...a highly engaging mosaic of a life, populated by colorful characters enduring the changing tides of history ... Take the nostalgia and whimsy of Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, the decorum of Downton Abbey, add a splash of the 19th-century comedies of manners (Dickens, Thackeray, et al.) and a twist of Russian existentialism, and you’ll arrive at something like this book ... There are so many ways a book like this could go wrong, but Towles pulls it all off — including authorial footnotes in the voice of a historian-cum-Russian-novelist — without a misstep.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a novel that aims to charm, not be the axe for the frozen sea within us. And the result is a winning, stylish novel that keeps things easy ... All of the verbal excess, the gently funny mock-epic digressions, the small capers and cast of colorful characters, add up to something undeniably mannered but also undeniably pleasant. A Gentleman in Moscow is like a quipping, suavely charming dinner companion that you are also a little relieved to escape at the end of the meal.
Solzhenitsyn this is not. The frost gathers outside, but the book proceeds with intentional lightness. The tone is generally not far removed from the Fitzgeraldian tributes of Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility ... Although its style is never overbearing, the Metropol is imbued with a sense of idiosyncratic wonder. Listen closely and you might hear a Wes Anderson soundtrack playing down the hall ... Towles is a craftsman. What saves the book is the gorgeous sleight of hand that draws it to a satisfying end, and the way he chooses themes that run deeper than mere sociopolitical commentary: parental duty, friendship, romance, the call of home.
...[an] entertaining yet flawed new novel ... The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, twists of fate and silly antics. Mr. Towles never bores, and he keeps the pace going at a brisk clip ... The author’s light, waggish style suited the café society of Rules of Civility, but Stalin’s Soviet Union is another matter, and this is where his novel fails...Mr. Towles’s novel misses the pulse of Soviet life, and he writes about matters as if one could just as easily be referring to Paris or Rome.
Lest the reader find hotel living claustrophobic, Towles does manage to escape the Metropol when the story requires it. He moves fluidly backward and forward in time ... 'marvelous' is a word I'd use for this book. Finishing A Gentleman in Moscow left me with conflicting emotions. I was happy for a good, engaging read. And I was sad that it was over and I had to bid Count Rostov adieu.
...[an] enjoyable, elegant new novel ... There are two surprises at the end of the novel; you’ll nod at one, and raise your eyebrows at the other. Even greater delights, though, are found in Towles’ glorious turns of phrase.
The authority of this voice — fable-like yet jaunty, patient, faintly autumnal — suffuses Gentleman. These sentences waft a tone of regal largesse that may not appeal to everyone. But their confidence and straight-up affability assure us they’ll take us where we need to go, in comfort and high style. What’s important is not to be in a hurry. It’s a big, fat, novelly novel.
A Gentleman in Moscow is one of the year’s most relentlessly charming books. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing ... The count’s charm is so relentless, bordering on aggressive, that you occasionally find yourself on Ignatov’s side. Slow down a little, you want to say. You don’t have to turn every meal into a meditation on Tolstoy ... Further weighing down the count’s charm is A Gentleman in Moscow’s occasionally clunky voice ... Still, the bulk of Gentleman in Moscow is so much fun that its occasional synonym abuse is hardly noticeable.
A Gentleman In Moscow is an epic writ small, a story of Tolstoyan scope on a minute scale ... the most persuasively affectionate depiction of the aristocracy since The Leopard ... There’s something thrilling in the Count’s sense of honor, which necessitates choices he would not otherwise make. Many will want to climb into the book and live in the luxurious world that’s been recalled.
Although the narrative never gets too bogged down in Soviet Russia’s political affairs, Towles occasionally lets history intrude on this story that spans three decades...A Gentleman in Moscow’s best didactic moments come in a handful of razor-sharp footnotes, reminiscent of the magnificent savaging of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo in the footnotes to Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ... As its stakes skyrocket, A Gentleman in Moscow engulfs the reader in the sort of page-turning, spellbinding frenzy.
