A Signatue of Resilience
Book title: A Gentleman in Moscow
Book Author: Amor Towles
It's a very unique book where we meet a once-upon-a-time-an-aristrocrat who is now living his life in exile, at hotel Metropol in Russia. The book provokes some fundamental thoughts, what is truly freedom... You may not force confinement by confining a man in a space, and similarly you may not achieve freedom even if you think so...
Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is a... gentleman in one word. True gentleman, he bears the weight of the word. Literate and well mannered, and so and so. I loved his resilience. Many times he could have felt crushed, but like the bees of Nizhny Novgorod who drank the honey of the flowers fed on the soil and air of the countryside, he uplifts himself, carries the aura of a past that no amount of bolshevik present can't crush…
The novel builds up around the hotel Metropol. The use of a luxury hotel in literature reminded me of another amazing book called Chowringhee by Shankar…
I have just added a ton of Russian literature in my reading list... One thing for sure, they produced good literature!
Some favorite quotes
“How can we understand this, Sasha? What is it about a nation that would foster a willingness in its people to destroy their own artworks, ravage their own cities, and kill their own progeny without compunction?
So fundamental is our desire to catch a glimpse of another way of life, or to share a glimpse of our way of life with another, that even when the forces of the Latter have bolted the city’s doors, the forces of the Former will find a means to slip through the cracks.”
Do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into BREAD and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient. . . . But you did not want to deprive man of freedom and rejected the offer, for what sort of freedom is it, you reasoned, if obedience is bought with loaves of BREAD?
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