Showing results for "Ivan Turgenev" in Relationships

First Love by Ivan Turgenev. The title of the novella is almost an adequate summary in itself. The "boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her" story is universal but not, I think, banal - despite a surprise ending which notoriously turns out to be very little of a surprise. First Love is given its originality and poignancy by Turgenev's mastery of the piercing turning-point (akin to Joyce's "epiphanies") that transforms the character's whole being, making a tragic outcome inevitable. Even the nature symbolism is rescued from triteness by lovely poetic similes - e.g. "but at that point my attention was ...

Turgenev wrote Fathers and Sons as a response to the growing cultural schism between liberals of the 1830s-1840s and the growing nihilist movement. Both the nihilists (the "sons") and the 1830s liberals (the "fathers") sought Western-based social change in Russia. These two modes of thought were contrasted with the Slavophiles, who believed that Russia's path lay in its traditional spirituality. Fathers and Sons, which might be considered as the first really modern novel in Russian literature, enraged everyone when it was published.

When Arkady Petrovich returns home from college, his father finds his eager, naïve son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought home with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father with his determination to overthrow the traditional values of society. Vividly capturing the hopes and fears of a changing Russia in the 19th century, Fathers and Sons is Ivan Turgenev's masterpiece. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

When N—— met Annouchka. A graceful story of innocence, love, coming of age, and friendship, set between two picturesque towns on the banks of the Rhine. - Summary by Rapunzelina