Posted by Steven on 4/5/2008, 8:47:03, in reply to "Re: Turgenev - Nest of Gentry"
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: 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.
Yes, Liza seems annoyingly fragile, though it was typical of the 19th century to equate purity and fragility in women. Her monastic impulse is also a very Russian response. Do you think her primary motive was love ("If I can't have him, I won't have anyone.") or shame ("I've kissed a married man and must atone for it the rest of my life.")?
What did you think of Varvara Pavlovna? She was quite a monster, wasn't she? ...perhaps too diabolical to be entirely believable.
Lavretsky could be a prototype for Pierre in War and Peace: his foreign education leaves him pensive and indecisive, but prone to sudden romantic impulses. Each of them first marries a femme fatale, but Pierre is the luckier when his wife's death is real instead of a false rumor.
In the end, the good people (Liza and Lavretsky) are stunned by the whole affair into a life of retirement while the bad ones, Varvara and Panshin, thrive. Is this what Turgenev is saying is wrong with Russian society, that the good leave the field too easily?
I've been thinking about the similarities between Ivan Turgenev and Henry James, both in their life and work. I believe they were acquainted, though James was much younger. Each lived abroad for most of his adult life, but wrote on national themes. They never married, but each, near the end of his life, had a pathetic infatuation with a much younger person. They both wrote about predatory love relationships and romantic affairs with a large age difference. And lastly, for what it's worth, they both repeatedly used bird metaphors: Turgenev's characters live in "nests," and James's don't sit, they "perch."
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