What do You think about Sketches From A Hunter's Album (1990)?
i don't know turgenev's more famous books, novels. they seem to be dryly witty dramas of aristocratic families. this book, by contrast, concerns the peasantry - the serfs - the slaves - but through the eyes of a young and very observant aristocrat supposedly surveying the vast estates he has recently inherited.it's a book of linked short stories with a consistent narrator who generally stays out of the way, except in the sense that the stories he witnesses so often lay bare the depredations of his class."the singers", the story of a musical competition in a tavern, will knock your socks off
—Fred
"Reading this first work of Turgenev's I tried as far as possible to prolong my enjoyment, often laying the book down on my knees; I rejoiced the naive customs and charming pictures of which I was given a delightful collection in each of the stories of this book..."- Alphonse de LamartineTurgenev's portrayal of life of serfs has a distant compassion and admiration, which is some times even (though very rarely and never blatantly) elegiac. This book was apparently a reaction to what he observed in his country before fleeing abroad, his "Hannibal's oath" to "never reconcile to the enemy: serfdom". Now reactionary writing can defile stories with outside motivation. Not so the case here. His energy is channelized in serving us subtle, (overtly) nonpartisan portraits. He, a hunter (a disguise for peeking into the country life), acquaints himself with hordes of characters, coming in their touch for renting places to spend nights at, for finding helpers and horses and hooch. He is ever friendly with them yet never becomes too intimate. What we read here thus is not psychologically astute observations or sermons on moral uprightness and simplicity, but anecdotes - chance encounters, gossips, confessions that very naturally branch off from shop talks and hunting expeditions; all that form in our mind slight, hazy pictures that, we can appreciate how, would challenge the ill conceived notions of those times about serfs. A classic survives its age; it remains alive not as annals of times passed, or as a conveyor of the human sensitivity then. It survives because it offers that the value of which does not decay with time. A Hunter's Sketches here offers - what I would call - stillness. One may be completely oblivious to the political and social situation this book was written in, and yet one would find a gold mine of content for intellect and soul. Very fittingly Turgenev lets a story be simple, seemingly plotless. The prose poems move forward leisurely, the observations mundane, incidental, and just as the unchallenged reader begins to forge a character into a definite shape, he is surprised. Take for example the story the collection opens with, 'Khor and Kalinych'. The unnamed narrator of the book (presumably Turgenev himself) travels with Kalinych to Khor's house and has a long conversation with him. Khor emerges as a sensible and worldly man, who has his prejudices, against education, women etc.; all while Kalinych remains mute and lost - a typical simpleton. Turgenev does nothing to change our view, until the last para. There: "It will be a fine day tomorrow, " I remarked looking at the clear sky. "No, it will rain," Kalinych replied, "the ducks yonder are splashing, and the grass smells strongly."We drove into the copse. Kalinych began singing in an undertone as he jolted up and down on the driver's seat, and he kept gazing at the sunset. The next day I left the house of Mr. Polutykin. Nature is the second theme of this book. Turgenev describes nature as a hunter would: as beautiful and fulfilling; the hunter's life to be lived in integrity with it. A reader may want to skip through frequent descriptions however for Turgenev commits the debutant's folly of overdoing it. Of course, you forgive the author in the end; this is how he starts the last piece of this collection - with a direct note to the reader after an excerpt from a poem on nature he "consigned to flames":The reader is, very likely, weary of my sketches; I hasten to reassure him by promising to confine myself to fragments already printed; but a parting cannot refrain from saying a few words about hunter's life And guess what? In next few paras he describes the marvel in hunting with a gun and a dog through forests and steppes, in spring and autumn and summer and winter, night and day. Sometimes he is so warm you get goosebumps. However, it is time to end. By the way, I have spoken of spring; in spring it is easy to part, in spring even the happy feel the pull of the distance... Farewell, reader! I wish you constant well-being This book will always remain on my bookshelf, to be dusted and frequented, to be smelled and kissed; after a busy day at office you don't need wine and music, you need a Turgenev's story reclining on a settee.
—Mohit Parikh
In his Preface to "The Seasons" the Scottish poet James Thomson wrote, "I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?"This is a theme that runs through the Sketches From a Hunter's Album. The beauty of the sylvan glade or the summer sun glistening off the meadows flowers is brought to life by the prose of Turgenev in these vignettes. Certainly the characters are also finely drawn and include all social stratas while emphasizing the narrator's interactions with peasants and serfs. It is the latter that impress the reader by the respect and generosity with which they are treated. The combination of fascinating characters and beautiful nature writing made this book a joy to read. I found myself looking forward to the next chapter with expectation that I would be treated to another even more interesting facet of the countryside and its denizens. I was not disappointed until the end of the book and only then because I did not want it to end.Considering this book was first published in 1852 after having appeared serially as separate sketches, it is a further wonder because the serfs would not be freed for another decade. These short stories revealed Turgenev's unique talent for story-telling. And they greatly influenced Russian short story writers into the early 20th century, including Anton Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kuprin and others. The stories remain fresh today, even in translation, and reward the reader with their magnificence. But let me leave you with a quote from Turgenev himself that expresses my feelings as well:“the deep, pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy memories pass in slow procession over the soul”
—James
