Book Description
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Turgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the last fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public, first in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Superb. Rudin illustrates is one of the greatest portraits of man ever written.
I found Rudin profoundly touching and an almost astonishing work for a novel so slender. Rarely in so few pages can a writer have illustrated his themes so emphatically and so artfully. Throughout Turgenev uses nature as a proxy for narrative description and as a result the novel has a very calm and controlled feel. The characters are bound by their differing natures and their development is shadowed by changes in the natural environment they find themselves in.
More importantly, to my mind, however is the way in which the character of Rudin exposes the central contradiction between a desire for truth and a desire for love. By his nature, as we discover, Rudin is unable to conquer love but is however able to remain true to his ideals, despite being unable to act upon them. To this extent Rudin is impotent, he is clear about what he wishes to achieve - to become a man of action - yet he is fundamentally unable to achieve such a goal. As such he is destined to remain unhappy. However, unlike others, he perceives this and so is able to remain truthful to his self and thus in contrast to those other characters in the novel that are destined to remain unhappy, as he too is destined, he at least discovers and embraces his true self and as such realises the higher being in him. A higher being so often alluded to by others.
In such a fashion Turgenev exposes this central dialectic beautifully. By positing Rudin amidst a decaying social setting and allowing his seemingly constant passage of self-discovery inadvertently to fuel the self-discovery of those who come into contact with him, Turgenev demonstrates how a synthesis between self-knowledge and self-sacrifice is essential before true love can be sown within one's soul. Rudin, by being so lucid regarding what he loves (truth), whilst simultaneously illustrating to all the futility of his love, shines a light upon the ready attainability of the loves of other characters. Thus those characters who sought to see in Rudin something approaching an ideal are shocked and provoked into attaining their own, real, ideals. It is only those who refused to see in Rudin anything but impotence, coldness and bluster who emerge unchanged characters at the novel's conclusion.
As of Rudin himself, his love (truth) is attained only at the cost of discovering that he is less a mighty oak and more a shallow tumbleweed (Rudin himself goes from using the Oak as an analogy for his feelings to that of a tumbleweed by the end of the novel). Perhaps it is this inevitable conclusion to Rudin's long search, the same search that befalls all of us, that provokes Rudin (in the Epilogue) to finally attain his ideal as a man of action and thus ensure that, against the greatest odds, his seed was not, after all, sown upon barren ground.

Second reading, twenty years later
I was very pleased to read this one for the second time. No doubt I was too young to appreciate its virtues twenty years ago. I look forward to reading more of his work, much of which will be new to me.

non-essential Turgenev
_Rudin_ is a good novel by Ivan Turgenev, but altogether non-essential, unless you want to read all of his works.

The character Rudin is a fortunate young man in 1860s Russia, a man around thirty years of age, in the prime of his life.He is very much a superfluous man, like the man Turgenev wrote of in his shorter story "A Superfluous Man."He is all talk and no action.He has high-minded ideals but can not transfer them into deeds.

I suppose Turgenev saw many young Russian men of his generation who served as the basis for Rudin, the character.Natalya, Rudin's love interest, at least has the fortitude to translate her ideals into actions, but she is offered fewer possibilities by Russian society.She comes off more sympathetically than the title character, but she is female, and therefore a minor character in a Turgenev work.I found her more interesting, and similar to the female main character in _Oblomov_ by Goncharov.

The political edge on this novel is not nearly so sharp as that on _Fathers and Sons_.Mostly this seems a personal and emotional novel, rather than a political novel.A student wanting a general grounding in the major novels of Russian Literature can probably skip _Rudin_.On the other hand, if you read _Fathers and Sons_ and found that book very rewarding, you may want to take a peek at _Rudin_, to see what another (earlier) novel by Turgenev is like.

ken32

Sad tale of early existentialist-'hero' in 19th century Russ
Rudin is the lead character in this short novel, which reads like a playset in mid nineteenth century Russia. He enters into a provincial societypeopled by the usual array of grand dames, eccentrics, local radicals, andbeautiful / eligible debutant-daughter, with whom he (believes he) falls inlove.

Whilst the characters and setting is characteristic of manyEuropean novels of the time, the story takes an unexpected turn. Rudin is afateful character, and one whose shallowness and egotism is exposed by theyoung daughter who he seduces. Turgenev manages to present Rudin as asympathetic character albeit imbued with the resignation that he is a 'superfluous man' (cf. 'A Hero of Our Times' by Lermontov)

The book iswell written and deserves aplace in the canon of nineteenth centuryRussian novels . Particularly recommended for anyone who has read Fathersand Sons.

Self-deception and a facade we place between us and reality
This is a simple parable, told within a beautiful story. We meet Rudin through several people's eyes and learn much more about him from the differences others see in him than we learn directly.It is facsinating to see the interplay between the man's fantasies and his facade. You are left with very profound and troubling unanswered questions about your own life and our tenuous connections to "reality."This is a powerful volume for anyone who is seriously and sincerely examining their own motives, especially if you are dissatisfied with your current conclusions. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
This exquisite novel, first published in 1859, like so many great works of art, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled under the simplicity and harmony of the technique. To the English reader On the Eve is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul; but to Russians it is also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies of the Russia of the fifties. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Why is Turgenev so underrated and SO HARD TO FIND???!!!!
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is one of the finest novelists who ever graced God's great and green earth.

He is unjustly UNDERRATED.

Death Nixes Starry-Eyed Duoýs Amour
I've never read a novel with a Bulgarian hero before, so this was a first.If you haven't read any Turgenev, you should.You should, that is, if you like idealistic romances between young people who lack all the cynicism and worldliness of our times or even Balzac's France.Turgenev's heroes and heroines shine in the dark, they're so good.But the brilliantly-drawn, humorous characters surrounding the pure main protagoniste are created with such skill that 144 years after this novel first saw daylight, Turgenev could still get a few laughs out of me.

Idealistic, but drifting, Elena is being courted by both an overserious student (known in our times as a `geek') and a budding sculptor who devotes himself mainly to wine, women, and if not song, at least to unorganized messing around. The geek doesn't "get it".The sculptor easily sees through everyone, but is less talented in holding onto anything substantial that comes his way.Elena's parents are weak, her relatives entirely unprepossessing.Her father tries to marry her off to a rather sharp bureaucrat with polished manners.Enter our Bulgarian champion, who only wants to liberate his homeland from the Turks.Elena falls for him and the rest, while not history, is quite predictable.No, this love story is not unique, nor is it extremely complicated.

ON THE EVE is a great novel because of Turgenev's style---that seemingly artless, light, flowing prose.Turgenev is one of the eternal masters, no doubt.The world will probably never see his like again.A Turgenev novel resembles a Mozart piano concerto.It looks so easy, sounds so simple, but it is total genius.I recently re-read this novel and found it just as good the second time.What a shame that only two others have reviewed it !

One of Turgenev's best love stories
On the Eve deals with the friendships and love affairs between atwenty-year old provincial Russian woman named Elena and a number of men inher social circle: the young artist Shubin; the intellectual Berzeniev;and, ultimately, Berzeniev's friend, the Bulgarian revolutionary Insarov. Though Berzeniev is in love with Elena, he introduces her to Insarov (whoBerzeniev describes as the only interesting man he's met at theuniversity), and Insarov and Elena rather quickly fall in love and secretlymarry.Elena's parents, particularly her father, don't care much for theimpoverished foreigner that their daughter loves, especially since they'verecently found her a nice Russian man for a fiance.Worse still, the startof the Crimean War ("on the eve" of which the novel is set) willforce Elena to leave her parents and join Insarov in Bulgaria if she is tostay with him.

In addition to being an interesting love story in itsown right, On the Eve develops a couple of themes often seen elsewhere inTurgenev's work (and also that of some other Russian authors around thesame time).In the conflict between Elena and her parents, we see shadesof the generational conflict that Turgenev would develop very well twoyears later in Fathers and Sons.The fact that the only man who canthoroughly win Elena's heart is a Bulgarian (as well as comment byBerzeniev about Insarov mentioned above) reflects the aimlessness andsuperfluity that so often shows up among Russian men in the literature ofthis time period (e.g., Turgenev's Rudin).While Shubin has his art andBerzeniev his historical studies, Insarov is driven by a cause (the freedomof the Bulgarian people) that is deeper than anything that Russian men werepursuing at the time and accordingly makes him a more intriguing character.

The novel did read, for me at least, a little slowly at first, and Ifound that some of the characters (Shubin in particular) weren't much morethan cliched archetypes when they could have been fleshed out a littlebetter.However, On the Eve is definitely one of Turgenev's better worksand was all in all a worthwhile read.

A Melancholy but not a Sad Story
Though its' a very old book still worth reading. It was interesting to read gradual building-up of character - Insarov. The end of Insarov was a melancholy. I think Turgenev had tried to shape his own views in the formof Insarov.How Insarov becomes so soft in front of Elena is also beautiful.This book depicts the frustrations, struggle,revolution,parents' dilemmaand love all together in the form of this great story of Insarov &Elena. You can't stop your tears while reading the helplessness of Elena ongradual ending of Insarov. Really a legendary work !Worth reading manytimes ! ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
In studying the Russian novel it is amusing to note the childish attitude of certain English men of letters to the novel in general, their depreciation of its influence and of the public's 'inordinate' love of fiction. Many men of letters to-day look on the novel as a mere story-book, as a series of light-coloured, amusing pictures for their 'idle hours,' and on memoirs, biographies, histories, criticism, and poetry as the age's serious contribution to literature. Whereas the reverse is the case. The most serious and significant of all literary forms the modern world has evolved is the novel; and brought to its highest development, the novel shares with poetry to-day the honour of being the supreme instrument of the great artist's literary skill. To survey the field of the novel as a mere pleasure-garden marked out for the crowd's diversion - a field of recreation adorned here and there by the masterpieces of a few great men - argues in the modern critic either an academical attitude to literature and life, or a one-eyed obtuseness, or merely the usual insensitive taste. The drama in all but two countries has been willy-nilly abandoned by artists as a coarse playground for the great public's romps and frolics, but the novel can be preserved exactly so long as the critics understand that to exercise a delicate art is the one serious duty of the artistic life. It is no more an argument against the vital significance of the novel that tens of thousands of people - that everybody, in fact - should to-day essay that form of art, than it is an argument against poetry that for all the centuries droves and flocks of versifiers and scribblers and rhymesters have succeeded in making the name of poet a little foolish in worldly eyes. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. A desperate character.--A strange story.--Punin and Baburin.--Old portraits.--The brigadier.--PyetushkovDownload Description
'It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I cannot resist writing to you today. Everything till now has gone on with us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always busy with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides that, Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence and his usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, and Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good, So has mine. But yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
He passed his hand over his face and with slow steps crossed the road towards the hut. But I did not want to give in so quickly and went back into the kitchen garden. That someone really had three times called "Ilyusha" I could not doubt; that there was something plaintive and mysterious in the call, I was forced to own to myself.... But who knows, perhaps all this only appeared to be unaccountable and in reality could be explained as simply as the knocking which had agitated Tyeglev so much. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
All the following day Aratov was in very low spirits. 'What is it, Yasha?' Platonida Ivanovna said to him: 'you seem somehow all loose ends today! In her own peculiar idiom the old lady's expression described fairly accurately Aratov's mental condition. He could not work and he did not know himself what he wanted. At one time he was eagerly on the watch for Kupfer, again he suspected that it was from Kupfer that Clara had got his address ..and from where else could she have heard so much about him. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Something extraordinary took place within me at that instant; I, as it were, twitched all over, and would have refused, but got up and went along. The prince conducted me to Liza.... She did not even look at me; the daughter of the house shook her head in refusal, the prince turned to me, and, probably incited by the goose-like expression of my face, made me a deep bow. This sarcastic bow, this refusal, transmitted to me through my triumphant rival, his careless smile, Liza's indifferent inattention, all this lashed me to frenzy.... I moved up to the prince and whispered furiously, You think fit to laugh at me, it seems. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
IT was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles, and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which he could not obtain a secure livelihood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not the Best Translation
This may be the most accurate translation, but if you want to really read the Russians, especially Chekov and Turgenev, you've got to have the Constance Garnett.She may have victorianized (is that a word?) some things, but the sentiment she adds suits the Russian Soul to a tee.Some company needs to reprint her 15-volume Complete Novels of Turgenev--it's available in larger libraries.You'll love The Torrents of Spring (the subject of a string quartet by William Alwyn), also First Love, Home of the Gentry, The Diary of a Superfluous Man, and Fathers and Sons.

Preferred "Torrents" Translation
This is the translation that I first read (years after it was published) and loved.The novel has been around a long time but its attraction can be won or lost according to the translation.Another, later translation irked me so much that I didn't want to finish reading it.Now that I've found myfavorite translation -- which I think is more poetic and does betterjustice to the style and mood of the Russian original -- I'm buying a copyfor myself and one for a gift to someone in high school. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Beautiful writing
Though Turgenev is not as household a name as the other Russian writers (though he certainly should be), you will see here in this wonderful collection, that his language breathes as sure as you do.His descriptions are full of life as are his characters.One mark, at least for me, of a great writer is that his readers are able to remember years later his visual and emotional conveyances.You won't struggle in this regard with Turgenev.

russian treasures
excellent russian literature
this book is a treasure for the letters included--particularly those he wrote to tolstoy

One of the greatest writers
Everybody should read some Turgenev. He was the man whom made the world outside Russia aware of that the great Russian literature existed. And he has inspired great western authors too, like Guy de Maupassant (whom in histurn inspired Chekhov), Henry James, Ernest Hemingway (whom again alsoadmired Chekhov and Maupassant). By reading Turgenev today, one will findthat his writing still is astonishingly modern and will continue to haveinfluence on new generations of writers. Turgenev was one of the greatestand all of his tales are imbued with his unique feeling for the texture anddignity of all human in life. ... Read more

Book Description

A country doctor recounts a story to an aspiring Russian novelist. Like its subject, the tale is unexpected, short and painfully sweet. A love affair occurs between the doctor and his dying patient, the beautiful Alexandra. Thrown together by her sickness, they find a love imbued with an honesty and truthfulness that most would find unbearable. But in this situation it will last a lifetime.