A Sportsman's Notebook

Turgenev effectively invents a new form -- the literary sketch -- to impart a new kind of content. What is brilliant about these sketches which are in part nature meditation and in part biographical sketch is how Turgenev allows each character to speak for themselves. As a result we feel like we are hearing something we have never heard before -- the natural voice of the people. By allowing people to speak for themselves Turgenev gives us a truer and more genuine idea of how people -- serf and gentry -- really think and relate. Each sketch begins with a detailed description of the natural surroundings he is walking through and these descriptions give us insight into Turgenev's cast of mind which is infintely receptive, and discerning, even romantic and delicate at times as when he describes staring up through the forest canopy and imagining he is staring up at the world from beneath a vast body of water. These magnficent introductions set the mood for the character sketch to come. When he meets a serf it is as if he is merely continuing his communion with nature for the serfs live at one with the land. When he meets one of the gentry, however, and passes time in their company he feels removed from the natural settings and people he so values. It is a fascinating and very subtle technique but Turgenev makes the landowners seem like unnatural creatures who are disturbing the natural order. Though he is one of the gentry himself Turgenev hunts with the serfs , he values their company and conversation, and he values what they know. He knows them as individuals not just as serfs and so we too come to know them as individuals, each with their own personality and ideas about life and story to tell. Since we know these sketches are from real life we listen more carefully to them than we would if they were mere inventions; real life has a resonance that fiction does not. Given the choice of spending the day with a either serf or a landowner Turgenev would choose the serf. The serfs have not received an education and their opinions are often shaped by superstition, and yet it is these very superstitions that make them such colorful characters, the gentry may be educated but they are full of self-importance and affectations and see everything through the limited scope of their own self-interest which is merely another form of ignorance. Turgenev's most effective weapon is not bitter invective but irony. He never comes out and says serfdom is bad because the landowners are in some cases such vile creatures that there is no need to. By simply quoting them and describing their manners and actions Turgenev allows the landowners to do a fine job at condemning themselves. The most profound sketch to my mind is "Yermolay and the Millers Wife" which relates the harsh treatment doled out to a beautiful serf woman merely because she wants to get married, and a close second is "Bezhin Lea" about a group of boys telling ghost stories around a fire as t

Anyone who has read literature knows the best and most noteworthy volumes. This is not necessarily because the work is 'well written' or conveys ideas easily to the reader, or because someone else says it's good. Good literature is the work that has a completely positive effect upon the reader. I have been reading serious literature for several years now, and A Sportsman's Notebook is quite possibly the most wonderful literary work I have yet encountered. If I'm feeling down, I crack it open, and by the time I'm done reading I feel better. If I'm feeling good, it makes me feel that much better. Turgenev's words ring true in this volume -- to me it's as sweet as candy.

This fine gem of a book typifies the sort of volume that one must be able to extract from the water-logged valise when the steamer has gone down and one finds oneself stranded on the proverbial desert island. After 30 years of rather serious reading, I still tend to think that Turgenev is one of the finest authors ever to put ink to paper. A Sportsman's Notebook is a wonderful place to start an exploration of Russian literature. Now, if I can just find my tramp steamer tickets.

Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the greatest books, but Turgenev was the greatest writer." That doesn't really make sense, but it is high praise of a genius, by a genius. Hemingway's favorite story is "Rattle of Wheels." I love it, too. But my favorite in here is "The Singers." Two lines that resonated with me from this book (the first one an introvert like me can relate to). 1)"`I, too, have been corroded by introspection.'" and 2)"`One needs people, if only to have somebody to yell at.'" As you can see, from those lines, these aren't always the sunniest of stories (though some of them are), but they are among the best ever written.

This book has some of the best short fiction ever written. Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the best books, BUT TURGENEV WAS THE GREATEST WRITER." And then he went on to praise the short story "A Rattle of Wheels" above all other Turgenev stories. So if Hemingway thought Turgenev the greatest writer, and "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest story he wrote, then he certainly thought "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest short story ever written (aside from his own works, of course, egomaniac that he was). And "Rattle of Wheels" is in this collection. I personally prefer "The Singers". Read this collection. You won't regret it.