Table for Two, Amor Towles

 

Table for Two by Amor Towles

Started: July 16, 2024
Completed: July 22, 2024
Recommendation:  Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: my father

Words for which I sought help:

elan -- energy, style, and enthusiasm

Review:

I am not fond of short stories and have read very few since Harlan Ellison died.  I did not realize that this was a collection of short stories and while the transitions felt abrupt going from one to the other, it wasn't until the third that I realized these were short stories and that the characters were not going to reappear.  One of the side effects of listening to a book instead of reading it, I guess.  Without my father's recommendation, I doubt I would have picked up this book even though I have enjoyed Towles' novels in general.  I find it hard to recommend this book as the stories are not what I was expecting when I started and so felt abrupt, incomplete, and broadly dissatisfying.  The novella at the end was a bit of a mystery and Towles did a pretty good job of surprising me, but I didn't enjoy it a lot.

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles

 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is the most recent book by Amor Towles.

Started: 10/12/2021
Completed: 10/17/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Towles has a way with words and his characters are vivid.  The book leaves no string neatly tied.  Every story line is some sort of unlimited possibility and only one character's story has an ending.  I found the change of character from chapter to chapter enticing and the indication that one of the characters in the book wrote it (though that seems quite impossible--it remains yet another tantalizing possibility).  The book is quite compelling and each character seems to explore a fundamental flaw, though none completely.  This is well worth the time for any reader, but particularly for those who enjoy classical philosophy.

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles is by the same author as A Gentleman in Moscow, so I decided to look into it.

Started: 1/11/2020
Completed: 1/14/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book feels like literature.  It sort of commands comparisons to other books during the read.  For example, there is a skeet shooting scene in both this book and in Stiletto.  In both, the female protagonist is put off by skeet shooting.  In this book (which is a multi-layered study in a fish-out-of-water theme) the protagonist comes to skeet shooting not through the front door, but by literally walking through bushes.  In Stiletto, the protagonist is presented with her own guns for the purpose of the skeet shoot.  In both books, skeet shooting is used to indicate a sort of male dominance.  In this book, the skeet shooting emphasizes the class differences between the protagonist and her love interest and contrasts the protagonist with another who causes her love interest to blush instantly and is an expert on the range (adding another layer to the protagonist's feeling of displacement).  In Stiletto, the skeet shooting is used as a metaphor for acceptance as the protagonist is extraordinarily good on first attempt.  It indicates a coming of age (symbolically with the guns and being part of society by being included) in Stiletto, but in this book it indicates how far the protagonist is out of her class.  This kind of simple comparison of classic metaphors (in both books) and how the authors use them comes about because of the subtlety in this book as opposed to the heavy handed attempt in Stiletto (the gun metaphor never goes anywhere and the tableau is sort of handed to the reader).  In this book, there comes a time when the protagonist comes in through the front door, but likens her presence back to going through the bushes and ends up out of place in a new and different way.  Later a sheet shooting gun gives the encounter a certain awkward fondness.

This book also conveys the "fish-out-of-water" theme through several different characters who are all out of place (though it is not necessarily obvious moment to moment) in different ways.  There is also a theme of self-destruction running through the characters in the book (one literally goes off to war, another pursues acceptance and having received it rejects it, yet another leaves a job having just gotten a promotion and accepts another job with much less pay, etc.)  By constant undermining themselves (in new and interesting ways), the characters can never find stability (indeed, one character is encouraged to "get out the rut" to his further displacement).

This is a well written book and I recommend it highly.

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

A Gentleman In Moscow:  A novel by Amor Towles is a book I found on a reading list or two.

Started: 11/14/2019

Completed: 11/21/2019

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  A reading list

Review:

First and foremost:  Get the audio version of this book.  Nicholas Guy Smith simply does a fantastic job.

The story is fabulous and the prose is riveting.  I enjoyed almost every moment.  The plot is surprisingly good as well, perhaps, in part, to the deftness with which it is revealed.  Seemingly hidden in the skein, but present all along.  Really a great book.  I cannot say enough good things about it.

For what it is worth, it has little to do with Moscow while being distinctly about Russia.  It is so much more about friendship and family.