Fathers and Children excerpt: Anna Sergeevna Odintsova

I found a few passages from books I’ve read this year that I did not include in any post. That is a shame in this case since it is a key passage in understanding Odintsova. I described her in this post as follows: “a wealthy widow (age 29). Self-disciplined and reserved, she thrives on order. Her independence has come at a cost, and her reserve masks her feelings not just to others but to herself as well.”

From Chapter 16:

The colors of the rainbow would sometimes dance before her eyes, but she was always relieved when they faded and had no regrets. Her imagination even exceeded the boundaries of what’s considered permissible according to the laws of conventional morality; but even then her blood flowed as quietly as ever in her charmingly graceful and tranquil body. Sometimes, upon emerging from a frequent bath, all warm and soft, she’d fall to musing about the insignificance of life, its sadness, travail, and evil… Her soul would be filled with unexpected boldness and seethe with noble aspiration; but a draught of wind would blow in from a half-open window and Anna Segreevna would retreat into herself, complain, and feel almost angry; the only thing she needed at that moment was for the nasty wind to stop blowing on her.

(Translation by Michael R. Katz—ellipsis in original)

Turgenev gives us a suggestive glimpse into Odintsova’s body and soul. Everything that happens between her and Bazarov echoes this passage. Even when considering things outside “the laws of conventional morality” she remains calm and composed. Most importantly, when something foreign invades her world, like the wind or Bazarov, she recoils from it and turns back inside herself. Just one of many lovely passages in he Fathers and Children and one I should have included in my posts.

Fathers and Children summary

Portrait of Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
By Vasily Perov (1872)
Picture source

Young Man to Middle-Aged Man: ‘You had content but no force.’
Middle-Aged Man to Young Man: ‘And you have force but no content.’

- (The original epigraph to Fathers and Children which was later omitted.)

From Henry James' 1903 article on Turganev:

Nothing that Turgenev had to say could be more interesting than his talk about his own work, his manner of writing. What I have heard him tell of these things was worthy of the beautiful results he produced; of the deep purpose, pervading them all, to show us life itself. The germ of a story, with him, was never an affair of plot--that was the last thing he thought of: it was the representation of certain persons. The first form in which a tale appeared to him was as the figure of an individual, or a combination of individuals, whom he wished to see in action, being sure that such people must do something very special and interesting. They stood before him definite, vivid, and he wished to know, and to show, as much as possible of their nature. The first thing was to make clear to himself what he did know, to begin with; and to this end, he wrote out a sort of biography of each of his characters, and everything that they had done and that had happened to them up to the opening of the story. He had their dossier, as the French say, and as the police has that of every conspicuous criminal. With this material in his hand he was able to proceed; the story all lay in the question, What shall I make them do? He always made them do things that showed them completely; but, as he said, the defect of his manner and the reproach that was made him was his want of "architecture"--in other words, of composition.

Posts on Fathers and Children

Online resources for Ivan Turgenev

Fathers and Children online resources

Fathers and Children discussion:

Chapters 1 – 10

Chapters 11 – 19

Chapters 20 – 28

It seems my posts on Fathers and Children are almost as long as the work itself. At the risk of making this even longer, I’m going to include another quote and link. The first is from Isaiah Berlin as he describes the reaction Turgenev received upon release of the novel (from Fathers and Children: Turgenev and the Liberal Predicament):

In the violent babel of voices aroused by the novel, at least five attitudes can be distinguished. There was the angry right wing which thought that Bazarov represented the apotheosis of the new nihilists, and sprang from Turgenev’s unworthy desire to flatter and be accepted by the young. There were those who congratulated him on successfully exposing barbarism and subversion. There were those who denounced him for this wicked travesty of the radicals, for providing reactionaries with ammunition and playing into the hands of the police; by them he was called renegade and traitor. Still others, like Dimitri Pisarev, proudly nailed Bazarov’s colors to their mast and expressed gratitude to Turgenev for his honesty and sympathy with all that was most living and fearless in the growing party of the future. Finally there were some who detected that the author himself was not wholly sure of what he wanted to do, that his attitude was genuinely ambivalent, that he was an artist and not a pamphleteer, that he told the truth as he saw it, without a clear partisan purpose.

This controversy continued in full strength after Turgenev’s death. It says something for the vitality of his creation that the debate did not die even in the following century, neither before nor after the Russian Revolution.

There is something to be said for ticking off all the right people. That there was a controversy and it continues demonstrates the triumph in creating a work with “real” characters instead of having a debate of ideas between caricatures.

Coincidentally, the post today by Patrick Kurp at Anecdotal Evidence on `Serenity, Dignity and Cool Radiance' has a quote from Zbigniew Herbert looking at the direct descendents of Bazarov. Along the way, Kurp quotes Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple, mentioned in the Turgenev online resources post) during a visit to the University of Liberia’s library during its civil war. Turgenev makes an unexpected appearance along with the bastard offspring of Bazarov.

Update: One additional quote from the work regarding Anna Sergeevna Odintsova

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 20 – 28

This final section covers from Arkady’s and Bazarov’s trip to visit Bazarov’s parents to the end of the book. The translation I’m reading is by Michael R. Katz so all quotes will come from his version, while the translation by Richard Hare can be found at Mootnotes.com.

Characters
Characters introduced in this section:

Vasily Ivanych Bazarov—Bazarov’s father. A former army doctor, he has retired to his manor. Educated but self-effacing when confronted with his newer methods and advances in medicine. Along with his wife they show a mixture of fear and devotion to their son.

Arina Vlasevna Bazarova—Bazarov’s mother. Turgenev describes her as a throwback to earlier times, “a genuine Russian noblewoman” that is “devout and emotional” as well as superstitious. “She loved and feared her son incredibly”. “Such women are no becoming much harder to find. God know whether that’s a good or a bad thing!” It’s interesting to compare her to Anna Odintsova, a ‘newer’ Russian woman.

Generational struggle
I’ve only highlighted a little of the generational struggle that Bazarov and Arkady declared, and the previous post showed Bazarov beginning to question his own beliefs after his rejection by Odintsova. ‘Struggle’ may be a misnomer since the resistance and rejection lies solely with the “children” part of the title. The fathers (and mother) portrayed all dote on their children to the point of idolatry. The thanks the parents get? “When you look from the side or from a distance at the empty life our “fathers” led, you think: what could be better?” Bazarov romanticizes the older generations “empty life” while living an empty life of his own. Bazarov is very dismissive of everything that has gone before, but one comparison stands out. His dad survived an outbreak of the plague. Bazarov can’t survive a single exposure to typhus.

The inward contradictions of Bazarov’s outlook pop up everywhere. He decries romanticism, yet participates in duel with Pavel. He could have caustically bowed out, yet he didn’t want to give Pavel that satisfaction (a very ‘romantic’ notion). Bazarov denies anything and everything that has come before him, yet he follows scientific methods developed over the centuries by others. Is it easier to deny the contributions of others if you fail to contribute anything yourself? Bazarov’s renunciations end up being more pinpoint complaints rather than the blanket denial he intends.

Like every generation before him that rejects wholesale all that has come before, wishing to remake the world in their own image, many of the things he is fighting for are destined for failure. Fortunately Arkady, when falling in love with Katya, sees beyond himself and tells her “I’m no longer searching for ideals where I did previously…”. On the other hand, Bazarov’s language continues to be incendiary, sounding eerily like revolutionary rhetoric that would come later:

“You aristocrats can never get any further than noble submission or noble indignation, and all that’s nonsense. You, for instance, you won’t fight—yet you think you’re a fine fellow—but we want to fight. What of it? The dust we raise will blind your eyes, our mud will splatter you, but you haven’t reached our level; you admire yourself unconsciously, take pleasure in abusing yourself; but we find all this boring—give us someone else! We’ve got to smash someone else!”

Bazarov
The more I saw Bazarov I became more impressed with the depth and complexity that Turgenev created. The author could have made the character as one-dimensional as critics during his time claimed, but there is a richness within Bazarov despite himself.

He obviously loves his parents, talking very positively about them to Arkady despite continually poking fun at them. “Bazarov tells Arkady that his parents “are occupied, and don’t worry in the least about their own insignificance; they don’t give a damn about it…While I…I feel only boredom and anger.” The boredom and anger can exist because of his own insignificance. His life up to this point has been only promise and potential. The anger also results from Odintsova’s rejection but there does seem to be some wistfulness (on his part) at his parents’ acceptance of their roles, something he is unable to do until he is on his deathbed.

Flirting with Fenechka is not an act to undermine Nikolai or show any disrespect, but rather Bazarov carrying on with his view of women in general: “If you like a woman,” he used to say, “try to gain your end…”. After having his heart toyed with and crushed so recently, resuming his flirtatious ways so quickly confirms his lack of sympathy for others. As with his parents, Bazarov seems to view others as existing to serve him despite his grandiose statements of serving mankind.

After Odintsova rejects him, Bazarov declares “That’s the only thing I’m proud of. I haven’t destroyed myself, and no woman’s going to destroy me.” Yet he allows that to happen in the end. He becomes a laughingstock to the peasants around him, losing one contrast he made with Pavel on who was better suited to talk with the common people. His death follows a meaningless act—a botched autopsy of a peasant that died from typhus. It does make for the wonderful Chapter 27, however. The look of horror in his eyes upon receiving extreme unction from the priest could be his reaction to the sacrament, as well as facing up to the emptiness of his beliefs.

Despite the façade and empty rhetoric, Bazarov is capable of magnanimous behavior. He behaves honorably in treating Pavel’s wound and ending the duel. He could have behaved even better by firing into the air. And he could have avoided the duel completely by not flirting with Fenechka. Fortunately something exists deep within that keeps him from being a simple caricature. On a side note, Bazarov appears to be a forerunner of several characters created by Dostoevsky. With his father’s statement that “It’s not appropriate to judge people like him by ordinary standards” it feels like the groundwork is laid for the later writer.

Structure, techniques, devices
Talking about structure, techniques and/or devices used in a work is well outside my comfort zone, but Fathers and Children benefits from Turgenev’s structure. The story builds and progresses as Arkady and Bazarov move across the countryside. Seeing these characters in different settings reveals more about each character, such as when Bazarov visits his parents. Turgenev pauses each time a new character is introduced and gives a brief biographical sketch. Yet some things that are vitally important in understanding a character—Pavel real view of Nikolai’s mistress Fenechka, for example—are withheld until the last moment.

The structure also provides symmetry with events. There are several instances of overhearing things in a garden, which reveals the opinions of the conversationalists of and to the listener. The eavesdropping device also complicates events at the end, whether Pavel seeing Bazarov kissing Fenechka or Bazarov revealing Arkady’s past love for Anna Odintsova. The unrequited loves of Pavel and Bazarov provide a comparison of how they handle, or rather fail to handle, the situation as Turgenev describes their condition as “the persistence of former passion in a man.” The figurative death of Pavel from his affair is followed by Bazarov’s literal death, romanticism meeting nihilism. There are many more symmetries, which makes the short novel feel much fuller.

Turgenev keeps to a minimum the time spent inside a character’s head. He develops the story more through description, conversation, action, and interaction. An example of the latter comes from Fenechka and her son Mitya instantly gravitating toward Bazarov despite his seeming brusque rhetoric. Many things are left ambiguous, such as Bazarov’s death. Was it (effectively) a suicide or simple negligence? Was there a difference in his case? Turgenev takes pains to distance himself from his characters: “Was the truth, the whole truth, contained in their words? They didn’t know, and the author knows even less.”

The final chapter allows Turgenev to tie up any loose ends and follow what happens to the surviving characters. By pairing up almost every character, I felt like I was reading the end of a Shakespeare comedy although the merriment is tempered by the sad spectacle of Bazarov’s parents. Their grief offsets all the festivities while Bazarov is forgotten by everyone else.

Pushkin sightings
One specific mention of Pushkin occurs in this section, which is funny since the poet would be called a romantic by Bazarov in a very dismissive manner:

[Bazarov]“Nature induces the silence of sleep,” Pushkin said.

“He said nothing of the sort,” Arkady replied.

“Well, even if he didn’t, he could’ve and should’ve, as a poet. By the way, he must’ve served in the military.”

“Pushkin was never a soldier.”

“Really? But on every page he writes, ‘To battle, to battle! For the honor of Russia!’”

What sort of nonsense are you fabricating?”

The very end of the novel alludes to one of Pushkin’s poems. The ending:

However passionate, sinful, rebellious the heart buried in this grave, the flowers growing on it look out as us serenely with their innocent eyes: they tell us not only of that eternal peace, that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and life everlasting…

Pushkin’s poem, translated by G.R.Ledger:

If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone's hour is already at hand.

When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers'.

If I caress a young child,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.

Each day, every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.

And where will fate send death to me?
In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?
Or will the neighbouring valley
Receive my chilled ashes?

And although to the senseless body
It is indifferent wherever it rots,
Yet close to my beloved countryside
I still would prefer to rest.

And let it be, beside the grave's vault
That young life forever will be playing,
And impartial, indifferent nature
Eternally be shining in beauty.

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 11 - 19

Picture source

Approximately the middle third of the book, this section covers Arkady’s and Bazarov’s trips to the town of *** and the Nikolskoe estate, ending as they are about to leave for Bazarov’s parents’ manor. The translation I’m reading is by Michael R. Katz so all quotes will come from his version.

Characters
Additional characters introduced in this section:

Victor Sitnikov—friend of Bazarov, going as far as to say he’s a disciple. Intellectual lightweight with no social graces.

Evdoksiya (Avdotya) Kukshina--married, but separated woman in the town of ***. At first it seems like she might be a female Bazarov, but the more you see of her the more you realize the basis for her name (see below) is fitting.

Anna Sergeevna Odintsova--a wealthy widow (age 29). Self-disciplined and reserved, she thrives on order. Her independence has come at a cost, and her reserve masks her feelings not just to others but to herself as well.

Katerina (Katya) Sergeevna Lokteva--Anna’s younger sister. Either 18 or 21 (Turganev gives both ages).

I found the following key or sources of names at the Wellesley College 19th Century Russian Literature course page (and attributed to Thomas P. Hodge). It is humorous to see how the names fit the characters. I’ve changed the site's spelling to match the translation I’m reading:

Arkady: Arcas, son of Zeus and King of Arcadia (which was named after him), a sparsely populated, mountainous region in Central Greece adopted by the poets as a symbol of the quiet, rustic life

Bazarov: (Russ.) bazar = bazaar; also, the noise and commotion attached to it. Also bazarit´/razbazarit´ = to waste one’s time, talent and energy on fruitless pursuits

Kirsanov: (? Russ.) kirasir or cuirassier = a prestigious category of officer in the Napoleonic period (reminiscent of Arkady’s grandfather, the old general)

Odintsova: (Russ.) odin = one, alone, solitary, lonely

Kukshina: (Russ.) kuksha = colloquial term for certain birds of the crow family

Sitnikov: (Russ.) sitnik = a loaf of bread made from sifted flour

Generational struggle
Nikolai laments the distance he feels between him and Arkady. Musing over the difference he thinks “(I)t also seems to me that they’re farther from the truth than we are; but at the same time, I feel they have something we lack, some advantage over us…Youth? No, it’s not only youth.” If true, based on what I have seen so far I would vote for conviction and ignorance. “Perhaps their advantage consists in the fact that there’re fewer traces of gentry mentality left in them than in us?” However, given the behavior of the boors the reader is about to meet, the gentry mentality may be good for something after all.

In this same passage Nikolai bemoans having vainly spent time trying to stay close to Arkady. Hinted at here is the common thread of parenthood of intimately learning about your child as they develop. What I rarely see, and Nikolai has shown no reflection on this so far, is the corollary I have found in fatherhood, namely that you will find out much more about yourself during the process.

Bazarov
While at Evdoksiya’s house, Bazarov bluntly asks “Are there any pretty women around here?”, a seemingly un-Bazarov-like thing to say. Yet it isn’t necessarily a contradiction, as Turgenev points out later. “Bazarov was a great lover of women and feminine beauty, but love in the ideal sense, or, as he expressed it, in the romantic sense, he called rubbish or unforgivable stupidity; he considered chivalrous feelings something akin to deformity or disease…”. For him, women were there to use, and if you didn’t accomplish your goal, move on to the next one. Yet those beliefs fall by the wayside in just a few short weeks.

Bazarov clearly falls under Anna’s spell, just as much or more than Arkady does initially. He tries to mask it with his usual detachment: “What a delectable body!” continued Bazarov. “Perfect for the dissecting table.” But as he falls further in love his anxiety increases, as does his agitation within himself and to others around him.

Some more on Bazarov’s philosophy: “I can tell you it isn’t worth the trouble to study separate individuals. All people resemble each other, in soul as well as body; each one of us has a brain, spleen, heart, and lungs, all made similarly. So-called moral qualities are also shared by everyone: small variations don’t mean a thing. A single human specimen’s sufficient to make judgments about all the rest.” He goes on to declare society’s dysfunction as the cause of an individual’s moral illness.

Some of the contradictions underlying Bazarov’s philosophy are explicitly mentioned in this section: “Bazarov complained, but it was precisely because ‘everything moved along rails’ that he and Arkady lived so comfortably in Odintsova’s house.” He is happy to enjoy the benefits provided by others or those that have gone before him even as he disparages them. Or, as the basis of his philosophy dictates, denies they have anything to offer him.

Bazarov has been an insufferable prick up to his rejection by Odintsova and it is precisely at that point that he could be a likeable character, depending on what he does next. The turmoil within him goes beyond the rejection—his nihilism cannot explain or account for the emotions he feels. Here is something that biology cannot fathom. He has had his legs cut out from underneath him for several reasons and his inability to stand has the potential to yield sympathy.

Arkady
Changes occur in Arkady in this section, although some are harder to perceive than others. He still follows Bazarov’s lead, rudely leaving Evdoksiya Kukshina’s house or Sitnikov’s carriage for example. His feelings to Katya develop slowly, but they are deeper than his infatuation with Odintsova. The infatuation, however, remains strong and drives a wedge between him and Bazarov as Odintsova clearly prefers the company of his friend. As he spends more time with Katya, he finds they have things in common—things that contradict the clinical coldness of his stated nihilism. “Katya adored nature, and Arkady loved it, though dared not admit it.” Having been Bazarov’s disciple, it will be interesting to see how the differences between them, both in having been infatuated with the same woman as well as Arkady yielding to his emotions about Katya (and apparently accepted), will play out.

Anna Odintsova
Anna’s interest in Bazarov initially begins as curiosity. As I mentioned earlier, her reserve seems to mask what she is truly feeling not just to others but to herself as well. Does she fall in love with Bazarov? It certainly seems that way and she definitely sends him the signals that she has.

While mentally torn as to what to do, she is unable to either make up her mind or act. Bazarov follows her lead, unable to act until she prods him to do so. In letting him know he has misunderstood her, she realizes she does not understand her own feelings, the strength of which also bothers her. There is an outward similarity of character between Anna and Bazarov in their coldness and aloofness but that resemblance masks deep differences. Bazarov is driven by a rigid philosophical purity while Anna chooses certainty and serenity. While both characters feel an emotional turmoil, Bazarov yields to his feelings while Anna attempts to squelch hers in order to return to certainty and safety. “Under the influence of various vague emotions, an awareness of life passing by, a desire for novelty, she’d forced herself to reach a certain point, to look beyond it—and there she glimpsed not even an abyss, but a void…or formless chaos.” Anna was a sympathetic character up to the point of her rejection of Bazarov, and could have been so even after it. Seeing that her idleness and curiosity are the only reasons for leading Bazarov on effectively closes the door on that consideration.

Music
Music plays a role in the novel when Katya plays Mozart’s Sonata-Fantasia in C Minor for Arkady. While the music moves Arkady, the mournful strains reflect his unrequited feelings toward Anna, it also causes him to notice Katya and gives him something to talk about with her. Music also helped set a scene in the previous section when Arkady’s father plays Schubert on the cello (and Bazarov, of course, mocks him).

Pushkin sightings
Echoes of Eugene Onegin are in the following exchange:

“What a splendid woman Anna Sergeevna is,” Eclaimed Arkady, when left alone later with his companion in the room reserved for them.

“Yes,” answered Bazarov, “that lady has a head on her shoulders. And she’s been around as well.”

“In what sense do you mean that, Evgeny Vasilich?”

“In a good sense, my dear boy, Arday Nikolaevich, in a good sense! I’m sure she also does a fine job managing her estate. But she’s not the splendid one—it’s her sister.”

The reasons differ from Onegin’s recommendation of the sister: Bazarov advocates Katya because she is young and malleable, unlike her older sister Anna. He may also want to lessen the competition for Anna (even though she clearly prefers Bazarov).

Quotes
Turgenev’s descriptions are fun to read and call forth additional images. Try not to think of the puckering word ‘lemon’ when reading about Anna’s aunt:

Anna Sergeevna’s auntie, the Princess Kh., a short slender woman with a face pinched like a fist and nasty, steady eyes under a gray wig, came in. Scarcely greeting the guests, she lowered herself into a large velvet-covered armchair, in which no one else had any right to sit. Katya placed a little bench under her feet; the old woman didn’t thank her and didn’t even glance up; she merely placed her hands underneath the yellow shawl covering almost her entire feeble body. The princess loved the color yellow: she was also wearing a cap with bright yellow ribbons.

At Nikolskoe, after Anna’s rejection of Bazarov comes a little comic relief:

The appearance of mediocrity is sometimes a useful thing in life: it soothes strings that have been stretched too taut and it sobers emotions that have become too self-confident or forgetful, suggesting their own close proximity to the mediocre. With Sitnikov’s arrival everything became somehow duller—and simpler; everyone even ate a heartier supper and toddled off to bed half an hour earlier than usual.

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 1 – 10

Turgenev's father
Picture source

The novel is relatively short, but there is so much to sort through that I’ll probably have three posts to discuss it. Online resources can be found in this post while the text can be found here. I am reading the translation by Michael R. Katz, so all quotes will come from his version.

Characters
For those unfamiliar with the story (and for those who get as easily turned around by Russian names as I do), brief sketches of the major characters, as have been developed so far, follow:

Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov—landlord with a privileged background (his father was a general during the war in 1812). Never quite living up to expectations, he married after his parents’ death. About ten years after son Arkady was born, his wife died. Consumed with grief, he seems to live his life through Arkady. Liberal in thought, he has freed his serfs and employs help.

Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov—Nikolai’s older brother. Growing up there was a strong contrast between the two, with Pavel the extraverted, athletic brother as compared to Nikolai’s passive introversion. A promising career in the army was cut short after disappointment in a love affair. Pavel retains aristocratic airs, even after moving into his brother’s estate in the country. Pavel is the more practical of the two brothers.

Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov—Nikolai’s son, who has just finished his undergraduate degree. He clearly loves his father even if he doesn’t always show it. Although he follows Bazarov and his ideas, the reader begins to see a struggle within Arkady for where his loyalties lie.

Fenechka—servant in Nikolai’s house. She and Nikolai are the parents of Mitya (about seven months old when the novel opens).

Evgeny Vasilev Bazarov—student who has graduated with Arkady, and will return for post-graduate studies in medicine. Conceited and arrogant when it comes to his beliefs, he also shows a playful side which endears children and servants to him.

Generational struggle and the cost of improvements
Bazarov notes of the previous generation that they are “these aging romantics”, which depending on how it is said can actually be an endearment or an annoyance. Given his comments on Nihilism (see below), he probably wasn’t complimenting them. More on the generational friction in the next posts.

Arkady muses on the drive home that the loss of the forest is not necessarily a good thing, even though it is part of the price of freeing the serfs. While reforms are regarded as essential, the volume and cost of what is needed to improve seems overwhelming. Arkady, mimicking Bazarov, demands that minor changes are not acceptable. Yet he has seen the cost inflicted just from one estate of doing the right thing and the reader can sense his hesitation already.

Influence of women
The role and power of women in the lives of the older male characters is set up to be repeated with the younger generation. Nikolai’s wife died and he was devastated—his hair quickly turned gray and he was inactive at his country estate for quite a while. Nikolai is so embarrassed by his relationship with Fenechka, who held a power over him early in the relationship, that he cannot even bring himself to discuss it with his son Arkady.

As mentioned above, Pavel had a promising career in the military but resigned to chase Princess R. Her rejection drove him crazy as he tried to track her down for ten years. After he learns of her death (or losing his past, as Turgenev puts it), he retires to his brother’s country estate.
Bazarov, on Pavel’s unhappiness: “Still I say that a man who stakes his whole life on a woman’s love and, when that one card gets beaten, turns sour and sinks to the point where he’s incapable of doing anything at all, then that person is no longer a man, not even a male of the species.” And Bazarov further judges him when commenting “(I)t’s all that lack of discipline, shallowness!” While harsh and unforgiving, it is in keeping with Bazarov’s arrogance and (seeming) cold strength. Love is dismissed as “all romanticism, nonsense, rubbish, artifice.”

Nihilism
Much is made of Nihilism and Bazarov being a Nihilist. However the meaning s given by the characters are different than what is usually assumed by the terms today. It is interesting to note that Bazarov never defines it himself, but Arkady’s initial definition comes close to one aspect of Bazarov’s intent: “A nihilist is a person who doesn’t bow down before authorities, doesn’t accept even one principle on faith, no matter how much respect surrounds that principle.” The response this gets from the older gentlemen ranges from bemusement (Nikolai) to skepticism (Pavel). Pavel archly replies, on seeing Bazarov’s bag of frogs for experiments, “He doesn’t believe in principles, but he believes in frogs.”

Bazarov notes that “A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet.” He utterly rejects the possibility of knowing anything…that everything must be razed and relearned. “First we need to study the alphabet and only later learn how to read books; we haven’t even begun with our ABCs.” While he claims not to believe in anything, he certainly has a lot of presumptions about Pavel and that type of “provincial aristocrats”, one hint that he may not be all he claims.

Bazarov
Bazarov automatically dismisses the countryside, snidely commenting that it is a pity there is no one to charm in it. Regarding children, he notes, “I have a way with them.” And he truly seems to, in addition to (most of) the help. Reactions to Bazarov vary: Fenechka felt comfortable with him, Pavel comes to despise him while Nikolai is concerned about his influence on Arkady. There are hints early on that Bazarov doesn’t exactly live up to his own standard. One example occurs soon after meeting Fenechka when he asks for her patronymic. If precedents aren’t important, why does this concern him?

In addition to the generational struggle, Bazarov highlights a class struggle as well. When Pavel denounces Bazarov as not being Russian, Bazarov proudly, and probably correctly, notes that he can talk with the peasants easier and freer than the older man can. However that doesn’t mean he holds the peasants in high esteem. Or any other Russian, for that matter. “What difference does that make? [That he, Bazarov, has a low opinion of the Russians] The only good point about a Russian is that he has a very low opinion of himself. What’s important is that two times two makes four; all the rest’s nonsense.”

Pushkin
In talking about First Love I meant to mention that Turgenev used an innovative way to work Pushkin into the story and here he does the same thing early in the book. Nikolai begins quoting Eugene Onegin, only to be interrupted by Bazarov asking for a match. Later, the young men discuss having seen Nikolai reading Pushkin, with Bazarov dismissing the poet’s work as rubbish. There seems to be no place for an old ‘romantic’ writer or reader in their world.

Structure
I’m putting this here as a placeholder and reminder for me to focus on the structure in a later post.

And with that, I’ll finish my cobbling together this post and add a couple of quotes. Because of the controversy that Turgenev created with this novel, read the following with an eye toward which side of the argument you think he aligns himself:

Pavel Petrovich wrung his hands. “After that I don’t understand you. You insult the Russian people. I don’t see how it’s possible to reject principles and rules! On what basis can you act?”

“I’ve already told you, Uncle, we don’t accept any authorities,” Arkady intervened.

“We act on the basis of what we recognize as useful,” Bazarov replied. “Nowadays the most useful thing of all is rejection—we reject.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“What? Not only art and poetry…but even…it’s too awful to say…”

“Everything,” Bazarov repeated with indescribable composure.
…
…
…
[Pavel] “Then what are you doing?”

[Bazarov] “I’ll tell you what we’re doing. Previously, in recent times, we acknowledged that our civil servants take bribes, that we lack roads, commerce, true justice…”

“Well, yes, so, you’re denouncers—that’s what it seems to be called. I agree with many of your denunciations, but…”

“Then we realized that talking, simply talking all the time about our open sores isn’t worth the trouble, that it leads only to being vulgar and doctrinaire; we saw that even our intelligent men, our so-called progressives and denouncers, served no purpose at all, that we were preoccupied with a lot of nonsense, arguing over some form of art, unconscious creativity, parliamentarianism, legal profession, and the devil knows what else, while it was really a question of our daily bread, when we were being oppressed by the most primitive superstitions, when all our joint stock companies were collapsing merely as a result of honest men, while the emancipation, about which the government was so concerned, will hardly do any good because our peasants are happy to steal from themselves, as long as they can get stinking drunk in the tavern.”

“Yes,” Pavel Petrovich said, interrupting him, “I see: you’ve become convinced of all this and now have decided not to do anything serious about it.”

“We’ve decided not to do anything serious about it,” Bazarov repeated grimly. He was suddenly annoyed with himself for having been so expansive with this gentleman.

“And merely curse everything?”

“And curse everything.”

“And this is called nihilism?”

“And this is called nihilism,” Bazarov repeated again, this time with particular rudeness.

Pavel Petrovich wrinkled his face slightly. “So that’s how it is!” he said in a strangely serene voice. “Nihilism is supposed to relieve all our ills, and you, you’re our saviors and heroes. But then why do you abuse others, even those very denouncers? Aren’t you doing a lot of talking, too, just like all the rest?”

“We’re guilty of many sins, but not that one,” Bazarov said through his teeth.

“Well, then? Are you taking action or what? Are you preparing to take action?”

Bazarov made no reply. Pavel Petrovich gave a little shudder, but then gained control of himself. “Hmmm! To act, destroy…,” he continued. “But how can one destroy without even knowing why?”

“We destroy because we’re a force,” Arkady observed.

Pavel Petrovich looked at his nephew and smiled. [Note: in the original version, Pavel Petrovich replies to Arkady, “A fine thing, force—without any content.”]

“Yes, a force—one that doesn’t need to account for itself,” Arkady said and sat up straighter.
…
…
…
“I’ll be prepared to agree with you later,” he [Bazarov] said standing up, “when you present me with a single institution of contemporary life, either in the family or in the social sphere, that doesn’t deserve absolute and merciless rejection.”

Fathers and Children online resources

First edition in English,
Translated by Eugene Schuyler. New York: Leypoldt and Holt, 1867.
Picture source

Note: I am moving this post from July 23rd to here so it is closer to the discussion posts.

I feel I should spend a moment on the title, which has been a problem since the first English translation. The Russian title is Ottsy i deti, literally translated as “Fathers and Children”. Eugene Schuyler provided the first English translation, published in 1867. Schuyler’s translation was published in England as Fathers and Children while the American title was Fathers and Sons. I’m reading the translation by Michael R. Katz, so I’ll be consistent with his choice of titles in my posts. Some of the links below will have the 'Sons' title…. While not losing any sleep over the differences, I did want to point out the confusion and differences.



The text can be found at Mootnotes.com, translation by Richard Hare


An audio version at LibriVox

Some online resources for Turgenev can be found in this post

The Wikipedia entry on the novel

Here are a few articles or sites that I found interesting that are outside the normal study guide format:

The Novels of Turgenev: Symbols and Emblems, by Richard Peace, Professor Emeritus, University of Bristol

Context on the novel by Dr. Bruce T. Holl, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

Supplemental material to help understand the book, prepared by Prof. Catherine Kulesov (retired), and provided by Dr. Gary R. Jahn for his classes at the University of Minnesota.


Daniel Hocutt’s graduate seminar paper (at the University of Richmond)“Tracing Byron's Influence on the creation and development of the nihilist Bazarov in Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons” is available online.
There is a lot available on Turgenev and the political turbulence of the day. Here are two sections:
Bazarov as nihilist?
Forces of Negation
That Byron fellow sure seems to have had some influence on Russian writers (among others).

A paper by Jan Paul Mincarelli on why Bazarov had to die for proper function in the novel

In compiling these lists of resources, I often run across new blogs that make me want to dig into their archives and explore some more. Such is the reaction I got in reading Murr the cat’s take on this novel at The Lectern.

If anyone has a link for the song “Turgenev Women” by Centr (or Tsentr), let me know. This link is dead (and not just pining for the fjords).

A Sportsman’s Notebook summary

Preparations for Hunt by Evgraf Krendovsky (1836)
Picture source

I come back to Turgenev's own description of this book (which I quoted on the resources post):
"Much has come out pale and scrappy, much is only just hinted at, some of it's not -- right, oversalted or undercooked -- but there are other notes pitched exactly right and not out of tune, and it is these notes that will save the whole book."
Despite belonging to a different age and speaking out against a system that no longer exists, the simple beauty of Turgenev's prose (especially the pitch-perfect notes) makes it an enjoyable read today.


Ivan Turgenev online resources

Online resources for A Sportsman's Notebook

Discussions on the book:
One
Two
Three

The first paragraph of "Bezhin Meadow"

A quick look at Reading Turgenev by William Trevor and the so-called "Turgenev maiden"

A Sportsman’s Notebook discussion: three

A brief post on the last nine stories in (my version of) A Sportsman’s Notebook: “The Singers”, “Pyotr Petrovich Karataev”, “The Rendezvous”, “Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo”, “Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin”, “The End of Chertopkhanov”, “The Live Relic”, “The Knocking”, and “Forest and Steppe”.

The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found here. All quotes are from the translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn.

This section of the sketches is probably the most diverse in subject material as well as quality. “The Singers” introduces the Russian “pot-house”, a place where drinks are sold, the setting in several of these stories. The emotion that the singing invokes, far from feeling artificial, resonates within the audience (including the narrator) and the reader. Heartache runs throughout the sketch, from the singers, their songs, the listeners, and the final cries of the peasant boys. Alcohol will play a larger (and more explicit) role in these stories. The saddest part of the story comes from the fleeting nature of the happiness realized by the singers and the audience as they temporarily escape the numerous oppressive forces bedeviling them.

Turgenev walks a fine line throughout these sketches—his subtlety yields sympathy. In contrast, more detail (at times) reduces the compassion for the characters. The maiden in “The Rendezvous”, alluring at first, becomes less attractive as she allows her beau to continually mistreat her in an overly melodramatic tale. On the other hand, minimal compassion for peasant characters can grow to admiration (or at least sympathy) after meeting their buffoonish landowners. The title character in “Pyotr Petrovich Karataev” provides a good example of this change in feeling, the narrator stating that acquaintance with “such creatures” as Pyotr (described initially as a scoundrel) afford “no sort of pleasure.” Yet by the end of the story it is difficult not to sympathize with him. The bittersweet recitation of passages from Hamlet at the end of the tale feels fitting for such a character.

There are many literary references in this last section. “Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo” continues the Hamlet allusion, the title character embodying a self-awareness and loss of hope that Turgenev paints throughout many of his sketches. Turgenev’s 1860 speech contrasting such skepticism with idealism, “Hamlet and Don Quixote”, is anticipated throughout A Sportsman’s Notebook.

The longest tales (“Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin”, “The End of Chertopkhanov”) introduce characters that seem to be taken straight out of Gogol’s Dead Souls, displaying the same poshlost as the earlier work. The humor provided by these characters, loveable in spite of themselves, turns to pity as Chertopkhanov loves his lover, his friend, and (most importantly) his horse. The parodies in these two stories, as well as the beginning of “Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo”, provide a comedy that is devastatingly effective in pricking the egos of the noble class.

“Forest and Steppe” is the final tale, a beautiful hymn to nature, although the privileged perspective tarnishes it somewhat for me. “The Live Relic”, instead, feels like a more natural end to the book (even though it was added well after the other stories). The narrator, stopping by a family estate, finds a previously beautiful servant (Lukeira) wasting away due to an unknown illness. The story feels forced at times, yet it is still effective. Lukeira’s beatific acceptance of her fate stands in sharp contrast to the resignation shown by many other characters in other stories. She continually looks for the positive, celebrating whatever she finds regardless of how insignificant. (As an aside, in a way her outlook mirrors the narrator’s/Turgenev’s view toward nature in “Forest and Steppe”.) Her willing submission to whatever will happen is a fitting conclusion to A Sportsman’s Notebook.

A Sportsman’s Notebook discussion: two

Landscape with Oaks by Alexey Savrasov (1850s)
Picture source

A brief post on the next nine stories in A Sportsman’s Notebook: “Bezhin Meadow”, “ Kasyan from Fair Springs”, “ The Bailiff”, “The Estate Office”, “The Bear", "Two Landowners”, “Lebedyan”, “Tatyana Borisovna and Her Nephew”, and “Death”.

The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found here. All quotes are from the translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn.

Turgenev’s wonderful outdoor descriptions continue in this section. I’ve already quoted the beginning of “Bezhin Meadow” in a previous post, while here is an example from “Kasyan from Fair Springs”:

It is a strangely enjoyable occupation to lie on one’s back in the forest and look upwards. You seem to be looking into a bottomless sea, extending far and wide beneath you; the trees seem not to rise from the ground, but, like the roots of huge plants, to drop perpendicularly down into those glass-clear waves, and the leaves on the trees are now translucent as emeralds, now opaque with a goldish, almost blackish, green. Somewhere far, far away, at the end of its slender twig, a single leaf stands motionless against a blue patch of pellucid sky, and beside it another one sways with a movement like the play of a fish on a line, a movement that seems spontaneous and not produced by the wind. Like fairy islands under the sea, round wide clouds float quietly up and quietly away—and suddenly the whole sea, the radiant air, the sun-drenched branches and leaves, all begin to ripple and tremble with a transitory brilliance, and there comes a fresh, thrilling murmur, like the interminable fait splashing that follow the rising of a sudden swell. You gaze without stirring, and no words can express the gladness and peace and sweetness that catch at your heart. You look—and that deep, clear azure calls to your lips a smile as innocent as itself; like the clouds in the sky, and as it were in company with them, happy memories pass before you in slow procession, and you feel your gaze passing farther and farther into the distance, drawing you after it into that peaceful, radiant gulf, and you have no power to tear yourself away from its height, from its depth…

Beyond nature and hunting, there is a lot more depth in descriptions of peasant life and the position of the serfs in this section. Turgenev’s success in these portrayals comes from downplaying an apparent agenda, passively (usually) narrating the action and describing what he sees. It has an effect similar to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, where factual and lyrical writing also provide a portrait that is both horrifying and beautiful.

“Bezhin Meadow” focuses on children letting their horses feed at night. They tell ghost stories and other supernatural events they have witnessed or have heard. There has been something uniformly sad about the adult peasant characters so far that is missing from these boys. Their talk and stories show a faith that anything is possible. The "real" world intrudes at the end of the story with the death of one of the boys. There is something innocent in their belief in the supernatural, which seems to be shared by many of the adult peasants as well. Supernatural things are all around…things that cannot be controlled. It is a mindset that bleeds over into other areas, surrendering to fate and lack of control. The ultimate fate comes from the ever-impending possibility of death. The character who dies shortly after the events in the story says “You can’t escape your fate.” Always present death is the subject of the final story in this group, “Death”. The narrator muses that “Death takes the Russian strangely” while describing the end of several peasants. In most cases, their mind focuses on what must done to insure their death does not disrupt their family.

Kasyan, the title character in the next story, provides the most interesting character study so far in these tales. A dwarf with speech “not that of a peasant”, Kasyan displays convoluted but deeply felt principles. While describing how he and other peasants have been treated like property after their master’s death, he demonstrates how important he believes education to be—a recurring sub-theme within the sketches. He simultaneously rejects and embraces fatalism while distancing himself when possible from the upper classes. He shows both interest and apathy toward other peasants, but his tenderness emerges for those he feels responsibility towards--the animals of the forest have as much claim for his concern as does his ward. In addition, he is the one character so far that has had no concern for money.

“The Bailiff” and “The Bear” are thoroughly depressing stories and take the reader deeper into a system stacked against the peasant. In “The Bailiff”, the young landowner says of his serfs “One must treat them like children.” In dealing with them, he admits, you have to take into account their illiteracy, yet he does nothing to educate them. Content that money comes in as scheduled from his administrator (the ‘bailiff’), he shows no curiosity into his peasants’ status, willfully blind to their enslavement by the bailiff. “The Bear” highlights not just the poverty of the peasant (“I looked round and my heart sank within me: visiting a peasant’s cabin at night is cheerless indeed”) but also how the system pits peasants against each other. In contrast to many peasants shown so far, the forester (with the nickname of “the bear”) feels a duty to do his best for his master which causes him to be harsh toward other serfs. Here the narrator intrudes, pleading directly to the forester (and one gets the feeling toward the reader as well) for mercy.

“Two Landowners” and “The Estate Office” continue direct criticism of the serf system. Class distinction and money always matter, defining a person and how they are treated regardless of how deserving they are. “The Estate Office” provides another example of the narrator, once he mentions he will pay for some service, receiving instantly improved service. The merchant class receives more attention in this story, as well as the graft involved by agents of an estate. While social hierarchy is a constant focus, one example here highlights the unreal features: one character acts superior to other serfs because he is “the son of some aristocrat of the servant world.” The control a landowner has over their serfs extends to allowing or forbidding marriage, and even resolving the competition between two suitors (in this case, by relocating the servant girl that received their attention).

So what is a serf to do? Turgenev doesn’t provide any answers in these sketches, other than the call for mercy at the end of “The Bear”. The surreal nature of the system appears so convoluted and counterproductive that simple fixes aren’t available. The landed class comes off as generally ignorant and self-absorbed, yet I’ve mentioned that Turgenev seems to subtly show that complicity by the serfs with the system only makes matters worse. Yet he also shows how the system is stacked against any improvement of their lot. It’s possible that the readers of Turgenev’s felt he was describing a different world than they had encountered—as different for them as it is for me reading this 150+ years after its writing. Religion is rarely mentioned other than deferral to God in the same manner as to their master. As I have highlighted before, education is an implied improvement even though that only addresses part of the problem.

There is one avenue for escape mentioned. The problem with alcohol, hurled as accusations up to this point (to explain poor performance), receives one of the more biting comments from Turgenev in “Lebedyan” (although the subject is a noble): “He is a fair drinker, too…but in Mother Russia it is hard to achieve distinction on that score… .”

Reading Turgenev by William Trevor and the Turgenev maiden

Since I’m reading several of Turgenev’s works, I thought I would take a take a quick look at Reading Turgenev, the first half of William Trevor’s 1991 book Two Lives. For a brief editorial review and a good summary, see the Amazon.com product page—the May 19, 2000 review covers the book fairly well.

While the review of the book is fine, I wanted to take a quick look at why Trevor chose Turgenev as the author for one of the plot points (and of course the title). To escape a loveless marriage, Mary Louise clandestinely meets her cousin, Robert. During their meetings, where they eventually declare their love for each other, Robert reads to her from his “favorite Russian author”. After Robert’s death, Mary Louise takes possession of the Turgenev books and lives apart from her husband and family in the attic, immersing herself in everything she can accumulate that belonged to Robert.

At one point Mary Louise listens to Robert read from Turgenev and thinks “she had never listened to a voice as beautiful. Delight caressed each word he uttered, gentleness or vigour matched phrase and sentence. If all he’d read was a timetable she would have been entranced.” And in one sense, the choice of Turgenev has the same feeling—almost any author would do. But as the story unfolds, Mary Louise takes on the appearance of a Turgenev heroine. From William Lyon Phelps’ Essays on Russian Novelists:

The heroine of "Rudin," the young girl Natalya, is a faint sketch of the future Lisa. Turgenev's girls never seem to have any fun; how different they are from the twentieth century American novelist's heroine, for whom the world is a garden of delight, with exceedingly attractive young men as gardeners! These Russian young women are grave, serious, modest, religious, who ask and expect little for themselves, and who radiate feminine charm. They have indomitable power of will, characters of rocklike steadfastness, enveloped in a disposition of ineffable sweetness.

From the same essay (in the first chapter):

The heroine of Rudin, of Smoke, of On the Eve, the sinister Maria of Torrents of Spring, the immortal Lisa of A House of Gentlefolk, the girl in Dostoevski's Poor Folk; Dunia and Sonia, in Crime and Punishment--many others might be called to mind. The good Russian women seem immensely superior to the men in their instant perception and recognition of moral values, which gives them a chart and compass in life. Possibly, too, the women are stiffened in will by a natural reaction in finding their husbands and brothers so stuffed with inconclusive theories. One is appalled at the prodigious amount of nonsense that Russian wives and daughters are forced to hear from their talkative and ineffective heads of houses.

So while any author chosen could have fit the bill for Mary Louise’s enchantment and Robert's choice of books, choosing Turgenev highlights the qualities that adorn many of his heroines or maidens in his stories and makes Mary Louise’s eccentricities (madness?) easier to understand. I’ll let Vladimir Nabokov have the last word on the archetype:

Of all Turgenev’s characters, the “Turgenev maiden” has probably achieved the greatest fame. Masha (“A Quiet Backwater”), Natalia (“Rudin), Liza (A Nest of Gentlefolk) vary but little among themselves and are undoubtedly contained in Pushkin’s Tatiana. But with their different stories they are given more scope for the use of their common moral strength, gentleness, and not only their capacity but, I would say, their thirst to sacrifice all worldly considerations to what they consider their duty, be it complete resignation of personal happiness to higher moral considerations (Liza) or complete sacrifice of all worldly considerations to their pure passion (Natalia). Turgenev envelops his heroines in a kind of gentle poetical beauty which has a special appeal for the reader and has done much to create the general high concept of Russian womanhood.

A beautiful July day

There is July, and then there is Turgenev's July. Here is the wonderful and magical first paragraph of "Bezhin Meadow" (translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn):

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days which come only after long spells of settled weather. From the earliest morning the sky is clear; the dawn does not blaze and flame, but spreads out in a gentle blush. Instead of the flaming incandescence that goes with sultriness and drought, or the dark crimson that precedes the storm, the sun has a bright and friendly radiance, as it swims peacefully up from behind a long, narrow cloud, shines out briskly, and then veils itself in the lilac-coloured mist. The tenuous upper edge of the spreading cloud sparkles with a serpentine brilliance, like that of beaten silver. But now the dancing beams come shooting out again—and gaily, grandly, as if on wings, the mighty luminary emerges. About midday there usually appears a multitude of high, round clouds, golden-grey, with edges of tender white. Like islands, scattered across a boundless and brimming river, which surrounds them with deep, translucent expanses of an even blueness, they scarcely stir; farther off, towards the horizon, they concentrate, crowd together, there is no more blueness to be seen between them; but the clouds themselves are of the same azure as the heaven, they are penetrated through and through with light and warmth. The colour of the horizon, a pale and floating lilac colour, remains unchanged the whole day, and uniform all around; there is no darkening or deepening to foretell a storm; sometimes, here and there, there are bluish shafts falling down, betokening the passage of a hardly perceptible shower. Toward evening, these clouds vanish; the last of them, blackish and vague as smoke, lie with a pink curling face turned to the setting sun; over the place where it disappears, as quietly as it rose into the heavens, a scarlet radiance stands for a while over the darkening earth, and, trembling gently, like a carefully carried taper, the evening star begins to burn. On such days, all colours are softened; they are clear, but not brilliant; they are tinged with a gentleness that is somehow touching. Such days may be scorching-hot, and the steam may rise from the sloping fields; but the wind disperses and breaks up the accumulated sultriness, and whirlwinds—sure sign of settled weather—march in tall white pillars along the tracks across the plough-land. In the dry, clean air there is a smell of wormwood, of rye-harvest, and of buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall you feel no dampness. This is the weather that the husbandman needs to gather in his crop… .

A Sportsman’s Notebook discussion: one

The Overgrown Pond by Valentin Serov (1888)
Picture source

A brief discussion covering the first seven of the “sketches”: Khor and Kalinich, Ermolai and the Miller’s Wife, Raspberry Water, The Country Doctor, My Neighbor Radilov, Ovsyanikov the Freeholder, Lgov.

The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found here. All quotes are from the translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn.

While the underlying assumption of these stories is rather flimsy—the author’s experiences during hunting in the countryside—it is effective in painting rural Russian life and nature. I’ll highlight a few points running through these stories that I found interesting. “Khor and Kalinich” is the strongest story in this group. The story continually shows contrasts and comparisons between many different groups of people as well as individuals. Some of the contrasts are between the provinces of Orel and Kaluga, the peasants within those districts, nature in those districts, the peasants Khor and Kalinich, serf vs. master, men and women, as well as others. Power and control, as well as the question of freedom are addressed many times. Khor, described as a “positive, practical fellow, … a rationalist” has the following conversation with the narrator:

”Tell me, Khor,” I said to him, “why don’t you buy your freedom from the master?”

“And why should I buy it? As things are, I know the master and I know the rent he wants… .He is a good master, too.”

“All the same, you would be better off if you were free,” I remarked.

Khor gave me a sidelong glance. “Certainly,” he said.

“Well, then, why don’t you buy your freedom?”

Khor swiveled his head from side to side. “And what am I to buy it with, sir?” [He is rumored to have money squirreled away]

“Oh, come on, man… .”

“Once Khor gets in among people who are free,” he continued below his breath, as if talking to himself, “any fellow who shaves his beard would be Khor’s master.”

“But you could shave your own beard, too.”

“What’s a beard? A beard is grass; you can always cut it.”

The following quote appears on many sites discussing Turgenev and this work: “He won his first success in 1847 with "Khor and Kalinich," a sympathetic story of peasant life, which was published later, with similar stories, in A Sportsman's Sketches (1852).” (See Yahoo Encyclopedia for one place this appears, although the information comes from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press). Yet I find the tone of “Khor and Kalinich” not consistently sympathetic, bordering on damning some of the peasants at times. Khor is relatively well off for a serf, yet he prefers the appearance of control instead of actual freedom. Khor points out how the master abuses Kalinich (and seems more upset by Kalinich’s indifference than to the poor treatment), yet Khor is happy to stay in a position of authority relative to other peasants and keep the system unchanged.

The question of freedom is a thorny one, but so far Turgenev seems to show two underlying things needed for liberty: an inner drive or desire for it as well as education. Kalinich is able to read and knows how to accomplish many things, but has absolutely no drive to change his status. While Khor cannot read, he demonstrates “wide knowledge” and is shrewd. Yet he is complicit in maintaining the serf system since he will retain his relatively privileged status. Instead of a simple “peasants good, gentry bad” formula, Turgenev layers his criticism, sparing no class of people. While he clearly targets nobles who wish to keep the serfs in their place (which includes denying them an education), he does not seem to have much sympathy for the serfs that have an opportunity to improve their lot but would rather moan about the cruelty of fate (like Khor and Kalinich). While sympathetic in listening to “the shrewd simple speech of the Russian peasant” from Khor and others, their portrayal stands in marked contrast to peasants like Feodosya Mikhailovna (in “Ovsyanikov the Freeholder”) who worked hard to achieve her freedom, only to be forced to wait for her master to approve her release.

For structure, Turgenev usually begins with a “while I was hunting for x around the region of y” narrative, using this premise to provide lush depictions of the Russian countryside before introducing the peasants and or landowners he wants to portray. I enjoy his descriptions and can easily picture the scene and the people (and even the animals). Several times his structure sets the story up in this manner, flashes back on a character’s life to provide irony or pathos about their current situation, and then quickly ends the story. Rarely do these stories go anywhere or have much action. The passive narrator draws stories out of his characters, providing something more than just a slice of life. This mosaic approach, depicting individual details to provide an overall effect, works well with his depiction of an uncertain and decaying time.

The nostalgia is especially strong in “Raspberry Water”, “My Neighbour Radilov”, and “Ovsyanikov the Freeholder”. The characters discuss the situation of their current time versus that of prior years. Descriptions of places often show run-down or ruined structures while portrayals of peasants highlights their precarious situation, uncertain of where tomorrow’s food will come from. Even the landowners are far from being well off or secure. There is a sense that people, especially nobles, were grander, fairer and wiser in the past. But not everyone agrees. Luka Petrovich, in “Ovsyahikov the Freeholder” describes his mixed feelings: “No, I have no special reason for praising the good old days. Now take yourself, for example. You’re a landowner to-day, as your late grandfather was, but you’ve nothing like the same power, and you’re not the same sort of man, either.” One more example, from “Raspberry Water” where the narrator is chatting with Styopushka (a serf “they hardly bothered to count” when the census was taken) as they fish:

”You had a strict master, I see,” I began, after a few moments of silence.

“That was the fashion then, sir,” rejoined the old man, shaking his head.

“Things are different now,” I observed, looking at him keenly. He gave me a sidelong glance.

“No doubt things are better now,” he muttered, and cast his line far out into the stream.

Somehow I have trouble believing he really means that. With the false (or at least questionable) nostalgia and the poor conditions of the current day, it becomes somewhat understandable why the serfs may not uniformly want to be freed. They may view it as easier to be ill-treated but have excuses for your poor lot than to face uncertainty in troubling times on your own.

For some that are granted their freedom, like Vladimir in “Lgov” who subsists “on manna from on high”, the question arises if they are truly better off. The peasants are often viewed as something less than human by many of the landowners (who are rarely better educated). While there are beneficent landowners portrayed in these stories, they are the exception. More often the owners appear to believe the peasants exist to serve their whims, as well as feelingthe serfs are lucky to have such magnanimous owners.

A Sportsman’s Notebook discussion: online resources and versions

A Sportsman's Notebook by Ivan Turgenev
Translated by Charles and Natasha Hepburn
The Cresset Press, London, 1950

I am glad that this book has come out; it seems to me that it will remain my mite cast into the treasure chest of Russian literature, to use the phraseology of the school-book… Much has come out pale and scrappy, much is only just hinted at, some of it's not -- right, oversalted or undercooked -- but there are other notes pitched exactly right and not out of tune, and it is these notes that will save the whole book.

-- Ivan Turgenev, in a letter to his friend Pavel Annenkov in 1852, remarking on A Sportsman's Notebook
Quote source

Because of differences in translations, I thought it might be helpful to list which stories are in my version. I picked up the used copy pictured above (I know, I need to figure out how to use my camera phone better). I can’t really explain why I went with this version other than I liked the look and loved the feel of it over other versions. I know it’s all the wrong reasons, but I have seen only a few translations recommended and this was one. I’m not sure the best way to go about discussing the book, so I’ll probably only highlight certain stories and have a post on general topics.

Also, be sure to keep checking the main Turgenev online resource page. I add interesting articles as I find them.

Online texts

Most online texts seem to only have some of the stories available. Project Gutenberg looks like they have a complete version: Volume One and Volume Two

The work at Turgenev.org.ru is also the Constance Garnett translation, but has "translation corrected and names modernized by James Rusk"

A pdf version is available at Mootnotes

Eldritch Press has many works of Turgenev available in translation

Additional links about A Sportsman’s Notebook

The biggest hurdle to finding online links to this work is the various translations of the title. As I find more links that look like a good resource, I will continue to add them here.

The Wikipedia entry contains an overview of each story.

The quote at the start of this post was taken from this link, what looks to be the introduction to the 1967 Penguin Books edition. It was found on a syllabus page of Kathleen Ahern, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

A review from TIME magazine in 1950 marking the translation I am reading. Quote:
"[Sherwood] Anderson once called A Sportsman's Notebook the sweetest thing in all literature.'"

Although it has nothing to do with Turgenev's story other than having the title of one tale, Sergei Eisenstein's film Bezhin Meadow has an interesting history.


The contents of the Hepburns’ translated version I am reading:

• Khor and Kalinich
• Ermolai and the Miller’s Wife
• Raspberry Water
• The Country Doctor
• My Neighbor Radilov
• Ovsyankkov the Freeholder
• Lgov
• Bezhin Meadow
• Kasyan from Fair Springs
• The Bailiff
• The Estate Office
• The Bear
• Two Landowners
• Lebedyan
• Tatyana Borisovna and Her Nephew
• Death
• The Singers
• Pyotr Petrovich Karataev
• The Rendezvous
• Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo
• Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin
• The End of Chertopkhanov
• The Live Relic
• The Knocking
• Forest and Steppe

First Love discussion

Book Illustration for 'The Day Before' by Ivan Turgenev, 1947
Konstatin Rudakov
Picture source

The text of "First Love" can be found at
Project Gutenberg,
Google Books,
Mootnotes, or
The Literature Network

An audio version can be found at LibriVox

A summary is provided at Wikipedia

A nice summary, excerpts and more is available courtesy of David C. Lahti at the University of Massachusetts

My post on links to Turgenev resources can be found here

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The library copy of “First Love” I read was translated by David Magarshack—all quotes are from his version. I’m going to post some extensive quotes as well as reveal some of the plot twists, so be forewarned. I still highly recommend reading the work…I was familiar with the plotline and still enjoyed it tremendously. This was (as far as I recall) my first reading of anything by Turgenev and I’m looking forward to reading more. I hope to read at least two more of Turgenev’s works in the next few weeks, so I’ll go into detail on overarching themes over the course of their discussions.

Turgenev claimed several times that this novella was autobiographical (although he was younger than the protagonist when the events occurred). The story follows 16 year old Vladimir Petrovich (looking back on the events when he is 40) as he falls in and out of love with his neighbor Zinaida Alexandrovna, the daughter of Princess Zasyekin. While the story bills itself as a look at Vladimir’s first love, there is decidedly more going on beneath the surface. Turgenev’s prose is deceptively simple, yet forcefully conveys what the characters are feeling. A few topics as I noted them…

Love as ecstatic torment
Love is the central theme, and the torturous effect it has on the characters becomes difficult to watch. Turgenev does a masterful job of conveying the emotions and the feelings while experiencing a first (or second, or third) love. The first real meeting between Vladimir and Zinaida shows the girl winding wool around the boy’s hands, just as she figuratively winds him around her finger. Zinaida accomplishes this with all her suitors as well. While the title refers to Vladimir, the older men courting Zinaida display many of the same silly actions and concentrated feelings of a first love. Several know how juvenile they are behaving but they continue to dote on her all the same. Vladimir is drawn to Zinaida, unable to escape her gravitational pull. He abandons his studies and would do almost anything for her. He realizes his passion and suffering began at the same time, describing the torment he feels from his love.

My passion began from that day. What I felt at that time, I remember, was something similar to what a man must feel on entering government service: I had ceased to be simply a young boy: I was someone in love. I have said that my passion began from that day; I might have added that my suffering began on that day too. Away from Zinaida, I languished: I could not think of anything, I had not the heart to do anything, and for days on end all my thoughts revolved round her. I languished…but in her presence I did not feel any happier. I was jealous; I realized my own insignificance; I sulked stupidly and cringed stupidly; and yet an irresistible force drew me towards her, and every time I stepped over the threshold of her room I was seized by an uncontrollable tremor of happiness. Zinaida guessed at once that I had fallen in love with her, and indeed I never thought of concealing it; she amused herself with my passion; she made a fool of me, petted me, and tormented me. It is sweet to be the only source, the despotic and arbitrary cause, of the greatest joys, the greatest sorrows, in another human being, and I was like soft wax in Zinaida’s hands.

Vladimir feels he will give up his life to spare her any misery, and he superficially proves it by jumping from a high wall at her request. His love is a transformative power, both when he falls in and falls out of love. After performing extraordinary measures for her love, Vladimir struggles to understand why Zinaida could love his father. He has yet to understand the nature of love, which is driven home as he clandestinely witnesses the final encounter between his father and Zinaida:

I began to watch. I did my best to hear what they were saying. My father seemed to be insisting on something. Zinaida would not agree. I can see her face just as if it were all happening now—sad, serious, beautiful, and with an indescribable imprint of devotion, sadness, love, and a kind of despair—I can find no other word for it. She uttered words of one syllable; she did not raise her eyes but just smiled—submissively and obstinately. It was by this smile alone that I recognised my Zinaida as I used to know her. My father shrugged and set his hat straight on his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him. Thin I heard the words: “Vous devez vous separer de cette…” Zinaida drew herself up and stretched out her hand…. Suddenly something quite unbelievable took place before my very eyes: my father all of a sudden raised his riding crop, with which he had been flicking the dust from the skirts of his coat, and I heard the sound of a sharp blow across her arm, which was bared to the elbow. I just managed to restrain myself from crying out, while Zinaida gave a start, looked at my father without uttering a word, and, raising her arm to her lips, kissed the scar that showed crimson on it. My father flung away the crop and, running up the steps rapidly, rushed into the house. Zinaida turned round, tossed back her head, and, with arms outstretched, also moved away from the window.

What she must separer herself from is hinted at later as Vladimir’s father receives a letter that, combined with begging a favor from his wife, upsets him so much he has a fatal stroke. The father had started his own letter to Vladimir on the day of his stroke: “My son,” he wrote, “fear the love of woman, fear that ecstasy, that poison…” The leveling of emotions, one of the (alleged) benefits of maturity, is absent here. The rush of being in love has the power to sweep that aside at any age.

Nature
Turgenev’s descriptions are simple but convey both the picture and the atmosphere wonderfully. A few descriptors or a simile provide a literary watercolor—not everything is in crisp focus, but enough detail is provided to mentally fill in the gaps. Even when he uses techniques that can be trite, such as having nature mimic internal feelings, the passages wonderfully succeed.

Soon I noticed faint glimmers of light continually lighting up my room. I sat up and looked at the window. The window bars showed up against the mysteriously and dimly lit panes. “A thunderstorm,” I thought, and I was right. It was a storm, but it was very far away, so that the thunder could not be heard; only the faint, long, branching-out forks of lightning flashed uninterruptedly across the sky: they did not flash so much as quiver and quiver and twitch, like the wing of a dying bird. I got up, went to the window, and stood there till morning. The lightning did not cease for a moment; it was what is known among the peasants as a “sparrow night,” or a night of uninterrupted storm with thunder and lightning. I looked at the silent stretch of sand and the dark mass of the Neskoochny Park, at the yellowish facades of distant buildings, which also seemed to quiver with each faint flash. I looked and could not tear myself away: this silent lightning, these restrained gleams of light, seemed to respond to the mute and secret fires which kept blazing up in me too.

Family
Vladimir admits his dad had a strange influence on him: “I love him and I admired him” even though it is clear his dad keeps him at a distance. His dad has the power to transform him from a jealous Othello to a cowering schoolboy in an instant. Family life for Vladimir gets worse as the story goes on…tension between his father and mother increases. While his mother could have garnered the reader’s compassion for all she has to put up with from her husband and son, Turgenev paints her unsympathetically.

My father treated me with good-humoured indifference; my mother scarcely paid any attention to me, although she had no other children: other worries occupied her completely. My father, who was still young and very handsome, had married for money; she was ten years older than he. My mother’s life was far from happy: she was in a state of constant irritation and was always jealous and bad-tempered, though never in my father’s presence—she was terrified of him—while his attitude to her was severe, cold, and aloof. I have never seen a man more exquisitely calm, more self-possessed, or more despotic.

Happiness
Vladimir’s father seems to be the only happy person in the story. Is it because he is so detached and aloof from much of what is going on around him? Or is it because he has power to get what he wants? The father gives Vladimir pointers on happiness and freedom:

• “Grab all you can, but never allow yourself to be caught: to belong to yourself alone is the whole trick of living.”
• In describing what gives a man freedom, his father says “His will, his own will: that will give him power, which is better than freedom. Know how to want something, and you will be free and you will be able to command.”

His father’s actions follow his own tenets, or at least up to the point where he must beg from his wife. For the most part, those tenets also describes Zinaida’s outlook, although she is bound by social constraints that were unbreakable at the time. The importance of wealth and class underlies much of the story. She achieves happiness to a point, but her definition of happiness is distinctly different. She looks for a competent and forceful love to balance and complete her. Her comment that “I want someone who will master me” explains perfectly why she falls in love of Vladimir’s father. It also explains some of her infatuation with Vladimir, who physically resembles his father but whose presence is a pale imitation. Zinaida sacrifices for his father just as the suitors sacrifice for her, all to the same unfulfilled effect. The similarities between Zinaida and Vladimir’s father become clearer as their relationship is revealed.

In addition
There are quite a few reference to literary characters and easy comparisons: Cleopatra and Antony (fated to end badly), Polonius from Hamlet (sycophants), Othello (jealousy), Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” (Aleko). Not to mention the undercurrents of Oedipus throughout the story. The literary element includes the poet Maydanov, whose heart seems bigger than his talent.


Some Turgenev themes and motifs stretch across many of his works. Some are apparent here, such as the superfluous man and the strong Turgenev heroine. Even though Turgenev claims some of the events occurred early in his life, the obvious question is how much of his unrequited love for Pauline Viadrot present in the story?

Ivan Turgenev online resources

Portrait of Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
By Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1879)
Picture source

A few links on Turgenev. I'll link to individual works as I cover them.

BIOGRAPHY
Wikipedia entry

Biography at Pegasos

Good background information on Turgenev and his time is provided by Dr. Bruce T. Holl (Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas)

ONLINE WORKS
Most online works use translations by Constance Garnett
Works at Google Books
Project Gutenberg, or
Mootnotes.

Audio works available at LibriVox

ADDITIONAL
John MacKail's Overview of the Golden and Silver Ages of Russian Culture provides a general overview of the times and where Turgenev fits (found on the site of Nicholas C. J. Pappas, Professor of History at Sam Houston State University)

Music plays an important role in Turgenev’s life and works. This site provides Turgenev’s thoughts on Russian music as well as audio of works he specifically mentions.
An additional site on Turgenev and Russian Music provides pictures of Turgenev and Russian composers of his time.

Kelley Dupuis' essay regarding the influence of Turgenev on Ernest Hemingway

I didn’t know essays were available at Wikipedia, but this one is from Essays on Russian Novelists by William Lyon Phelps

Two essays by Henry James on Turgenev:
1897 entry in Library of the World's Best Literature
1903 essay

A letter by Joseph Conrad on Turgenev and a study to be published by Edward Garnett:

"For only think! Every gift has been heaped on his cradle: absolute sanity and the deepest sensibility, the clearest vision and the quickest responsiveness, penetrating insight and unfailing generosity of judgment, an exquisite perception of the visible world and an unerring instinct for the significant, for the essential in the life of men and women, the clearest mind, the warmest heart, the largest sympathy--and all that in perfect measure. There's enough there to ruin the prospects of any writer."

Turgenev.org.ru, which has photos/paintings along with a biography and his works (in English and Russina)

An essay on Willa Cather, Ivan Turgenev, and the Novel of Character by Richard Harris from the Willa Cather Archive at the University of Nebraska

Courtesy of Richard Peace, Professor Emeritus, University of Bristol comes The Novels of Turgenev: Symbols and Emblems

One of my favorite current writers, the pseudonymous Theodore Dalrymple, has an article titled How—-and How Not—-to Love Mankind, a look at Turgenev and Karl Marx:
"But for all their similarities of education and experience, the quality of each man’s compassion could not have been more different: for while one’s, rooted in the suffering of individuals, was real, the other’s, abstract and general, was not."

Dale Quarrington's look at the relationship between Turgenev and Dostoevsky