Ivan Turgenev – Cannonball Read 17

Not Your Normal Turgenev

On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev

June 20, 2024 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

Now I love myself some classical Russian lit. Not the big names, but more the second tier; not in quality, but more in popularity. Gogol, Goncharov, and especially Turgenev, these guys are my jam. They write of the lives of the Russian gentry, not in the cities, but out on their estates. There is a certain calm and peacefulness that I am addicted to. Granted there are serfs and peasants, but they seem to be agents of their own fate. It all seems to work […]

Lazy Hazy Days

A Nest of Gentlefolk and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev

May 1, 2023 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

CBR15 Passport Russia There is something about the, dare I say, second tier Russian classical authors, such as Turgenev and Gogol, that I find almost mesmerizing. The primary characters are the gentlefolk mentioned in the title – rich enough to have inherited some sort of estate (complete with serfs and house servants, needless to say), but no wealthier than that. The men rarely have any profession, other than the occasional doctor, and spend most of their days hunting, fishing, and visiting their neighbors. The women […]

Days Slip Into Days

Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev

December 20, 2022 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

Turgenev’s Fathers and Children comes from that lush mid-19th century literary period in Russian literature that also includes the authors Gogol (Dead Souls) and my favorite, Goncharov (Oblomov, in which we spend 500 pages with the world’s laziest man). There are more famous authors in this period, but they don’t appeal to me the way these three do. There is something soothing about the slow pace of life in these books that really appeals to me. The protagonists are members of the lesser aristocracy, but […]

Gateway to the Russian Novel

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

September 1, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Cbr14bingo New This is a new translation by Nicolas Paternak Slater and Maya Slater, and it is a novel about the clash of old and new ideas If you have been meaning to read one of the great Russian novels but are put off by the length of those written by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I’d like to suggest that you take a look at the works of Ivan Turgenev. A contemporary of those two illustrious writers and brilliant in his own right, Turgenev covers similar […]

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