Rules of Civility

 

Rules of Civility – by Amor Towles

My guess is there were several thousand people who read this book for the same reason that I did.  They read this author’s second novel, the brilliant “A Gentleman in Moscow” and thought: “Wow! That was so awesome, I should read his FIRST (and to date, only other) book as well!” Well, this book was no “Moscow”.  It was good.  Very good.  But no “Moscow”.

The story starts in an art gallery in 1966. A couple in their 50s are viewing an exhibit of random photographs taken on trains of passengers in New York City in the late 1930s. Apparently the camera was hidden so the subjects didn’t know they were being “watched”.  The woman sees a familiar face in not one, but two of these photographs.  The man looks remarkably different in the two photos.  She reminisces.  Our real story begins.

So we’re transported to New York City in the year 1938.  We now read about the life of the woman we met in the art gallery who is now a single woman in her 20s.  This book is essentially a journal of her life over the span of a year.  Although the decade of the 1930s is remembered by history as being in the thick of the Great Depression, you wouldn’t really know that while reading about a year in the life of Katey Kontent.  She’s a far cry from wealthy, but she’s not starving either.  She has a decent job, somewhat decent living quarters, and meets a ton of very interesting people over the span of one year. Some of these new friends are definitely more well-off than she is, and some she becomes more intimate with than others. Although she has a humble background and is somewhat frugal, some of her new acquaintances allow her to taste a bit more of the exquisite culture and surroundings of the big city.

In many ways, this book is more about New York City in the late 1930s than it is about Katey. Author Amor Towles does a wonderful job describing the sights, sounds, smells and personalities of the specific time and place.  We almost feel as though we’re magically transported to a different era, and get a first-hand look at what makes the finer parts of the big city tick.

Although I enjoyed a virtual tour of the time and the place, it was the author’s handling of Katey that left me a bit cold.  I never felt like I really knew her. Even though she’s center-stage throughout the whole story and we saw first-hand everything she did, we’re never really told WHY she does anything.  I never knew what she was really thinking or feeling.  When she does things like take a particular job, or fall for a potential beau, I could never decipher exactly why she felt the way she did, and I confess I was always a bit surprised and even baffled when I observed many of her actions when we followed her around.  Perhaps this was the author’s intention? Perhaps I was supposed to connect some dots about her aloofness, yet I never really could put two and two together. In fact, the whole “a-ha” moment of this book didn’t really jar me as much as it seemingly was supposed to do.

Overall I was satisfied, though, by the end of the book.  It was an enjoyable story that always kept me interested.  I enjoyed “seeing” Manhattan during the few years before World War II happened, which I suppose changed everything forever.  I didn’t really feel, though, like I really understood the majority of the characters.  This book was big on places, but not so much on people.  Enjoyable overall, but not a “must read” either.