Girls, This Is A Literary Feast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   The gentleman in question is Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov.  It is 1922--the post "Doctor Zhivago" era--and he is, in effect, being confined in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow for, of all things, being an aristocrat!  Sounds very much like today, where anyone who dares shows a sign of sophistication and taste is regarded as a threat to American society.

                                     But the novel spans several decades, and is ripe with interesting characters, including a former film actress, a precocious child, Nina, who starts off as sort of the "Eloise" of the place, then runs off to become a revolutionary, and  her daughter, Sofia, who is left with Rostov, and whom he raises as his own daughter, to become the toast of the music world in both London and Paris.

                                     It sounds all so grand, dears, and it is.  But this is no Tolstoyan epic; though his works, as well as those of Dostoevksy are mentioned often enough to make me think about reading them again.  Rostov seems always to be carrying a copy of "Anna Karenina," which is not a bad idea, in and of itself.  This novel, unlike the rests, clock in at 462 pages, with things wrapped up nicely.

                                    To say anymore would be to rob the reader of a pleasurable literary experience. Even if one is not going through a difficult time, such as I, the novel is detailed and absorbing enough, and I now look forward, in the near future to reading Towles' "Rules Of Civility."

                                      And maybe "War And Peace--" for the third time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!