Fathers and Sons (FS) apparently pleased no one on in Russia on publication, and if not precisely ‘shocked’ the muchadumbre, then surely ruffled feathers and rubbed salt in fresh wounds: that, in any event, is the general promise in the blurb on the back cover of the book. Goody. I like a scandal...
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, t...
In honor of the season I have read a book I have heard much of over the years, one I have wanted to read for a long time: Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev, published in 1872 when Turgenev was 53 or 54. His age is important because this novelette is largely autobiographical and the hero, when w...
My Reading Life: Or How I went from Reading Turgenev to Reading MannThe pattern of our reading lives can be as comfortable and predictable as everyday life or as creative and thought provoking as the books we read. Take my own case: I often mosey along well worn tracks quite happily, certain of ...