A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev, Volume I
A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev, Volume I
Translated by Constance Garnett
In 1850s Russia, a young nobleman takes to the countryside with his gun, and what he finds there will quietly dismantle everything he thought he knew about his homeland. Turgenev's groundbreaking collection follows this hunting narrator as he wanders through villages and estates, encountering the full spectrum of Russian life: cruel landlords and kind ones, desperate peasants and proud ones, forgotten wives and grieving mothers. Each sketch is a small masterpiece of observation, precise and compassionate, neither cold nor sentimental. These twenty-five portraits caused an earthquake. Published in an era when serfs had no voice, Turgenev gave them one so vivid and humane that readers couldn't look away. The book led to his arrest and exile to his estate. It was also said to have moved Tsar Alexander II toward abolishing serfdom. The power lies in what Turgenev refuses to do: lecture, sentimentalize, or look away. He simply shows, and the truth does the rest. The sketches endure because they reveal that the real Russia was never in St. Petersburg salons but in the mud and light of its countryside, in people whose dignity survived conditions designed to destroy it. This is a book for readers who believe literature can change how we see the world.
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“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””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“It’s not for man nor beast to get the better of death. Death doesn’t come running, but you can’t run away from it, neither; nor must you be helping it along.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“In reality you felt at the same time that he could not be friends, nor be really intimate with anyone, and that he could not be so, not because in general he was independent of other people, but because his whole being was for a time turned inwards upon himself.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him”
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“...but among us Russians there's no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“Hans Stolthed fortog sig ikke. Tvertimod, jo værre hans Sager stillede sig, desto mere anmassende, vigtig og umedgørlig blev han. Tilsidst blev han ligefrem menneskesky.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“… Men kære, kære Herre, hvem af os Mennesker kan vel egentlig hjælpe sin Næste? Hvem kan hjælpe ham saadan, som han ønsker det i sin Sjæls Inderste? Nej, vi maa nok se af hjælpe os selv! De vil maaske ikke tro det, men undertiden,”
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“[…] Ja, jeg undte mig ikke en Gang den Forestilling, at jeg hengav mig til Ironiens bittersøde Følelse… nej, for vil De sige mig - hvad har en Solo-Ironi at betyde?””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“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.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
