The Metropol Hotel in Moscow (above), scene of Amor Towles “A Gentleman In Moscow” which was recommended by two members of the OLLI Art Club. The gentleman in the title spends most of his life there under house arrest by the Soviets. At more than 460 pages, it took me a month to read but now I understand how it got on the NYTimes reader-generated list of 25 Best Books.

I wrote to my art club friend, saying “I just finished “Book Two” of the books-within-the-book and I see an interesting pattern. “The Bishop,” the waiter who didn’t know much about wine but pompously gave bad advice anyway, just got the central committee to remove all the labels from the wine bottles in the cellar. The Count remembers a time he tried to … I don’t know — motivate? — the Bishop to do better, but apparently the Bishop took offense and spent years plotting his revenge against the Count for making him feel bad.

And the Hussar, who gobbled up all the roast beef and drank too much wine, then gambled with the Count, lost big, and fled from the table to “return his dinner to the field from which it came” spent years plotting his revenge for the Count publicly tearing up the Hussar’s marker. He wooed the Count’s sister, and on her birthday ravaged her maid. He might have ravaged the sister but the Count was there to visit. The Count shot the Hussar but failed to kill him. Apparently the Hussar had taken offense and spent years plotting his revenge for the Count making him feel bad.

Is the writer saying something about the grandiosity of the nobility trying to pass itself off as virtue and the resentment of the proletariat? Is he trying to say something about how to defend oneself from a narcissist? The Count was dignified and civil, but did he treat the Bishop and the Hussar with respect? I wonder what the author is implying. Any thoughts? Is this resolved in Book Three?

My friend replied with this link to a talk Amor Towles gave at the Pequot Library. After watching the author speak about what was going on in Russia at the time the Gentleman was there, I realize how brilliant Amor Towles is. The talk provided no spoilers for those who had not yet read the book, and filled in so much for the people who enjoyed the thick book.