The charming and witty gentleman Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is established as nobility by the Soviet Union and sentenced to a life in the Hotel Metropol. There, he makes many acquaintances and friendships as the world outside changes from the Russia of antiquity to the Russia of communism. As the clocks tick by, he busies himself with his livelihood inside, whether working at the Boyarsky or spying on assemblies, to raising a daughter or gaining a love interest, and finishing as a wonderful remark about the people we meet in our lives and how we move on through the world, or how that world moves around us.
The dialogue is clever. The characters are many and interesting. The world progresses and evolves. Perhaps the only thing I could want from this book is that it moved slower, but that only proves its very point. I also appreciated much of the lengthy and philosophical speeches shared by the narrator, but how they were also argued between multiple characters, and the sharing of important ideas throughout the book. I also greatly appreciated the gradual reveal of the the Count, no ordinary two-dimensional vaudevillian. Throughout the early parts of the story, we not only come to know the Count, but how and why he became the Count.
There’s so much I love about this book, but the fact that all these parts were woven together in one narrative makes me love it more. Honestly, it was hard for me to put this book away. I’d put this one with The Book Thief on my shelf of favorites.