When David O. Selznick produced Gone With the Wind, some Hollywood movie moguls told him it that was too long. Running time is 3 hours 46 minutes. It has an intermission. His response was that the answer to the question of how long should a movie be, was reportedly, “As long as it is good.” I would say that reasoning also applies to novels.
I just finished two critically acclaimed novels that some probably feel are long, but, to me, they were not longer than they were good. Compared to two of the greatest novels ever written, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind and Tolstoy’s War and Peace, both running more than a thousand pages, A Gentleman in Moscow, hardcover at 462 pages, and All the Light We Cannot See, hardcover at 522 pages, are really not all that long.
Both are excellent reads. If I had to rate them, I’d list Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See first. To me, it has greater emotional depth. It’s historical background is World War II. Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow is, in a sense, more entertaining. It has a lot of laughs, even if its background is the reign of one of the most notorious dictators of all time, Joseph Stalin. The “gentleman” is Count Rostov, who was sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. I recommend both if you’re into historical fiction.
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