#hey @amortowles why

[ivanshatov]

roight so right now i’m reading a gentleman in moscow by amor towles and?? it took me so long to actually get into this book i kept complaining and complaining and couldn’t get into it at all whatsoever and it kept decomposing in my bag but by god it has really won me over and i really need someone to talk to about it

spoilers below cut

like.... okay spoiler warning for anyone who wants to read the book below but it’s been on my mind since yesterday. it kills me that both nina and mishka who were shown to be central to alexander’s life and development in the first half die so disgracefully. they aren’t even spared the confirmation of death. we know that the narrator is humorous and unreliable but these characters who carried so much of sasha’s development are suddenly vanished in respectively eerie ways. nina disappears in search of her husband into the vastness of the east, and mishka is sent to siberia for his words, and we presumably never hear from these two important characters ever again. i actually had to put the book down before 1943 in those last few pages because it just hit me like a train. to me depriving them the actuality and absolution of a death scene is way more heartwrenching than any death scene the author could have written.

its also something about the introduction of sofia and the bigger roles that anna, andrey, emile, marina and osip seem to have filled. with nina and mishka being whisked off into the void of likely death i have a sinking feeling that some of those characters may be next. to be honest i struggle to fully understand and like alexander as a character but i also think that’s the point and i’m starting to see that subtle development that we all know and love.

anna as a character.......... one day she’ll get her own post because whew god this is the only hot female love interest character written with actual interesting aspects beyond huge tits hot face ive seen by a male author and she is so compelling and the fact that she gets her own fleshed out role in the story is gorgeous

i think?? i’ll probably understand a lot more of the aspects of the book later on in my life. i feel like right now i’m too young to truly appreciate it, because i see the nuance in the writing and the quirks and beauties in alexander’s character but there’s something about him i just find so unlikeable, and that’s what’s made me so resistant to finishing the book. it’s probably one of the better ‘ussr bad’ novels written mostly because it also discusses the corruption and dismissive attitudes of western europeans and americans towards the ussr. 

anyways please read this book and discuss it with me and god oh god i gotta say i cried during the bees on the roof scene iykyk i still have ~250 pages to go but i’m too invested to quit

#FUCK #hey @amortowles why #books #she speaks #i love rambling about books i read #i need to do that more #like god... this fucking book #This Fucking Book #also making me think that we can recognize how bad the ussr was #and how they participated in genocide and murder #and also understand that a lot of what we are taught in the u.s. is propaganda #especially about communism in general #my beliefs on it are another thing but #we can recognize both sides of the argument for sure i think #i'm just glad this book isn't preaching how bad communism is without mentioning the shit that was happening in the us too #and in western europe #just.... yeah #i have a lot of thoughts on this book #im supposed to be in precalc rn but no #<3 #please read it god