A book a day: Amor Towles: Table for two

I am not going to break down the plot of each story here, as it would take many pages and would probably reveal its development excessively, although I will say that the approach varies a lot from one story to another, so that we can find a story of Russian peasants who , after verifying that life does not change excessively if one does nothing to remedy it (“wars come and go, rulers rise and fall, popular beliefs establish and wane, but a furrow will always be a furrow”), they decide to leave to New York looking for a life with which to improve his condition. In this story the author talks about the struggle to improve and the contrast in mentalities between the Marxism of his life in Moscow and the capitalism prevailing in American society. Also in another story the author deals with ambition and honesty, two characteristics that are often opposed and that place his character at crossroads from which he does not always choose the best option. We can also find, in another story where he talks about love, perseverance and redemption, a warm portrait of the fleeting friendships that are woven in unexpected moments and the lives that each of us leads and that can rarely be known from the outside without delving deeper. in the relationship. In another text, the author shows his ability to create warm and commendable characters, in a story that focuses on what we appear and what we really are, what we need in life and what we hide and the need that each of us has for show ourselves as we are, even if it is hidden from those closest to us. The author also tells us about the importance of art and the price that works have in another of the stories, just as, in the last short text, the author returns us, in a great narrative, to the great settings of the class. high American and gives us a portrait of honesty, intentions and their results, and love for the beauty of music and the company with which we enjoy it. Great scenarios that the author treats perfectly in his latest story, the longest by far with more than two hundred, in which the author returns to us the character of Eve (whom we already met in “Rules of Courtesy”) who stars in this last story, a story in which the author changes register again and embarks us on a story of intrigues and police investigations, high society and corruption although it is true that, despite (and unfortunately) being the longest, the story It is enjoyed mainly because of Towles’ firm handwriting and the aura that surrounds his narrative, not because of an argument in which one does not really know where it is going or what it intends until almost halfway through the story.