美国国家公共电台 NPR Idea For 'Gentleman In Moscow' Came From Many Nights In Luxury Hotels

Idea For 'Gentleman In Moscow' Came From Many Nights In Luxury Hotels 

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Many writers have day jobs. William Carlos Williams was a doctor when he wasn't writing about how much depends on a red wheelbarrow.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: 

The poet Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. And then there's Amor Towles. He spent 20 years managing other people's money.

INSKEEP: And then his first novel, "Rules Of Civility," hit the best-seller list. NPR's Lynn Neary reports that success freed him up to work full-time² on his second novel.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE³: During his 20 years with an investment firm, Amor Towles spent a lot of time in luxury hotels. One night at a hotel in Geneva, where he had stayed many times, Towles noticed some familiar faces in the lobby. And he realized they were people who actually lived there.

AMOR TOWLES: And I just sort of thought to myself, this is a nice hotel, but can you imagine actually having to live here? And I thought, oh, that's kind of an interesting notion for a book.

NEARY: That was the beginning of Towles' new book, "A Gentleman In Moscow," the story of a Russian aristocrat⁴ who is sentenced by the Bolsheviks during the revolution to a lifetime of house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel. Towles says he knew right away that the main character had to be confined to a hotel against his will.

TOWLES: And I knew it had to be Russia. Russia has a history of house arrest over hundreds of years. It seemed like such an interesting landscape to have an individual who's trapped in a luxury hotel because, as we all know, the world changed radically⁵ in Moscow over the course of that 30-year period. So it seemed like the perfect spot.

NEARY: Count Alexander Rostov is in his 30s when he's ordered to live his life at the Metropol. He's moved from his luxury quarters there to a dark, tiny room in the attic⁶. It is, says Towles, a long way down for the count.

TOWLES: He's a man of manners. He's a man of culture. And he was used to fine things and days with plenty of empty hours and, you know, people bringing things to him. And, you know, that's certainly a part of his character. And you get to see him go through the transformation⁷ of rediscovering life and maybe even getting closer to life as those benefits are behind him, but the memories are still there.

NEARY: In this excerpt⁸, as the count moves out of his luxury suite⁹, he looks around at all the things endowed with so much meaning that he's leaving behind.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Reading) This armoire, we're prone¹⁰ to recall, is the very one in which hid as a boy. And it was the silver candelabra that lined our table on Christmas Eve. And it was with this handkerchief that she once dried her tears, et cetera, et cetera, until we imagined that these carefully preserved possessions might give us genuine solace¹¹ in the face of a lost companion. But of course, a thing is just a thing. And so, slipping his sister's scissors into his pocket, the count looked once more at what heirlooms remained and then expunged¹² them from his heartache forever.

NEARY: At first, the count's life revolves¹³ around eating and drinking. Then he meets a young girl named Nina, who's living at the hotel with her father. And like another fictional¹⁴ little girl who grew up in another famous hotel, the Plaza¹⁵, Nina has explored every nook and cranny of the Metropol.

TOWLES: When I invented Nina, I thought, oh, she'll be kind of like the Eloise, you know, of the Metropol. I mean, she is the daughter of a widowed Bolshevik and sort of has the run of the hotel and treats the hotel as her personal domain¹⁶. She helps him kind of unlock the hotel as a much richer place to live than you'd think.

NEARY: The book tracks the count's life from the Revolution to the Cold War, thirty years of tumultuous history taking place on the doorstep of the hotel. And Towles had to find a way to bring these events to life.

TOWLES: I stick largely in the hotel, but those who work in the hotel, those who visit the hotel, they are experiencing those forces firsthand. And we can glean¹⁷ some of the pressures that they're under from how they behave through the fact that, you know, certain people lose family members in the course of the war. Characters are arrested. You know, this is all happening outside the hotel, but it's - it's a part of the life.

NEARY: Eventually the count gets a job, takes on a lover. And in the novel's richest plot twist, he ends up as the guardian¹⁸ of another young girl. In these and other relationships, Towles says, the count builds a full life within the confines of the hotel.

TOWLES: There is a will to joy. And I like to think of it as you take a banquet table filled with all these foods, and I start, as the state, taking away one luxury or another after - off that table. If I get down to just bread and salt, which is sort of a Russian term for it, the family will still celebrate, and there'll be laughter and love and compassion¹⁹. And so the book is kind of an exploration of that.

NEARY: Though he likes to write about the past, Towles says he's not driven by historical research. He prefers instead to play in that spot that lies between what is real and what is imagined. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 aristocrat   

n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物

参考例句：

• He was the quintessential english aristocrat.他是典型的英国贵族。
• He is an aristocrat to the very marrow of his bones.他是一个道道地地的贵族。

5 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

6 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

7 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

8 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

9 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

10 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

11 solace   

n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和

参考例句：

• They sought solace in religion from the harshness of their everyday lives.他们日常生活很艰难，就在宗教中寻求安慰。
• His acting career took a nosedive and he turned to drink for solace.演艺事业突然一落千丈，他便借酒浇愁。

12 expunged   

v.擦掉( expunge的过去式和过去分词 )；除去；删去；消除

参考例句：

• Details of his criminal activities were expunged from the file. 他犯罪活动的详细情况已从档案中删去。
• His name is expunged from the list. 他的名字从名单中被除掉了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

13 revolves   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想

参考例句：

• The earth revolves both round the sun and on its own axis. 地球既公转又自转。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Thus a wheel revolves on its axle. 于是，轮子在轴上旋转。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

15 plaza   

n.广场，市场

参考例句：

• They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
• The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。

16 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

17 glean   

v.收集(消息、资料、情报等)

参考例句：

• The little information that we could glean about them was largely contradictory.我们能够收集到的有关它们的少量信息大部分是自相矛盾的。
• From what I was able to glean,it appears they don't intend to take any action yet.根据我所收集到的资料分析，他们看来还不打算采取任何行动。

18 guardian   

n.监护人；守卫者，保护者

参考例句：

• The form must be signed by the child's parents or guardian. 这张表格须由孩子的家长或监护人签字。
• The press is a guardian of the public weal. 报刊是公共福利的卫护者。

19 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。