United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Again there was a loud laugh, the most startling of which was the Baronet's, which rattled out like a clatter of falling stones. 'What is the book? asked Alexander, promptly. 'Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev, said the little foreigner, pronouncing every syllable distinctly. She looked at the cover, to verify herself. 'An old American edition, said Birkin.
He took a knife, and when his friend had turned away, he approached him cautiously from behind, took aim, turned his eyes heavenwards, crossed himself, and praying fervently "God forgive me, for Christ's sake!" he cut his friend's throat at one stroke like a sheep and took his watch. One would not accept that incident from any Western author. One would not even accept it from Tolstoi or Turgenev.
"Even making allowance for the enthusiasm of his admirers, it is true to say that almost any Russian judge of literature at the present day would place Dostoevski as being equal to Tolstoi and immeasurably above Turgenev; in fact, the ordinary Russian critic at the present day no more dreams of comparing Turgenev with Dostoevski, than it would occur to an Englishman to compare Charlotte Yonge with Charlotte Bronte."
Turgenev was of that great race which has more than any other fully and freely uttered human nature, without either false pride or false shame in its nakedness. His themes were oftenest those of the French novelist, but how far he was from handling them in the French manner and with the French spirit!
It is the most complex of all literary instruments, the chief method to-day of analysing the complexities of modern life. If you love your art, if you would exalt it, treat it absolutely seriously. If you would study it in its highest form, the form the greatest artist of our time has perfected remember Turgenev. November 1899. ...'Tell us a story, colonel, we said at last to Nikolai Ilyitch.
Edward Garnett has pointed out in an essay on Turgenev, is not Nejdanov and not Solomin; the part is cast in the woman's figure of Mariana who broke the silence of "anonymous Russia." Ivan Turgenev had the understanding that goes beneath the old delimitation of the novelist hide-bound by the law "male and female created he them." He had the same extreme susceptibility to the moods of nature.
There was an excursion to Abbotsford, and carriages were provided for guests. One in which I was seated passed Turgenev on foot. I alighted and walked with him, at every step impressed by his greatness and his simplicity." We shall not know until the year 1920 how far Turgenev was influenced by Madame Viardot, nor exactly what were his relations with this extraordinary woman.
As to Turgenev himself, he saw that the coming of this type would make concrete a rising force worthy of holding attention and also of commanding some respect.
In the whole range of literary history, it would be difficult to find two personalities more unlike than that of Turgenev and Mrs. Stowe. The great Russian utterly lacked the temperament of the advocate; but his innate truthfulness, his wonderful art, and his very calmness made the picture of woe all the more clear.
With the single exception of Turgenev, the great novelists of the world, according to my own standards, have either ignored technique or have failed to understand it. What an error to suppose that the finest foreign novels show a better sense of form than the finest English novels! Balzac was a prodigious blunderer. He could not even manage a sentence, not to speak of the general form of a book.
Word Of The Day