I’ve read a lot of good books this year, but none as captivating as A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor. Towles. I’m in awe of Towles’ facility with language. It’s like watching a one-man stage show, where you lose yourself in a character at once more inventive and more fluent than anyone you’ve ever met, but wish you had. I didn’t want it to end. At first, I thought this was a throwback to Henry James, but A Gentleman in Moscow is so much more. It’s full of humor and heart and erudition. For those of us who scribble for a living, this is a humbling experience.
Most of us try to write the most succinct sentence, but a great author can achieve the sublime through embellishment. As highlighted by another reviewer, the following two sentences beautifully illustrate Towles’ power of observation, his deft use of language, his playfulness, and unhurried pace. Instead of writing “It was a long sentence,” Towles writes:
“Here, indeed, was a formidable sentence–one that was on intimate terms with a comma, and that held the period in healthy disregard.”
And while he could have written succinctly that “His troubles kept him awake,” Towles displays an effortless inventiveness by writing instead:
“But, alas, sleep did not come so easily to our weary friend. Like in a reel in which the dancers form two rows, so that one of their number can come skipping brightly down the aisle, a concern of the Count’s would present itself for his consideration, bow with a flourish, and then take its place at the end of the line so that the next concern could come dancing to the fore.”
I’ve read the hardcover and listened to the audio edition, and I’d like to give a shoutout to the narrator of the audio edition, Nicholas Guy Smith. His upper-crust English accent perfectly portrays this upper-crust Russian. Smith handles all of the characters’ accents (including an American) with aplomb.
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