—especially as he is revealed in the footnotes—mitigates the “frothy romp” aspect of the book. The footnotes can be amusing at times, but darkly so. They express more sarcasm, irony and bitterness than we get from the Count. The footnotes provide historical background that is missing from the main story—background that brings “the reality of life under Stalin” into sharper focus.

[Mary13]

This is about the time we usually select our next book (Day 10 seems to be our collective psychological limit ), so feel free to throw out suggestions for October.

I think August has been a busy month for everyone, what with vacations, outdoor activities and family obligations. My own house has been a revolving door of (adult) children coming and going over the past couple of weeks.

But before we move on, the OCD in me wants to address just a few more of the questions on A Gentleman in Moscow, since answers have been running around in my head and I need to let them out. Here we go, all in one post:

9. Near the novel’s conclusion, what is the significance of the toppled cocktail glass in Casablanca?

Easy one, because Towles gives the answer himself on p. 459. Viktor observes re the scene in Casablanca:

As the Count’s friend had observed, the saloonkeeper’s cool response to Ugarte’s arrest and his instruction for the band to play on could suggest a certain indifference to the fates of men. But in setting upright the cocktail glass in the aftermath of the commotion, didn’t he also exhibit an essential faith that by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world?

10. This is a novel with a somewhat fantastical premise set half a century ago in a country very different from our own. Nonetheless, do you think the book is relevant today? If so, in what way?

Of course it’s relevant. Any truly good book is timeless. Love, loss, friendship, politics, parenting, and good manners cut across the centuries.

11. Bonus Question: Who in the novel also appears in Rules of Civility?

I didn’t read Rules of Civility, but only Richard Vanderwhile makes sense to me as a crossover character. Anyone read the book? How was it? Worth reading?

7. How does the narrative incorporate the passage of time, and does it do so effectively? Thematically speaking, how does the Count’s experience of Time change over the course of the novel and how does it relate to his father’s views as embodied by the twice-tolling clock? What does the novel suggest about the influence of individuals on history and vice versa?

The Count’s experience of time is familiar to all of us—leisurely at first, rapidly at last. “When you reach our age, Vasily, it all goes by so quickly. Whole seasons seem to pass without leaving the slightest mark on our memory” (p. 322). But slow or fast, we human beings take care to mark the passage of time, whether via a twice-tolling grandfather clock or notches on a piece of wood.

For after all, if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years. Or, if philosophical investigations are not to your taste, then let us simply agree that the wise man celebrates what he can (p. 110).

And finally, Richard Vanderwhile answers Towles’ question about the influence of individuals on history as follows (p. 302):

“We don’t know how a man or his achievements will be perceived three generations from now, any more than we know what his great-great-grandchildren will be having for breakfast on a Tuesday in March. Because when Fate hands something down to posterity, it does so behind its back."

Okay, thanks for humoring me. We can now bid adieu to the Count…! *

• "Towles never lets anyone merely say goodbye when they could *bid adieu*, never puts a period where an exclamation point or dramatic ellipsis could stand." - *NPR* http://www.npr.org/2016/09/03/490101866/a-gentleman-in-moscow-is-a-grand-hotel-adventure

[ignatius]

Perfect end to the discussion, Mary.

As for next discussion … books not chosen last time we did this

Duo: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey and The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (optional pairing with the myth “The Twelve Labors of Hercules”—looks like it capably stands alone without companion piece)

The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore (nonfiction)

The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter (apparently the first in a series – “A Blake and Avery Novel”)

Chemistry by Weike Wang (just learned this minute that “LabLit” is a genre – who knew?)

The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green (“warm and winning family tale” – sounds fun for summer break, but would it have enough meat for discussion?)

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (2017 historical fiction – threw this in for the heck of it since it got a lot of good buzz)

New:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (Nonfiction)

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

[Tiredofsnow]

My H and I just read Killers of the Flower Moon - whether the group picks it or not, I encourage y’all to read it. I knew absolutely nothing about this sad and interesting period in our history.

[Mary13]

^ I would read it. Maybe it’s finally time for us to delve into non-fiction.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

It’s been great having so many newer participants in this discussion. Clearly, the choice of “A Gentleman in Moscow” interested so many!

I hope we can keep this momentum with our next selection.
I just looked at the “killers of the Flower Moon” on goodreads and saw some impressive endorsements.

Please everyone, feel free to speak freely about your preferences so our “wonderwoman” Mary13 knows how to proceed.

NY times magazine has a feature about Claire Messud. Her new book is “The Burning Girl” published this month.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/magazine/whos-afraid-of-claire-messud.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/

[Mary13]

Here’s a working list. I took off The Romanovs because of the length (almost 800 pages) and The Sunshine Sisters because of the depth (a breezy beach read).

(@ignatius, The Essex Serpent looks like fun. Lots of good reviews.)

Duo: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey and The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (optional pairing with the myth “The Twelve Labors of Hercules”)

The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter (first in a series – “A Blake and Avery Novel”)

Chemistry by Weike Wang

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (nonfiction)

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

The Burning Girl by Claire Messed

Any of the above strike anyone’s fancy (or need to be stricken)?

[ignatius]

Top Four (for me) in alphabetical order because I have no preference:

The Strangler Vine

Killers of the Flower Moon

The Essex Serpent

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

I understand that books may be added or deleted and will change my list accordingly. I hope others chime in … it’s quiet today on the thread.