Fathers and Children
A revolutionary novel that invented a word for an entire generation. When the young, sharp-tongued nihilist Yevgeny Bazarov arrives at the country estate of his friend Arkady Kirsanov, he brings with him an explosive rejection of all authority, tradition, and sentiment. But Turgenev's genius lies in refusing to make this conflict simple. The fathers are not merely fossils; the children are not merely right. As Bazarov's caustic intelligence cuts through the pretensions of both aristocracy and romanticism, he ignites a chain of conflicts, intellectual, romantic, and ultimately tragic, that will leave no relationship untouched. This is the novel that defined the Russian 1860s and predicted the revolution to come. It also contains one of literature's most devastating endings. For readers who crave psychological depth, historical sweep, and characters who feel terrifyingly alive.
Editions
X-Ray
“We sit in the mud, my friend, and reach for the stars.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“As we all know, time sometimes flies like a bird, and sometimescrawls like a worm, but people may be unusually happy when they do noteven notice whether time has passed quickly or slowly””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me”
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“A withered maple leaf has left its branch and is falling to the ground; its movements resemble those of a butterfly in flight. Isn't it strange? The saddest and deadest of things is yet so like the gayest and most vital of creatures?””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“…Many things interested her, and nothing satisfied her entirely.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
“It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.””
— Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
