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Read Sketches From A Hunter's Album (1990)

Sketches from a Hunter's Album (1990)

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3.9 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0140445226 (ISBN13: 9780140445220)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin classics

Sketches From A Hunter's Album (1990) - Plot & Excerpts

I bought this for the cover art. I love everything about Jevgraf Fiodorovitch Krendovsky's 1836 painting Preparations for Hunting (in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). The calm, subdued, but rich color palette, the glances the young hunters, and the young boy on the left, are giving each other, the angles of arms and legs, the devoted hunting dog with its paw on its master's leg, the attention to details of fashion and outerwear. It many ways it's a perfect choice for cover art for the book (so much cover art is incomprehensibly ill-matched). These sketches by Turgenev almost all begin with a hunter setting out on a hunt, with a hunting companion or alone, on his horse or in some kind of cart or carriage, with his hunting dog. And the hunting going on here is an upper class pursuit. We can tell from the painting that that's an upper class residence, upper class young men. When the lower classes "hunt," it's usually called poaching, because hunting involves land, and landowners, and private property. So when Turgenev's first person narrator goes out hunting in one sketch, and the landowner confronts him and asks him what he's doing, the situation quickly resolves because they're two aristocrats and the aristocratic privilege to hunt is extended from one landowner to another.As Richard Freeborn's excellent introduction explains, hunting is the pretext for these sketches. What they're really about, which the Russian government understood because it exiled Turgenev to his estate after the Sketches were published, is the terrible conditions of serfdom and servitude in Russia. Every sketch contains some poor wretch who is cold, hungry, or orphaned, or whose master won't allow him or her to get married, or won't sell her to a man who wants to marry her (!), or some serf being administered a beating by the landowner's bailiff, or some woman being beaten by some man, and most of them contain unhappy dogs who are never fed or burrow into the ground from cold and hunger.In spite of the subject matter, Turgenev maintains a certain calm distance from it. I wouldn't say there's a consistent tone of irony throughout, but occasionally irony is put to brilliant use, as in this passage from the first sketch, "Khor and Kalinych:"While out hunting in the Zhizdra region I became acquainted with a small Kaluga landowner, Polutykin, also a passionate hunter and, consequently, an excellent fellow. Admittedly, he had acquired one or two weaknesses: for instance, he paid court to all the rich young ladies of marriageable age in the province and, being refused both their hands and admission to their homes, confessed his grief heartbrokenly to all his friends and acquaintances while continuing to send the young ladies' parents gifts of sour peaches and other raw produce from his garden; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote which, despite Polutykin's high opinion of its merits, simply failed to make anyone laugh; he was full of praise for the works of Akim Nakhimov and the story Pinna; he had a stammer; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of however he used to say howsoever, and he introduced in his own house a French cuisine, the secret of which, according to his cook's ideas, consisted in completely altering the natural taste of each dish: in the hands of this culinary master meat turned out to be fish, fish became mushrooms, and macaroni ended up dry as powder; moreover, no carrot would be permitted in a soup that had not first assumed a rhomboidal or trapezoidal shape. But apart from these minor and insignificant failings Polutykin was, as I've said, an excellent fellow.There is fantastic anthropomorphizing, especially of dogs. Astronomer, referred to above, is accompanying the narrator and some peasants on a cart ride:"Let Astronomer be seated!" exclaimed Polutykin pompously.Fedya, not without a show of pleasure, lifted the uneasily smiling dog into the air and deposited it on the floor of the cart.In another sketch a landowner is attempting to teach his poodle the ABCs, which the dog unhappily refuses to learn. "He gave the dog a shove with his foot. The wretched dog rose up calmly, let the bread drop off its nose and walked away, deeply offended, into the hallway literally on tip-toe. And with good reason: here was a stranger come to visit for the first time and look how they treated him!"Turgenev's other strengths on display here are his wonderful powers of description, both of physical environments and people. No character is introduced without a complete rundown of his appearance, including hair, face, figure, and clothes. The novel's realism makes it a valuable historical document.

One reason I decided to read Turgenev's Sketches is because I very much appreciated his colorful and vivid character descriptions in the novels by him that I had already read, and he makes full use of that particular talent of his in this collection of short-stories. It's not just simply a collection of short-stories though since the narrator stays the same and there’s also his constant hunting companion Yermolay, who figures in several of these stories. Turgenev's descriptions of the landowning gentry and peasants are based on his experiences while out hunting in the areas surrounding his estate at Spasskoye – and they are often told with wry humor and sometimes imbued with that particular sense of sadness that I have found only in Russian literature. Besides the many different fascinating – and sometimes unforgettable - characters of these stories there’s also Turgenev's absorbing descriptions of the Russian countryside – though while in just this area he is sometimes bordering a bit too much on Romanticism (for my own taste), it’s easily forgivable not only when taking into account that these stories were first published in 1852, but also because Turgenev's genuine appreciation of nature is so obvious. As he writes in Forest and Steppe, "suppose you are not a born hunter, though you still love nature; in that case you can hardly fail to envy the lot of your brother hunters.." - I read this book while moving house, thinking that short-stories could be the perfect reading material in the course of this busy period, and the slow, lingering pace of most of this stories was indeed a great "antidote" for just that predicament. As a matter of fact, it could also be a great remedy for anyone heavily inflicted with the "modern condition". I read the complete edition containing all twenty-five of the Sketches, in a translation by Richard Freeborn, and to put it briefly: most of them are both both captivating and outstanding. I’ve read that Hemingway admired Turgenev for his short stories, now I know why.

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

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