To The Last Page

Turgenev's first short novel takes place in a setting familiar from his dramas and indeed many of his later novels - a country house setting where a widowed society lady from St. Petersburg, Darya Mihailovna entertains local dignitaries and distinguished men of letters. Almost invariably, the setting is one where romance takes place, Turgenev thereby pitting the men against each other in ways that brings out their strength or lack of moral character. In Rudin , it is Darya Mihailovna's daughter 17 year old Natalya who becomes the centre of the romantic entanglements that ensue when a new guest comes into the household, Dimitri Nikolaitch Rudin. Natalya is dazzled by the eloquence and wisdom of the man, who eclipses the empty pose, cynicism and 'bon mots' of the others, and Rudin comes to replace the rather dull and inarticulate Volintsev in her affections. Some of the men who have known Rudin in the past have doubts however about Rudin's strength of character and th...

Prefiguring Chekhov’s theatre work, Turgenev in dramatic form can perhaps seem to lack the precision and beauty of his prose work. On the page, A Month In The Country seems to offer little more than the romantic complications of Russian ladies and gentlemen in a setting isolated from the rest of the world with little in the way of any defining national or social characteristics, but its openness necessarily allows much more to be drawn from it in a stage setting. Despite the lack of any real drama - the romantic entanglements are almost entirely verbal, the complications and realisations agonised over in soliloquies - structurally the drama and the interaction between the various players of differing ages and classes is purposefully and powerfully achieved, reaching a conclusion of complete devastation of almost everyone involved without anything actually seeming to have occurred.

Turgenev’s third novel isn’t his most satisfying, the author casting around his cast of characters to find a committed idealist and romantic hero to bring about social reform in his country, but ‘on the eve of reform’ he fails to find them in the Russian gentry of the time. Initially he examines the characters of Shubin, a talented sculptor, and Bersyenev, a scholar and academic, and, in a Turgenev way, he examines their character and commitment to a cause through their courting of Elena Stahov. In this both men are lacking, failing to show anything but surface attraction and devotion, but backing down when a rival for her affections gets in their way. In On The Eve then, it’s in the form of a Bulgarian revolutionary called Insarov that Turgenev finds the characteristics that he is seeking, but the romantic melodrama that follows isn’t the strongest section of the novel, and it wouldn’t be until the creation of in Bazarov in his subsequent masterpiece Fathers and Sons  (or Fathers...

Turgenev's second novel is indeed closest to the ideal of pure Turgenev, certainly reminiscent of his dramatic work, depicting the lives of the gentry, Russian society and family relationships, while maintaining a humanistic stance towards the circumstances of the peasantry, all with a deep connection and love for the country and the landscape itself. It's even initially staged like one of Turgenev's dramas, each of the principal characters making their walk-on entrances at the Kalitin household, but Turgenev novelistically fills out the relevant background detail of a number of the characters with depth and precision. It's at the Kalitin household that Lavretsky, on his way back home to his estate after the break up of his marriage in Europe, calls in on his relatives and falls in love with his cousin Liza Mikhaylovna. Liza is however being courted by an important but dull government official who Lavretsky feels is unworthy of the deeply religious young woman, but Lavr...