Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Rules of Civility is a contest between Washington and Thoreau. Washington recorded a set of ‘rules of civility’, and one of the characters (“Tinker”) tries to follow them. They have to do with how to treat other people. If they were your only rules, you’d be very formal. You’d know how to do things; but if you wanted to know what to do or why, Washington doesn’t give much help.
(I’m sure Washington’s writings give that help elsewhere. But not the Rules of Civility.)
The other book of advice is Walden. Self-reliance, nature, reading, solitude, et cetera. This is the guiding star of the protagonist and narrator. The novel tells the story of a year in her life when she was friends with Tinker, who followed the Washington star.
It’s nice when the author telegraphs what moral codes the novel is about. Yes, it’s a morality play. Here are the choices before you: Rules of Civility versus Walden. Here’s how a character living the Walden life looks. Here’s how a character living the Rules of Civility life looks. Here’s how they interact. Here’s the end result.
This, to me, is one of the strengths of the novel form. The reader dwells long and closely with the characters, and, in a way, lives their lives from within. So the moral choices feel like real moral choices in a way that’s hard for a poem or a movie to achieve. (Those forms have their own strengths, of course.) This kind of novel is like an Aesop fable if you were able to spend four or five hours feeling what it’s like to be the fox. Or whatever animal.
Otherwise, the novel is a pretty straightforward love song to New York. Why are there so many novels set in New York in which the characters spend all day thinking about New York? New York may have some sort of faerie glamour spell on it that makes people write these novels.