A Gentleman in Moscow is the story of Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat, who is under house arrest in a luxury hotel. Count Rostov spends over 30 years in the grand hotel Metropol. His opulent rooms are swapped for a tight attic room. Most of his treasures are taken. But although his material circumstances are greatly reduced, he is rich with his knowledge of literature and culture, his friendships, and his understanding of Russian history.
The Count has some love affairs, he befriends a young girl who also lives in the hotel, he keeps regular appointments with the hotel’s barber, and he uses his ingenuity with seating charts to help the hotel’s maitre d’ manage the various Bolshevik leaders and foreign travellers who come to dine. The Count is someone the Bolsheviks want to discard but he becomes indispensable to the hotel and its staff.
The book is quiet, but that helps convey Count Rostov’s old-fashioned nature. It’s elegant and eloquent, as is the Count. And I’d say it is a novel about survival. So many things get toss out by new regimes. But Alexander Rostov represents the things best kept.