A Gentleman In Moscow is a delightful novel about staying civilized in a squalid world.
A Gentleman in Moscow is available at National Bookstores, Php755. Did you know that National Bookstore delivers? Go to nationalbookstore.com for details.
I try not to go out on Fridays when the traffic is even more horrible than usual (You didn’t think this was possible, but it is!). So Friday is Hole Up With A Good Book Day, and today I’m reading A Gentleman In Moscow. The first chapters are delightful, considering that the hero Count Rostov has just been found guilty by a Bolshevik tribunal of being an unrepentant member of the corrupt leisure class.
Ordinarily he would be taken out and shot, but since he is considered a prerevolutionary hero he is placed under house arrest at a Moscow hotel. Not in his suite, but in a utility room in the attic. If he ventures out of the hotel, he will be shot. How will this sophisticated aristocrat endure the confinement? True, it is easier to deal with boredom than constant beatings, deprivation, and threats to his life, but he left all his favorite books at his estate.
A Gentleman In Moscow reminds me of the Garbo movie Ninotchka by Ernst Lubitsch–witty, frothy, lightness concealing social commentary. And of The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson in its combination of whimsy and melancholy (It makes us nostalgic for an era we never actually lived in). Exactly what I need at the end of a verklempt week.
Did anyone read Towles’s previous novel Rules of Civility? I bought a copy but I gave it away in a contest.
What are you reading this weekend?
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 7th, 2016 at 21:42
Not this weekend, but I finished 2 books last week while I was at the hospital taking care of my father, The Bell Jar and The House of Mirth, both fabulous books.
October 7th, 2016 at 22:40
howcomebubblegum: I remember reading Motherless Brooklyn at my mother’s bedside. The only thing that made the hospital bearable.
October 8th, 2016 at 02:32
Just bought and read SHE CHANGED COMICS (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Image Comics). It enumerates and highlights more than sixty female comic book creators, illustrators, editors and movers who contributed/contribute to the comic medium since its inception in the 20th century. Some of my faves are there: Karen Berger, Fiona Staples, Kelly Sue McCornnick, Gail Simone, and Louie Simonson. Alas, there are no Filipinas around.
October 8th, 2016 at 10:30
wangbumaximus21: There are lots of male Filipino comic book writers and artists. There must be some females.
October 8th, 2016 at 11:12
I mean in the book I mentioned. It lists North Americans, a Latina, Europeans, Iranians, a number of Japanese, a Lebanese, and an Indian; but no Pinays like Tepai Pascual for example. Eso es todo.
October 8th, 2016 at 12:29
I’m trying to finish Robert Harris’ The Ghost (filmed by Polanski as The Ghost Writer) while reading Manix Abrera’s delightful KikoMachine comics on the side.
October 8th, 2016 at 14:54
Glycolysis92: I’m looking forward to the new Robert Harris, Conclave, set in the Vatican.
October 11th, 2016 at 14:51
Reading Ned Beauman’s The Teleportation Accident now but still can’t get over A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which I finished a couple of weeks ago. I hear they’re planning to turn it into a TV miniseries. My heart. :(