a gentleman in moscow negative reviews

I’ll have to check it out, thanks. Awful awful awful. White Noise was indeed absurd, but a great satire. Instant downloads of all 1405 LitChart PDFs (including A Gentleman in Moscow). I stopped to see what the world thinks, and I read rave after rave online. The story has great potential but it is so over-written and filled with convoluted language. A Gentleman in Moscow was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize in Fiction & Literature. Looking forward to them. Yes, well he’s got the hotel (maybe, although I don’t think his LA., San Francisco, Paris etc experiences quite mirror the fate of those in the Moscow Metropol). I am just finishing Lincoln in the Bardo – absolutely wonderful. If you’d actually read my review, I say this quite plainly: I do not hate this book because it has no plot and no verisimilitude. Maybe their work is so stressful they want to escape. These are hard times for the high expectations, discerning reader. I can’t stand it. A Gentleman in Moscow is an absolutely delightful book. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW is the story of one man confined to one hotel for one lifetime -- and what a lifetime it was! Its nothing more than little vignettes of forgetfulness. A Gentleman in Moscow is written by Amor Towles, and it tells the story of Count Alexander Rostov, who is a Russian aristocrat. Even if Russia isn’t on your must-visit list, I think everyone can enjoy Towles’s trip to Moscow this summer. The effect of all these little verbal missteps is to produce the kind of wince my musician friends get whenever I sing around them. Beyond the door of the luxurious ­Hotel Metropol lies Theater Square and the rest of Moscow… “Do you really think that silence would suit you?”, Helena would ask. My Rating: 5 Stars! Towles is a craftsman. I thought there was something wrong with me after reading how much the critics loved it. Do you think they’re just flattered to see a popular book about the country? Reviewed by Laura Freeman . A beautiful reminder that a rich life is made of so much more than one's circumstances, and that purpose is often found in the most unexpected places. How charming. I agree with exactly how you’ve put it in your review – just no substance, no genuine feeling, no hope of meaning or being shown something that could in any way affect my life (things I want books to have or do). a lot of it Is just pretentious showing off which should have been edited out, in my view. Released in May, “A Gentleman in Moscow” has sold steadily all year and was the subject of glowing reviews. I highly recommend it. Zeligs don’t only have to appear in the frame of a newsreel. Thank goodness it was short in length and numbers of words. I cannot believe this pompous book has been receiving such high praise, especially from the critics. What is wrong with those other Russian readers though? When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Definitely, also having traveled for business, I saw the author’s expertise mostly in what they serve at high end hotel restaurants. A Gentleman in Moscow: a negative review by janedotx7 Much as how Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, the titular gentleman of A Gentleman in Moscow is a plebeian’s idea of an aristocrat, and simultaneously, an American’s idea of a Russian. I remain shocked at the raving reviews it has received. It’s nothing like the movie. Count? But the Metropol won’t let him simply drop and splatter from its roof. Are we readers to be impressed by the writer’s seemingly vast knowledge of history and literature? Right! William Boyd I was too annoyed to find those pretentious, name dropping passages. A Gentleman in Moscow is the 30-year saga of the Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is placed under house arrest inside the Metropol Hotel in Moscow in 1922 when the Bolsheviks spare him from death or Siberia because of his 1913 revolutionary poem written in university. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Windmill Books, Random House, 2016 _____ Every so often a peripatetic reader such as myself comes across a book that stays in mind long after the finish, one to which you surreptitiously return, guiltily knowing you are not reducing the waiting bedside pile by dipping again into one already read. I recently read The Goldfinch and enjoyed it, though the ending was…not good. They remind me of my 6th grade granddaughter’s creative writing assignment in which she had some 50 cent words like “euphemism” and “accouterments” to use. They are almost cartoonish. Most irksome to me was the lack of interiority to the Count himself. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Please don’t judge me for listening to it all the way through and using it as a way to get through my exercise. I think the people who like the book like it for a bright, cozy vibe. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility, a novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel—a beautifully transporting novel. Sorry for this lengthy comment, but I still cannot believe that THIS piece of crap is considered a modern masterpiece. Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov — a member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt — was already ensconced in luxury in Suite 317 when he was sentenced to house arrest in a 1922 trial, condemned for writing a poem. I’m enchanted to read your analysis,how right you are-because I (being from Russia)-I HATE this book! For years, its florist adhered to the code of polite society and knew “which flower to send when one has been late; when one has spoken out of turn.” The barbershop remained a kind of Switzerland, “a land of optimism, precision and political neutrality.” As post-revolution scarcity set in, the chef of the upscale Boyarsky restaurant worked magic with cornmeal, cauliflower and cabbage, while the Shalyapin bar offered candlelight and dark corners so Bolshoi dancers could sneak a postperformance drink. A Count Becomes a Waiter in a Novel of Soviet Supremacy. How important is good service? Please may I quote you at a London book club.? I agree with all of you. Saturday February 11 … A Gentleman in Moscow is a novel that aims to charm, not be the axe for the frozen sea within us. I was so gratified to read your review. the second is The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin. A friend recommended this book to me and spoke of it in such glowing terms that I felt I must read it. Maybe a revolution. Good ones, I think, ha. I really suffered, but since I lead the book group discussion I had to finish. Even as a youngster on the estate in Nizhny Novgorod, he understood the power of a seating arrangement: “In fact, if Paris had not been seated next to Helen when he dined in the court of ­Menelaus, there never would have been a Trojan War.” In the era of jockeying ­Soviet apparatchiks, it’s a skill Rostov can repurpose. Since so many people like this dumb book I probably will not share our opinion for fear of offending those of that mind. At the beginning of the 1930s, Rostov catches sight of her in the lobby among a few adoring male comrades, about to leave with some cadres of the local Komsomol to help collectivize the provinces. kindle tells me i made it 9% of the way before i abandoned the effort. “Like deafness suited Beethoven.” “A Gentleman in Moscow” offers a chance to sink back into a lost attitude of aristocracy — equal parts urbane and humane — just what we might expect from the author of that 2011 bestseller “Rules of Civility.” But if Towles’s story is an escape we crave, it is also, ironically, a story of imprisonment… –Washington Post. I have only reached page 89 and feel like I am hacking through dense thickets hoping for a glimpse of plot on the horizon but forever getting entangled in the authors overly mannered style of writing. Much as how Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, the titular gentleman of A Gentleman in Moscow is a plebeian’s idea of an aristocrat, and simultaneously, an American’s idea of a Russian. I’ve read many books and loved many books, but A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles may have just become my favorite. book certainly does this. Yet to read this book one would think odes should be written glorifying such excellence! YES and then come back and tell me how they reacted. the book has little (no) examination of why the Bolsehviks were inclined to revolt in the first place. --O, The Oprah Magazine In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. As the purges continue, Rostov becomes the recipient of a gift from Nina even more precious than her skeleton key. I also searched multiple reviews for someone who could put into words what I disliked about this book. A great hotel is eternal, and the ­tidal movement of individuals and ideas into its lounges and ballrooms is a necessity for one longtime resident. I’m sure my book club will find it marvelous. I couldn't have cared less if he lived or suicided himself. Being a New York Times bestseller, when I first stumbled across Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow I was not convinced it would be a great read. I think it might resonate with you. Ever. But I don’t hate this book because it has no plot and no verisimilitude. Footnote foolery is something that was pulled off brilliantly by Flann O’Brien in The Third Policeman and Mordecai Richler in Joshua Then and Now. I told my foolish friends who liked it that I felt it is was written by Walt Disney…2 convenient daughters and an adorable trio for the opulent restaurant’s staff! I didn’t like the quotes I’ve seen, but David Foster Wallace thought highly of him. The author’s time spent in high end hotels as an investment banker were of greater explanatory value. I swear when I got to the part with the wine bottles and labels, although I am aware that its purpose was to point out the absurdity and the lack of refinement of the Bolsheviks, I almost started sympathizing with the way they handled aristocrats after coming into power. It’s not how true to reality the novel is, but does it create a unique look and feeling. He is a man of good manners and breeding with an ability to make friends in high and low places. With Hector and Achilles. Look, there’s nothing wrong with intellectual comfort food. June 20, 2020 Megan Corbett Book Reviews, Feature story. Also, I have a bunch of other reviews up on this blog, too. Verified Purchase. The year 1922 is a good starting point for a Russian epic, but for the purposes of his sly and winning second ­novel, Amor Towles forgoes descriptions of icy roads and wintry dachas and instead retreats into the warm hotel lobby. But, the book by the same name is one of my all-time favorites. 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. The movie star last seen dragging her barking borzois offers up for study the constellation of beauty marks on her back. How better to imagine life as a life prisoner under the Bolsheviks in a decaying institution on Red Square during the most brutal years of the 20th century?”. It seems that the critics do not understand the idea of a novel is to paint a unique and interesting picture. I am ignorant of Russian history and culture. FYI, we last discussed a new favorite of mine: The Siege Of Krishnapur. If one is an old enough reader, regardless of educational level, I don’t understand being able to read vacuous books. I’m sad to say I just had the same outlier experience with my book group and all the reviews i coukd find except one. My book club is full of PhDs who like reading books about nothing. It’s usually a lot of fun, but it can get us in trouble when one of us is further along than the other—which recently happened when we were both reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Another of my losses with my book group. I’ll read Barnaby Ridge even though I probably won’t make it to Santa Cruz this year. But you can’t resist. Solzhenitsyn this is not. Somehow fiction is woven into the historically accurate facts so well that you can believe that it could have really happened. The Metropol, with its customs and routines, is a world unto itself. Your description was an excellent rendering of my feelings. Sadly, I have to lead the discussion on what can only be called a genre novel at book group tomorrow night : Pachinko :((. Now there is a great book. Somehow fiction is woven into the historically accurate facts so well that you can believe that it could have really happened. The first is Amongst Women By John McGahern. I was so glad to read your review! “In fact, if Paris had not been seated next to Helen when he dined in the court of Menelaus, there never would have been a Trojan War.” Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. But how much do I have to take? Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. In terms of A Gentleman in Moscow, for instance, the launch of the world’s first nuclear power plant in Russia in 1954 is an historical fact, but the assembly of Party leaders to observe the blacking-out of Moscow is an invention. The book I think did exhibit that is the , 2011, National Book Award, Salvage The Bones by Jesmyn Ward. The temptation to incorporate ever more arcane references In pursuit of credibility is strong. That’s funny… I had the exact same reaction to Exit West, Exactly! Except I still don’t like Proulx even after I sought out Brokeback Mountain. Spasibo for the kind words, so glad to see a Russian who hates this book! Towles is just the sort of softly cocooned brat that incites the masses to bringing out the pitchforks. We will do Sing, Unburied, Sing next, and they have largely agreed to read The Sound And The Fury a couple after that. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles A Russian count lives out communism in genteel internal exile. Wonderful idea. A Gentleman in Moscow Questions and Answers - Discover the eNotes.com community of teachers, mentors and students just like you that can answer any question you might have on A Gentleman in Moscow Captain Nemo… I certainly didn't (write 'A Gentleman in Moscow') with the assumption that it would become a best-seller because, you know, the premise 'guy gets trapped in hotel in Russia for 30 years' was not an idea that was engineered for popularity." I found that on your blog and in the replies. He was moved from his suite to an attic… I felt vindicated, but it went over the heads of my bookclub. That being said, the count still finds ways to make his life interesting. But with the main character being the one that witnesses unprecedented tectonic changes of the society and country he lives in, and suffering the loss of his way of life and home, being confined to house arrest (however implausible that may be knowing that he was an aristocrat during Stalin times) one would expect at least some introspective of his mind. I’m always on the lookout for funny books! I hated it and threw it in the trash after the meeting! It seems to me that Towles didn’t provide us with any of more meaningful or more in-depth insights simply because he had no idea what to say. But the mind of the Count is not made available to us. Learn what it truly means to be a gentleman. Log in. Viking. I’m so happy to read some negative reviews of this book. And what irks me a lot is that Towles didn’t bother to do a proper research to write a piece which is so rooted in the history, nor to even try to understand and describe with some plausibility Russian people and the society. Or how he has to smuggle some absynthe in order to enjoy bouillabaisse during WWII? A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Windmill Books, Random House, 2016 _____ Every so often a peripatetic reader such as myself comes across a book that stays in mind long after the finish, one to which you surreptitiously return, guiltily knowing you are not reducing the waiting bedside pile by dipping again into one already read. Our accomplished gentleman will overcome. I can see the draw, but it’s still a bad book. With Kenneth Branagh. Supported by. Sometimes aesthetes have to stand alone! 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. Cindy, have you ever read this essay? I just spent a couple hours reading “Lassie Comes Home.” I wrote this review because it entertained me to do so, and I truly do not care if other people liked this book or not. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I am eager to read her last year’s winner, Sing, Unburied, Sing. Nice work! I’ll mention one of my all time favorites, (and the list is long! There’s fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood, and poetry. At Book Marks, a review aggregator website, the novel received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 11 reviews: 3 "Rave", 5 "Positive", and 3 "Mixed". But it’s Faulkner! Desk. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Maybe he needs to read Brian Keenan’s “An Evil Cradling”? Exceptional storytelling brings a changing Moscow inside the walls of one building. ( Log Out /  I, like Alyce, who posted on 3/24/18, was loaned this book by a friend, and I don’t know quite how to tell her how much I dislike it. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOWBy Amor Towles462 pp. Speaking from experience when you do your research as a writer, having Google et al on tap is a mixed blessing. yikes, SO pretentious and desperate to let us know that he has a wikipedia-level awareness of shakespeare. Boring, shallow and historically incorrect! Towles wrote that scene as a one-off cheap trick. It was very deeply touching and often riotously funny. It was written by an uninformed author and targets an uninformed audience. A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel I fell in love with Count Alexander Rostov, the gentleman of The Gentleman in Moscow . The problem with this book is that it has no vision, beyond a nostalgic admiration for the aristocracy. Please connect me to that. Towles has an educational scheme for his protagonist: If the hotel contains the world, Towles assiduously offers pleasures and lessons, room by room, as a reborn Rostov bears witness to his era. Thanks for sharing your views. Entering a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, for an annual investment conference some years ago, Amor Towles suddenly envisioned the premise for his inventive, entertaining and richly textured second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow. 1 customers found this helpful. I’m sooo glad I found this site. Rather he slightly extended his index finger in a manner reminiscent of that gesture on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling with which the Prime Mover transmitted the spark of life. But does his musical ability show up again in the novel? Yeah, there’s something incredibly smug about this book. I’m glad I stumbled upon your excellent review. I’m eager to read The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara. But let’s all hope people don’t take it as true historical fiction. RIGHT ON. A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. A beautiful reminder that a rich life is made of so much more than one's circumstances, and that purpose is often found in the most unexpected places. p.29. Having worked as an investment professional for over twenty years, Mr. Towles now devotes himself full time to writing in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children. Yes, Towles says he didn’t want to write a book about the gulag, but he claims to have wanted to match the personality of this 19th century aristocrat with the evolution of Soviet life. I too hate the book and could not stomach more than 5 pages. A Wall Street director of research turned best-selling author, Amor Towles is about to release his second novel. 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. This object once belonged to the Grand Duke. MHO. “The author’s time spent in high end hotels as an investment banker were of greater explanatory value. i rarely quit a book without finishing it but yikes, this did it for me. Most helpful positive review. Most helpful negative review. a gentleman in moscow by Amor Towles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016 Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives … LitCharts Teacher Editions. When he stops pacing the floor, Rostov’s anxious poet friend, Mishka, tells of his battles against censorship and hints that Rostov’s confinement might ultimately be for the best, arguing that their country’s great contribution to the world (at least one of them) is destruction: “For as a people, we Russians have proven unusually adept at destroying that which we have created.” Let us concede, our narrator dryly points out, that the early 1930s in Russia were unkind. Inside the List. “A guy gets trapped in a hotel for a long period of time”. The book is technically historical fiction, but you’d be just as accurate calling it a thriller or a love story. Of course, myself included. They hated it. A Gentleman in Moscow achieved the impossible. I feel like screaming “just get on with the story”. The book is essentially a long string of these, going nowhere. i guess if you spend 20 years in manhattan as an investment banker and compile enough contacts, you too can wind-up with a NYT bestseller. BTW, I also hated Exit West which had good reviews. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW is the story of one man confined to one hotel for one lifetime -- and what a lifetime it was! View a FREE sample. And, like many other commentators here, I just could not finish it. That’s one reason why I found my book club to be a bit of a disappointment. No depth, no body, no soul. Rostov has a portrait of his long-dead sister on the wall of his room, so it’s evident his life is anchored in pain — Russia is pain — but he remains untouchable, built to outwit the system. If he sets a foot outside of the building, the government has the right to kill him. Wonder abounds. A Gentleman in Moscow is about the importance of community; the distance of a kind act; and resilience. This book certainly does that. Sigh . Thanks for the Farrell recommendation. Rostov is always nudging up to history, clinking glasses with foreign diplomats and discussing films with Kremlin operators. I’m afraid I disagreed strongly with that. Here are some of my views. The man witnessed two world wars, a revolution, the establishment of an entire new regime and society, yet what is that we know preoccupies him the most? This book is much beloved on LT, and I don't think I've read a negative review of it. Continue reading the main story. Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Why Gates recommends it: "It seems like everyone I know has read this book. Proulx though…sorry if you like Proulx, but he seemed right on about her and most of the other authors he cites. I quit Gentleman after 25 pages. We’re not in the Grand Budapest, but more than once I imagined F. Murray Abraham narrating a long, panning shot. This reminds me of that lauded movie, The English Patient, which I also hated. Count was sentenced to a house arrest for being associated with a poem which had revolutionary overtones even though he was not the one who composed it. The tone is generally not far removed from the Fitzgeraldian tributes of Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility.” 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. (Music Man). Mishka is one of many walk-ins who will tell of Russia’s condition and change Rostov’s static life. $27.. FICTION REVIEW. The blithe deference of the hotel staff to the Count is insulting to ordinary people. A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. Sorry I didn’t approve your comment earlier! It's a manual for getting through the days to come." I like it! I enjoyed the story very much. After reading all the glowing book reviews, seeing the high ratings on Goodreads and listening to my husband talk about how much he enjoyed this book I was seriously thinking there was something wrong with me. The only book I’ve read more than twice. I expected something like Tolstoy, but was very disappointed. Towles is smug — that’s the problem with this book. Desperately googled “negative’ reviews of this book in hopes of finding ANYONE who agreed with me! Thank you for your brilliant evisceration of AGIM. A Russian aristocrat is spared from death and placed on house arrest while the Bolshevik Revolution plays out before him. Are they blind? Thanks others for the good suggestions, I am always looking for really really GREAT books. I wonder if the book would have been less popular in a less stressful time. Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall – (less so the 2nd and 3rd books, for me) “Ye Gods!”, Well put. $27. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ). You hit on a number of other flaws with this terrible book. Mr. Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, […] In the lobby, politicians whispered and movie starlets swanned across the floor, dragging recalcitrant borzois on their leashes. Yes, it’s beautifully written, but its so bloody boring, so pretentious, so phony and completely without point. Human beings, after all, “deserve not only our consideration but our reconsideration” — even those from the leisured class. Judging from the rivers of praise on Amazon, Goodreads etc I was beginning to wonder if I had completely lost my judgement as a reader. As I read, I took copious notes—because so much of what he thought and said was worth remembering. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things Amor Towles novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, takes place almost entirely within the walls of the grand Metropol Hotel in Moscow. I am midway through this pointless and sterile book. Good comments. The Bolshevik Revolution was the tipping point of the rebellion against the tremendous cruelty and injustice of that aristocratic system. (And yes, my name is Jane!) Thank you for the suggestion. Average Rating: (5.0) out of 5 stars. Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2017. It’s a serious literary group, but not always that sophisticated. Farrell. At one point, I got teary-eyed because one of the characters gets hurt and must go to the hospital. Beyond the door of the luxurious ­Hotel Metropol lies Theater Square and the rest of Moscow, and beyond its city limits the tumultuous landscape of 20th-century Russia. Print Word PDF. It’s like a wealth fantasy, kinda like watching Crazy Rich Asians and imagining you get to marry into all that glamorous wealth. D.P. Please may I quote you at a London book club.? The writing was spare, void of lyricism of any kind. At my suggestion, we read Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin last year and I thought they would die. Shares. The main character, is exactly the same as the novel, he may know what wine to pair with what dish or which classical composition is better for a music competition, he may have impeccable appearance and manners, but behind that wall of a cultured man lies an empty space with no real substance. Instant downloads of all 1391 LitChart PDFs (including A Gentleman in Moscow). At page 139 today I said, enough, and put it down. Count Rostov is a fine example of a true “old world” gentleman, a man of impeccable character who invariably sees good in all he meets, even if the same politeness, etiquette and good manners are not reciprocated by them. A Russian aristocrat is spared from death and placed on house arrest while the Bolshevik Revolution plays out before him. (Pleasure to meet you!). I realise this is a deliberate technique to emphasise the Count’s isolation not just in the hotel but in his 19th century sensibility. He is implausibly content despite his circumstances. The Metropol's A Gentleman in Moscow Tour costs 15,800 roubles (about $300) and includes one night's accommodation, cocktail tastings inspired by … A beautiful, delicate story about an aristocrat in Moscow -- after the Revolution. I don’t agree with Myers’ takedown of Cormac McCarthy–I like McCarthy a lot, though I do find he misses the mark in spectacularly bad ways sometimes, and he does overwrite, but he hits often and he hits hard.

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