Sketches for a Hunter's Album

Today’s passage was taken from a story published in the book, “Sketches for a Hunter’s Album’” for which Ivan Turgenev ( toor-gye-nyif) was arrested and exiled from Moscow for three years. The book is not so much about hunting as it is about the rural world of Russia. Turgenev detested both the injustices of the serf system and tyranny, especially the tyranny of serfdom and Tsarist authoritarianism. Many of the stories speak to the despotism, violence, and barbarism that serfs experienced at the hands of his mother and grandmother at the estate on which Turgenev grew up. The great charm of these stories is that they are unplotted. Some of them are simply about the narrator going out hunting and encountering some man, or woman or situation.

“My Neighbour Radilov”

“In people who are constantly and strongly preoccupied by one thought or by a single passion there is always some common feature noticeable, some common likeness in behaviour, no matter how different their qualities, their abilities, their position in society and their education. The longer I observed Radilov, the more it seemed to me that he belonged to such a category of person. He would talk about running his estate, about the harvest, about the haymaking, about the war, about the provincial gossip and forthcoming elections, he would talk quite freely, even with a sense of involvement, but suddenly he’d give a sigh and sink into an armchair, drywashing his face like a man worn out by hard work. It seemed his entire spirit, kindly and wam though it was, was penetrated, permeated through and through, by a single feeling. I was struck by the fact that I couldn't find in him any passion for food or wine or hunting or Kursk nightingales or epileptic pigeons or Russian literature………you had the feeling……..that he couldn't really be friends, couldn't really be on close terms with anyone, and he couldn't not because he didn't really need other people but because his whole life had been turned inwards.”

                                                    Literary Apparel for the Enlightened

 

Back to blog

Leave a comment