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Preparations for Hunt by Evgraf Krendovsky (1836) Picture sourceI come back to Turgenev’s own description of this book (which I quoted on the resources post): “Much has come out pale and scrappy, much is only just hinted at, some of it’s not — right, oversalted or undercooked — but there are other notes pitched exactly […]
A brief post on the last nine stories in (my version of) A Sportsman’s Notebook: “The Singers”, “Pyotr Petrovich Karataev”, “The Rendezvous”, “Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo”, “Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin”, “The End of Chertopkhanov”, “The Live Relic”, “The Knocking”, and “Forest and Steppe”. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found […]
Landscape with Oaks by Alexey Savrasov (1850s) Picture sourceA brief post on the next nine stories in A Sportsman’s Notebook: “Bezhin Meadow”, “ Kasyan from Fair Springs”, “ The Bailiff”, “The Estate Office”, “The Bear”, “Two Landowners”, “Lebedyan”, “Tatyana Borisovna and Her Nephew”, and “Death”. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook […]
There is July, and then there is Turgenev’s July. Here is the wonderful and magical first paragraph of “Bezhin Meadow” (translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn): It was a beautiful July day, one of those days which come only after long spells of settled weather. From the earliest morning the sky is clear; the dawn […]
The Overgrown Pond by Valentin Serov (1888) Picture sourceA brief discussion covering the first seven of the “sketches”: Khor and Kalinich, Ermolai and the Miller’s Wife, Raspberry Water, The Country Doctor, My Neighbor Radilov, Ovsyanikov the Freeholder, Lgov. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found here. All quotes are […]
A Sportsman’s Notebook by Ivan Turgenev Translated by Charles and Natasha Hepburn The Cresset Press, London, 1950 I am glad that this book has come out; it seems to me that it will remain my mite cast into the treasure chest of Russian literature, to use the phraseology of the school-book… Much has come out […]