Translation: Uncredited
Edition: Alan Sutton, 1985
Review number: 1275
Earlier in 2004, it was announced that the United Kingdom divorce rates had risen quite sharply, and one of the causes suggested by commentators was the way that the Internet has made it easier to trace old lovers, causing people to abandon their current partners in something of an attempt to recover lost youth. Though meeting someone from the past after a long time can cause something of a jolt, and people do tend to romanticise their past affairs (because they didn't suffer from the specific flaws that mar current relationships), it is likely that whatever it was that made it not work out the first time will still be there in some form, which means that picking things up where they were left off is probably doomed.
Shorn of the digs at Friends Reunited, this is basically the idea behind Smoke. Many years ago, the central character Litvinov was engaged to the young and beautiful Irina Osinin. Her family was aristocratic but impoverished, but she was offered a single chance to make her name in society. Urged to do so by her father and by Libinov (persuaded by her father that she should take the opportunity), she becomes a great success, and this proves the end of the match between the two young people. Now, ten years later and again on the verge of marriage, Litvinov is visiting the fashionable German spa of Baden-Baden, seemingly populated entirely by Russians, when he meets Irina again. Irina is now married, but clearly despises her husband, and she is still extremely beautiful. Litvinov is tempted to renew their relationship, but is torn by his duty and his desire to remain true to his fiancée - a sincere desire, despite the resurgence of all his old feelings for Irina.
The plot serves more as the hook for a series of satirical portraits of the Russian upper classes abroad, particularly in the first half of Smoke; these seem to be the main point of the novel. They are variously revealed as stupid, provincial, vulgar, superficial and vain - or as combinations of these qualities. The two main characters are more fully fleshed out than this, and much more sympathetically portrayed - and yet Turgenev is careful to make them flawed as well.
Smoke is the novel which first made Turgenev's name outside Russia, though today the earlier Fathers and Sons and the play A Month in the Country are deservedly far better known. This anonymous (and, I suspect, early and hence out of copyright) translation has obvious flaws (details such as the consistent use of the word "thrashing" rather than "threshing" to describe the processing of grain suggest to me that the translator was not a native English speaker, and some phrases use idiomatic expressions which are no longer current), but it does possess a certain liveliness which is presumably derived from the atmosphere of the original.
As a Russian novel about illicit love, Smoke is overshadowed by Anna Karenin - but that is of course true about most novels. It is one of the most accesible nineteenth century Russian novels, with none of the problems cited by some as reasons to avoid them - it is short, has a smallish number of characters with distinct names, and avoids dullness through the use of satire.
Showing posts with label Ivan Turgenev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ivan Turgenev. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 November 2004
Thursday, 8 February 2001
Ivan Turgenev: A Month in the Country (1850)
Translation: Isaiah Berlin, 1981 (Buy from Amazon)
Edition: Penguin, 1981
Review number: 748
One of the most important plays of the nineteenth century, A Month in the Country is a precursor of the work of Chekhov, and brings to the theatre the psychological interests of Turgenev's novels (which also influenced the writers who followed him). Surprisingly, Turgenev had little confidence in the play, and certainly didn't expect it to be staged. He was modest about his writing in general, and meekly accepted the verdict of literary friends that he was no dramatist. It is possible to see why these critics did not respond positively to the play. It is immensely long; without cuts, a performance would last over five hours. It is not a romantic melodrama, though it has a theme, doomed love, which has melodramatic potential. (Melodramas were the staple of the nineteenth century stage.) Its author describes A Month in the Country as a "comedy", but it is an extremely puzzling generic attribution. It has political and sexual undercurrents which caused trouble with the official censor, leading to its original publication in a drastically cut version. (This translation, like all modern ones, is of the restored full text.)
The plot of A Month in the Country is pretty much a mirror image of that of Turgenev's novel First Love, in which a young man discovers that his rival for the affections of the woman he considers a goddess is his own father. Verochka is a seventeen year old orphan who lives with Natalya Petrovna, her guardian Natalya has recently appointed a new tutor for her own son, the student Belyaev, and Verochka develops a crush on him as Natalya desires to make him her lover. The mainspring of the play is Natalya's attempts to manipulate those around her to get her desires, and this includes trying to arrange a marriage between her ward and their neighbour, an unprepossessing, unromantic man in his late forties. Her machinations eventually cause the destruction of the lives around her.
Turgenev reasonably enough regarded Natalya as the central character in the play, though it is possible to produce it to make the naive Verochka almost as important. The tutor, unaware of the passions he has created, is a fairly empty part. The other men are more interesting. Islyaev, Natalya's husband, is fairly peripheral to the action; always wanting to believe the best of everyone, he sees very little of what is going on around him. The censor wanted to change his and Natalya's relationship, on the grounds that it wasn't decent to portray a woman with a living husband chasing another man. Islyaev's best friend, Rakitin, has been hopelessly in love with Natalya for years, and his unrequited passion could almost provide the basis for a play of its own. Then there is the local doctor, Schpiegelsky, who is a cynical outsider (as a man from a poor background, he is of the wrong class to be fully accepted). His is perhaps the most forward looking role in the play, the observer of the follies of mankind having become quite a staple character in modern literature.
The length of the play gives Turgenev the space to develop the characters in an almost novelistic manner, and this is how he initially regarded it, as something he wrote to be read rather than performed. It does, in fact, work well on the stage, with judicious cutting; far more so than many plays not intended for performance.
Edition: Penguin, 1981
Review number: 748
One of the most important plays of the nineteenth century, A Month in the Country is a precursor of the work of Chekhov, and brings to the theatre the psychological interests of Turgenev's novels (which also influenced the writers who followed him). Surprisingly, Turgenev had little confidence in the play, and certainly didn't expect it to be staged. He was modest about his writing in general, and meekly accepted the verdict of literary friends that he was no dramatist. It is possible to see why these critics did not respond positively to the play. It is immensely long; without cuts, a performance would last over five hours. It is not a romantic melodrama, though it has a theme, doomed love, which has melodramatic potential. (Melodramas were the staple of the nineteenth century stage.) Its author describes A Month in the Country as a "comedy", but it is an extremely puzzling generic attribution. It has political and sexual undercurrents which caused trouble with the official censor, leading to its original publication in a drastically cut version. (This translation, like all modern ones, is of the restored full text.)
The plot of A Month in the Country is pretty much a mirror image of that of Turgenev's novel First Love, in which a young man discovers that his rival for the affections of the woman he considers a goddess is his own father. Verochka is a seventeen year old orphan who lives with Natalya Petrovna, her guardian Natalya has recently appointed a new tutor for her own son, the student Belyaev, and Verochka develops a crush on him as Natalya desires to make him her lover. The mainspring of the play is Natalya's attempts to manipulate those around her to get her desires, and this includes trying to arrange a marriage between her ward and their neighbour, an unprepossessing, unromantic man in his late forties. Her machinations eventually cause the destruction of the lives around her.
Turgenev reasonably enough regarded Natalya as the central character in the play, though it is possible to produce it to make the naive Verochka almost as important. The tutor, unaware of the passions he has created, is a fairly empty part. The other men are more interesting. Islyaev, Natalya's husband, is fairly peripheral to the action; always wanting to believe the best of everyone, he sees very little of what is going on around him. The censor wanted to change his and Natalya's relationship, on the grounds that it wasn't decent to portray a woman with a living husband chasing another man. Islyaev's best friend, Rakitin, has been hopelessly in love with Natalya for years, and his unrequited passion could almost provide the basis for a play of its own. Then there is the local doctor, Schpiegelsky, who is a cynical outsider (as a man from a poor background, he is of the wrong class to be fully accepted). His is perhaps the most forward looking role in the play, the observer of the follies of mankind having become quite a staple character in modern literature.
The length of the play gives Turgenev the space to develop the characters in an almost novelistic manner, and this is how he initially regarded it, as something he wrote to be read rather than performed. It does, in fact, work well on the stage, with judicious cutting; far more so than many plays not intended for performance.
Wednesday, 17 November 1999
Ivan Turgenev: First Love (1860)
Translation: Isaiah Berlin
Edition: Penguin, 1980
Review number: 391
First Love, a novelette rather than a full length novel, is a study of adolescent love. When sixteen year old Woldemar first falls in love, he experiences a passionate desire for the daughter of his family's new next door neighbour. A beautiful girl, Zinaida does not lack other suitors, and we are taken through Woldemar's rapidly changing emotions: exaltation, jealousy, despair, hatred, renunciation and renewed devotion. His fervour is only heightened by Zinaida's capriciousness and the way in which she plays off each would-be lover against the others. Then, Woldemar is devastated to discover that the successful rival is his own father, a truly shattering revelation.
Turgenev's depiction of the agonies of an unrequited first love is vivid and convincing. The dramatic climax is perhaps rather less so, even though skilfully prepared (Woldemar is aware of, though he does not understand, increased tension between his parents, for example). The translation is vivid and lively, perhaps more so than many Penguin Classics which as a series tend towards stodginess.
Edition: Penguin, 1980
Review number: 391
First Love, a novelette rather than a full length novel, is a study of adolescent love. When sixteen year old Woldemar first falls in love, he experiences a passionate desire for the daughter of his family's new next door neighbour. A beautiful girl, Zinaida does not lack other suitors, and we are taken through Woldemar's rapidly changing emotions: exaltation, jealousy, despair, hatred, renunciation and renewed devotion. His fervour is only heightened by Zinaida's capriciousness and the way in which she plays off each would-be lover against the others. Then, Woldemar is devastated to discover that the successful rival is his own father, a truly shattering revelation.
Turgenev's depiction of the agonies of an unrequited first love is vivid and convincing. The dramatic climax is perhaps rather less so, even though skilfully prepared (Woldemar is aware of, though he does not understand, increased tension between his parents, for example). The translation is vivid and lively, perhaps more so than many Penguin Classics which as a series tend towards stodginess.
Thursday, 7 October 1999
Ivan Turgenev: On the Eve (1860)
Edition: Penguin, 1973
Review number: 353
Turgenev's short novel is based around a memoir written by a friend, who suggested he might like to turn it into a novel. It tells the stories of a small group of upper class teenagers in Russia on the eve of the outbreak of the Crimean War. Elena comes from a home troubled by the infidelities of her father, and this has hardly given her a taste for any kind of marriage that might be arranged by her parents. She is loved by one of a small group of friends, Pavel Shubin, who introduces her to the Bulgarian revolutionary Dimitry Insarov. (Bulgaria was at this time ruled by Turkey, whose oppression of the Slavs in its domains was one of the major causes of the Crimean War.) Shubin thinks Insarov an interesting person, but not one likely to arouse the passions of a woman, and he is very upset when he becomes a favoured rival for Elena's love.
It is Insarov's patriotic devotion which makes him a romantic figure to Elena; no matter how passionate he may be about her, his duty to his country must come first, and this is what fascinates her. It is a total contrast to the meaningless lives of the upper class Russians she sees around her.
Though Turgenev's writing pointed the way to the psychological dramas of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, his work is far more mild and serene in the effect it has on the reader. This is especially true of On the Eve, despite the potential for melodrama in its plot. The title is in fact most apt, for it gives the impression of great things eagerly awaited around the corner, and this is the emotion that Turgenev seeks to produce in his readers throughout the novel.
Tuesday, 19 May 1998
Ivan Turgenev: Home of the Gentry (1856)
Translation: Richard Freeborn, 1970
Edition: Penguin
Review number: 46
This is the novel which made Turgenev's name outside Russia. The Russian title, Dvoranskoye gnezdo, has connotations of "Nest" rather than "Home", but there isn't really an easy way to translate that into English. The novel is really about Russia, perhaps even more so than is the case with most Russian novels. It deals with the relationship between the aristocracy and the land, and the way that the true Russian returns to his native country, no matter how influenced he may be by the sophisticated Western culture that was the rage in fashionable Russian circles.
Home of the Gentry is mainly concerned with the young nobleman Lavretsky, who makes an unfortunate marriage with Varvara Pavlovna. She becomes addicted to the frivolity of Paris society, and he ends up leaving her and returning to his estate after discovering that she is having an affair.
On his return, he renews contact with a family of old friends, and rapidly finds himself falling in love with the young woman of the house, named Liza. Reading an old newspaper, he sees that his wife has died, and so begins to court Liza. But disaster strikes when Varvara Pavlovna turns up on his doorstep; the newspaper report was a mistake. Lavretsky cannot accept her back, and he cannot go on with his courtship. Liza finds consolation in her real religion, and becomes a nun.
This was one of the first Russian novels to become known outside Russia, and the sense of Russianness is really overpowering. It is also a really sad novel, where the characters are very well drawn. In fact, it has all the qualities of every good Russian novel!
Edition: Penguin
Review number: 46
This is the novel which made Turgenev's name outside Russia. The Russian title, Dvoranskoye gnezdo, has connotations of "Nest" rather than "Home", but there isn't really an easy way to translate that into English. The novel is really about Russia, perhaps even more so than is the case with most Russian novels. It deals with the relationship between the aristocracy and the land, and the way that the true Russian returns to his native country, no matter how influenced he may be by the sophisticated Western culture that was the rage in fashionable Russian circles.
Home of the Gentry is mainly concerned with the young nobleman Lavretsky, who makes an unfortunate marriage with Varvara Pavlovna. She becomes addicted to the frivolity of Paris society, and he ends up leaving her and returning to his estate after discovering that she is having an affair.
On his return, he renews contact with a family of old friends, and rapidly finds himself falling in love with the young woman of the house, named Liza. Reading an old newspaper, he sees that his wife has died, and so begins to court Liza. But disaster strikes when Varvara Pavlovna turns up on his doorstep; the newspaper report was a mistake. Lavretsky cannot accept her back, and he cannot go on with his courtship. Liza finds consolation in her real religion, and becomes a nun.
This was one of the first Russian novels to become known outside Russia, and the sense of Russianness is really overpowering. It is also a really sad novel, where the characters are very well drawn. In fact, it has all the qualities of every good Russian novel!
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