A Gentleman in Moscow

Count Rostov is one of those wonderful, memorable characters that make reading so enjoyable. Placed under house arrest in 1922 in Moscow's luxurious Metropol Hotel as someone who has "succumbed irrevocably to the corruptions of his class," he spends the next 30 years or so building a life that, while physically restricted, is full of friendship, love, poetry, intrigue, and beauty during a pretty miserable time period in Russian history. Great characters and beautiful writing abound, as would be expected from Amor Towles. 

A connoisseur of art, literature, food, and wine, the Count could be written off as a snob, but he is not: He's a renaissance man who appreciates the finer things in life and is completely open to new ideas. For example, here he listens to a jazz combo playing in the bar:

Admittedly, when the Count had first encountered jazz, he hadn't much of an affinity for it. He had been raised to appreciate music of sentiment and nuance, music that rewarded patience and attention with crescendos and diminuendos, allegros and adagios artfully arranged over four whole movements -- not a fistful of notes crammed higgledy-piggledy into thirty measures.
And yet...
And yet, the art form had grown on him. Like the American correspondents, jazz seemed a naturally gregarious force -- one that was a little unruly and prone to say the first thing that popped into its head, but generally of good humor and friendly intent. In addition, it seemed decidely unconcerned with where it had been or where it was going -- exhibiting somehow simultaneously the confidence of the master and the inexperience of the apprentice. Was there any wonder that such an art had failed to originate in Europe? 

He becomes the foster father of a young girl and, with the help of the hotel's chef, concierge, seamstress, and others, shepherds her through childhood, adolescence, and young womanhood. Of course, there is a villain: the Bishop, who rises from an incompetent waiter to hotel manager, and nemesis to the Count. At one point, in the best Bolshevikian tradition, the Bishop removes the labels from the 100,000 wine bottles in the hotel's excellent cellar, presumably because the hotel's wine list...

...runs counter to the ideals of the Revolution. That it is a monument to the privilege of the nobility, the effeteness of the intelligentsia, and the predatory pricing of speculators. 

The Count, of course, is not to be deterred. Running his thumb over an insignia embossed on the glass, he selects the bottle he wants.

The novel is full of moments like this that make political statements with humor and without being overtly political. It is a perfect antidote to the daily news we have to choke down every day.