I struggled through A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by Amor Towles despite its beloved status by many (Goodread Choice Nominee for Historical Fiction, Kirkus Nominee for Fiction), having to switch formats from print to audio version so that I could speed it up. It was just so slow! Many in book group really loved it, but others, like me, had a difficult time getting through it.
If you’re not aware of the book, it follows a Russian nobleman, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, for forty years beginning in 1922, when the Bolsheviks came to power, and he is sentenced to house arrest at the luxury Hotel Metropol across the street from the Kremlin. He’s escorted from his suite to a sixth-floor attic room, where he tries to make the best of his lot. He’s alive, after all, unlike so many noblemen after the revolution.
While Count Rostov is an interesting character–he has seemingly read everything, is knowledgeable about current events, he is a wine connoisseur, and traveled widely before the revolution–I did not care very much about him for the first half of the book. It wasn’t until he is asked to care for the child of a dear friend that I became engaged with the story. At that point, things moved much faster as they do when one is intimately involved with the care and education of a child.
I admit that it is beautifully written and is generally free from anti-fat bias, although it is possible that I missed something because I was listening at 1.5 speed for much of it. If you like slower novels that are more character-driven, and are interested in Russian history in the first half of the twentieth century, you’ve probably already read it. If you haven’t, and it sounds like your thing, I do recommend it.
Reading While Fat 