Ivan Turgenev: "Bezhin Meadows" and More

[Extollager]

"Bezhin Meadows" is one of the Sketches from a Hunter's Album (aka Sportsman's Sketches, etc.). Along with Chekhov's marvelous novella "The Steppe" and some pages of Sergei Aksakov, it has helped to create a country of the imagination in my mind, a place created by words (and a bit by paintings by such as Levitan, etc.). This vast Russian plain is something that, for me, is, so far at least, largely a literary entity, like Sherlock Holmes's London, though it is a real geographical place (or was), too.

It looks quite a lot like the region in which I live in North Dakota. I like to say rural north Dakota is a great place to read Russian literature.

Anyway, here is a thread for discussion of Turgenev. I'm guessing most of those who've read him know him through Fathers and Sons, but there's more by him that is worth reading. The Penguin Classics have a good five books or so of his writings.

 

[Bick]

Yes, I like Turgenev, as far I can say that, because I have indeed read Fathers and Sons (how predictable!). I have been thinking of reading Torrents of Spring too though - its mentioned by the protagonist in a Haruki Murakami novel (Kafka on the Shore I think), and this set me to thinking it might be great, as Murakami has excellent taste in western/classic literature. The same character is a big Somerset Maugham fan which augers well. Have you or anyone else read Torrents pf Spring?

 

[Extollager]

I have a copy, haven't read it yet. I'd set it where I'd see it -- was thinking I might read it in the next few months. The ones I've read are Fathers and Sons, Sketches from a Sportsman's Album, First Love (novella), King Lear of the Steppe (novella), and Home of the Gentry. Also a short story or novella called "Mumu"... Any of these would be worth reading, at least as translated by Constance Garnett or a more recent translator, I would think. Some of the early Turgenev translations were, I think, translations into English from French translations. If you go checking for this author and the name is spelled Tourgenieff, you're probably looking at a dubious translation!

Btw the Pevear-Volokhonsky team has tackled Turgenev's play A Month in the Country --

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NE6PCH8/?tag=brite-21

 

[Bick]

They did the recent War and Peace? I loved that.