A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

This, of course, is why the grand hotels of the world’s capitals all look alike. The Plaza in New York, the Ritz in Paris, Claridge’s in London, the Metropol in Moscow—built within fifteen years of each other, they too were kindred spirits, the first hotels in their cities with central heating, with hot water and telephones in the rooms, with inter

But imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

Invariably dressed in black, the Countess was one of those dowagers whose natural independence of mind, authority of age, and impatience with the petty made her the ally of all irreverent youth.

But imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

But when you exile a man into his own country, there is no beginning anew. For the exile at home—whether he be sent to Siberia or subject to the Minus Six—the love for his country will not become vague or shrouded by the mists of time. In fact, because we have evolved as a species to pay the utmost attention to that which is just beyond our reach,

For just as peasants from the countryside were forbidden to enter the cities, journalists from the cities were forbidden to enter the countryside; delivery of personal mail was suspended; and the windows of passenger trains were blackened. In fact, so successful was the campaign to contain awareness of the crisis, when word leaked out that millions

For the times do, in fact, change. They change relentlessly. Inevitably. Inventively. And as they change, they set into bright relief not only outmoded honorifics and hunting horns, but silver summoners and mother-of-pearl opera glasses and all manner of carefully crafted things that have outlived their usefulness.

if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.

Whether through careful consideration spawned by books and spirited debate over coffee at two in the morning, or simply from a natural proclivity, we must all eventually adopt a fundamental framework, some reasonably coherent system of causes and effects that will help us make sense not simply of momentous events, but of all the little actions and