Posted by Lale on 1/5/2008, 7:51:10, in reply to "Turgenev - Nest of Gentry"
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I finished it.
Didn't Varvara remind you Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair?
I agree, Steven, the narration was somewhat awkward and certainly, for us reading it now, quite old fashioned.
The writing is nothing like Tolstoy's or other Russian authors I've read. Some of this was might have been the fault of the translation, or the fault of the reader who doesn't know how people talk in Russia, or how they talked back then. They were saying things that sounded unrealistic in English and today. However, I still think some of the stop-and-go narration and the lack of fluidity in the story can be blamed on the author.
I didn't find it a great story. Again, Steven's word of "understated" comes to mind. The intense emotions were not intense, at least the delivery didn't make me feel them as intensely.
No happy ending. I was angry with Liza for going into a convent and becoming a nun. She could have done much better things with her life.
Good book, not memorable.
Lale
--Previous Message--
: Has anyone else finished this selection or still
: planning to read it?
:
: I've read several of Turgenev's shorter novels
: recently, and enjoy his understated way of dealing
: with intense emotional situations. His novels also
: draw to realistic conclusions rather than fairly tale
: happy endings.
:
: Nest of Gentry is unique, and somewhat awkward, in the
: way it spends a significant part of the narrative
: digressing into the history of the Lavretsky family.
: Was this necessary? The family history says a lot
: about Russia and its attitude towards foreign styles
: and education, but it isn't essential to the main plot
: line.
:
: Turgenev's short novel Spring Torrents has the same
: type of love triangle as Nest of Gentry. An educated
: but indecisive man is caught between a sweet and pure
: young girl like Liza and a femme fatale like Varvara.
:
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