Books & Java

Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

Synopsys:

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast--rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is a ahead of her time,and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets.

My Review:

Perhaps the best book I have read this year. I feel compelled to compare it Fitzgerald's Gatsby or Capote's Tiffany's but it would be unfair to Mr. Towles to make comparisons as this story of Katie Kontent is so well-written and fascinating that it deserves to stand on its own without comparison. First of all, it is rare to find a book that you just can't find absolutely anything to fault. Although I am not a fan of looking for what could be wrong or done better this book is simply flawless. Every character is equal parts villain (I hate to use such a harsh word) equal parts hero/heroine. In every part of the story, I found myself preferring a character for specific qualities just to change my mind by the next page and find a new reason why another character is simply perfection. They are all flawed, they are all human, they are all significantly reacting to the time (the late 1930s) and the place in which they live (New York City). I sincerely felt that I could experience through the story what it would have been like to be in those circles. The story is of Katie Kontent, a native, first generation, New Yorker of humble Russian ancestry. She is strong, kind, well-intended, optimistic, a little idealistic but overall simple and unfamiliar with the lives of the multi-generational wealth of the New York elite. In her simple and un-pretentious manner, she is thrust into circles of wealth and gentry that a girl of her station could only dream of. She embraces these new circles along with the handsome banker Tinker Gray and her roommate and friend - Eve Ross. She moves through high-society as an observant and participant at times. However, she finds the ironies of the way high-society civility is only unique to them because of circumstance and not as a character flaw to be judged harshly. I don't want to give away any of the story line but will say that Mr. Towles account of a coming-of-age year in Katie Kontent's life is thought-provoking and quite relevant as a statement on the most basic needs and wants of people - in 1930 as in any other time in history. I was not familiar with Washington's Rules of Civility but they are included as part of the book's appendix and I have to admit that I found myself reading and re-reading them... Once more, the relevance in spite of time and place is wonderfully thought-provoking. Mr. Towles uses dialogue so beautifully that you will find yourself repeating the words he so eloquently strings together to express simple ideas. Simply an amazing read that I can't recommend enough.