Playing games

Amor Towles

Two months ago ("Clever foolishness," April 15, 2024) I mentioned the Sebastian Faulks novel A Fool's Alphabet in which the chapter titles are names of cities in alphabetical order, from Anzio to Zanica. I thought of that while reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.

All of Towles's chapter titles not only begin with the letter A, but every word in the chapter titles begins with that letter. Thus we find chapters called:

An Actress, an Apparition, an Apiary

Arachne's Art

Ascending, Alighting

Adagio, Andante, Allegro

An Announcement

Antics, Antitheses, an Accident

Applause and Acclaim

Is there a point to all this? Like Faulks, Towles seems to be playing an intellectual game with himself. Can he think of appropriate chapter titles with certain characteristics? That Towles is fond of such games is demonstrated elsewhere in his novel. The count, his main character, plays mental games at every meal with the girl he is raising as his daughter. For example, they take turns naming things that come in groups of three, such as morning, noon and night or Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Clearly Towles enjoys such games, and he encourages his readers to enjoy them, too.