A House of Gentlefolk

Just another sad love story...maybe. But not as written by the Russian master, author Ivan Turgenev ...a glimpse into the human mind, a dense jungle with meandering rivers flowing in different directions to who knows where, it ends someday. The plot, a wealthy , young, very inexperienced man Fyodor Ivanych Lavretsky, falls for a beautiful girl Varvara Pavlovna, the first woman he feels attractive to , marries for love, ( the father, a greedy, poor retired general, with a shady past, consents rapidly, wonder why? ) she adores... money, in mid 19th century Saint Petersburg, the capital, of the Russian Empire. An unexpected, at an early age landowner , inherited estates from cold, uncaring, miserable relatives , that showed no affection, especially his disinterested father, to busy stealing from people , couldn't be bothered , the useless brat was unimportant, the meek, peasant mother, had died a few years after his birth, the young, lonely boy suffered in silence. The restless lady, soon after the wedding gets Fyodor away from the dull (and even duller mate), life of country living, to the glamorous city of lights, Paris, the wife wants to have fun. Varvara quickly meets men that attract her, she spreads her charms around generously, the silly husband, a real dud in comparison, is always reading voraciously, no joy there. Yet even a trusting blind man will discover the truth, it wouldn't set him free, nevertheless he departs leaving his little daughter too , a reminder of his big mistake, back to mother Russia and face the quite embarrassed relatives bravely, after eight wasted years abroad, gloom and despair , are in the air his face shows, life has passed him by. UNTIL SEEING his second cousin, a kind, understanding, lovely girl of 19, Lisa, her mother , his cousin does not approve, the annoyed Marya Dmitriyevna Kalitin, has a better , more suitable candidate, Vladimir Nikolaich Panshin, 28, ( don't you love Russian names ?) . A government official in the Interior Department, on his way up, so he's a dilettante, no problem, their nasty aunt Marfa Timofeyevna Pestova, forecasts complete disaster, still the married Feyodor is only 35, visits them everyday, in the provincial town of O (Oryol) , rumors give hope, rashness has no bounds, emotions are all, but reality strikes again. Can a person have two chances for happiness, a rarity on Earth. A passionate narrative, romantic with adults acting , childish, yet love has made many in history do the same and undoubtedly will repeat this pattern in the future, gripped in the powerful strains of the heart, nothing else matters to those involved...

<i>Introduction</i><br /><br />--Home of the Gentry<br /><br /><i>Notes</i>

Star rating holds from first reading in the late 70s. (Did I just say "late 70s"?) I feel like the protagonist, Lavretsky. Decidedly old.<br /><br />That said, this one escapes the old "don't you dare revisit a book you liked LONG ago... you may regret it." I didn't. Old me agreed with young me. The plot may be conventional and the characters reasonable (vs. gaining attention, negative or positive matters not, via wretched excess), but that's OK.<br /><br />Turgenev is a mood guy. Nice atmospheric touches. And he clearly loved nature, never failing to add descriptions of the Russian countryside -- usually in the summer -- that charm fans of nature like me. No, it's not quite as strong as his short story collection, <i>Sketches from a Hunter's Album</i> in that sense, but still admirable.<br /><br />This is one of those return of the native stories. In this case, middle-aged Lavretsky returns to Russia from Europe with regrets -- regrets for his ill-advised marriage and regrets for his departure to begin with. Meantime, back at the ranch, there's a small cast of characters who are good at gossip, pretensions, anger, wistfulness, and gradually, love.<br /><br />Thus the return-of-the-native story also serves as a can-he-find-happiness story. We all know the answer to that one. Last I knew, Thomas Jefferson was still pursuing it (as is the country he left behind).<br /><br />Like all pursuits of happiness, this one is bittersweet. Turgenev may not be Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, but he certainly rates a spot in the Golden Age of Russian Lit.

Turgenev is your best choice if you want to tussle with Russian classics without embarking on forests of nervy insanity (Dostoevsky) or bricky pomposity (Tolstoy), for Ivan serves up stylishly concise narratives of unhappy families in a permanent tizzy at the only things the 1800s were concerned with—maintaining hereditary privilege, staying in ill-fated marriages until one spouse conveniently dies, and keeping the peasants at bay. Turgenev is a writer thoroughly involved in his deftly drawn characters, and the cast of this novel are exquisitely rendered across 200+ sublimely written pages of mellow Russian mastery.

Nido de nobles es una novela escrita por Iván Turgueniev en 1859. El concepto argumental gira en torno al típico triángulo amoroso que se estilaba en demasía en esa época, mediados del siglo XIX, tanto en Rusia como en Europa. <br />Turgueniev, es un renombrado escritor para mí un poco a la sombra de los grandes novelistas rusos con los que compartió su tiempo literario y creo que más allá de contar con títulos muy importantes como “Padres e hijos”, “Aguas Primaverales”, “Relatos de un Cazador” o “Primer amor”, no posicionaría a estas obras junto a libros de la talla de “La guerra y la paz” de Tolstoi o “Los hermanos Karamazov” de Dostoievski.<br />En qué me baso: en que Turgueniev orientó sus letras a Europa y esto en cierto modo tendió a ir en su contra, más precisamente luego de ese contrapunto político y cultural (más político que cultural) entre los “eslavófilos”, férreos defensores de la idiosincrasia del pueblo ruso y de los “occidentalistas”, que tendían a apoyar más abiertamente la influencia de Europa, sobre todo de Francia, Alemania e Inglaterra.<br />Este occidentalismo se nota claramente en “Nido de Nobles”. Voy a explayarme un poco más acerca de este conflicto porque los que me conocen saben de mi incondicional admiración por Fiódor Dostoievski, aunque debo reconocer que si bien la novela posee un argumento sólido y entretenido, sólo queda dentro de esta cuestión, dado que Turgueniev narra sólo los acontecimientos y las atribulaciones de los personajes sin ahondar suficientemente en lo psicológico dentro de ellos y esa es una cualidad que sólo poseían escritores de la talla de Tolstoi o Dostoievski.<br />Es sobre el personaje principal de la novela, Fiódor Ivánech Lavretsky donde gira esta historia junto con Lizabeta Mijailovna Kalitin (o Lisa) de tiernos diecinueve años y con Bárbara Pavlovna quien fuera su esposa, dado que le es infiel durante su estadía en Francia (vuelvo a recalar el occidentalismo de la novela). Se agrega a este triángulo la figura de Vladimiro Nicoláievich Panchin quien pugnará también por el amor de Lisa, inestable ante tanto amor ofrecido por ambos caballeros.<br />Sorprende también en esta novela el marcado interés del autor por Francia y su capital, París y, a mi modo de ver, la manera en que Rusia pasa a un segundo plano. En un momento de la novela, cuando Barbara Pavlovna vuelve a Rusia, el autor narra sobre cómo ésta mira desde su carruaje a los <i>mujiks (campesinos)</i>, casi con asombro y desdén o cuando en otro pasaje el autor nos cuenta: <i>”Panchin , al quedarse solo, sacó de su bolsillo un pañuelo de batista, limpióse las uñas y se miró las manos. Las tenía muy bellas y blancas…"</i>. <br />Y yo me pregunto: ¿es ésta la imagen que tiene Turgueniev del hombre ruso? ¿Puede uno compararlo con el Dubrovsky de Pushkin, Tarás Bulba de Gógol o Stavroguin de Dostoievksi, por nombrar sólo algunos?<br />Decididamente no.<br />Algo de esta defensa al pueblo ruso se percibe en la respuesta de Lavretsky a Panchin al final de una acalorada discusión entre ambos en donde Turgueniev lleva estas diferencia entre eslavófilos y occidentalistas a estos dos personajes. Está claro que la defensa de lo ruso por parte de Lavretsky es tibia. El otro le recriminaba que Rusia es el país más atrasado de Europa. Más allá de las convicciones que el pueblo ruso pueda tener acerca de su propia patria, la definición es bastante desafortunada.<br />Volviendo a la novela, me ha resultado agradable, pero sólo eso. Como explicara en la primera parte de la reseña, es un típico triángulo amoroso con fuertes pinceladas de romanticismo alemán <i>a lo Werther</i> en algunos casos, que se hace carne en personajes rusos. <br />El final de la novela es discreto, cierra bien los vaivenes argumentales de la historia pero no ha logrado que me conecte con sus personajes. Tal vez el de Lavretsky es el más logrado, más allá de que Turgueniev incluya en este algunas características de su propia vida, pero en líneas generales dista mucho de lo que generan las novelas rusas en mí (y soy de leerlas con asiduidad). No tienen el efecto que me han dado otras que sí me shockearon. <br />Pienso en “La sonata a Kreutzer” que también incluye un conflicto amoroso entre tres personas, pero en ésta, Tolstoi maneja en la historia con tal maestría que luego de terminar la novela dan ganas de tomar el libro y releerlo automáticamente.<br />Intentaré leer las otras novelas también famosas de Turgueniev. Con esta en particular me fue imposible separar mi corazón de los otros escritores rusos que admiro.<br />Si fuera ruso sería un eslavófilo puro. Para qué negarlo…

آشیانه اشراف ، مورد پسند ترین کتاب <b> ایوان تورگنیف </b> نویسنده مشهور روس ، یک داستان کلاسیک روسی ایست ، حکایت اشرافی ایست که در برج عاج خود ، در این کتاب در آشیانه اشرافی خود نشسته اند ، اوقات خود را با صحبت های کلی ،مهمانی هایی با شکوه ، نواختن موسیقی و اظهار فضل در مورد تقریبا همه چیز می گذرانند ، انسان هایی شاید فرهیخته اما بی مصرف و یا به فرموده سعدی عالم بی عمل .<br />تورگنیف عشقی هم در دل داستان گذاشته ، و قصه کتاب را حول این عشق شکل داده و از این راه به نقش پررنگ مذهب در روسیه قرن 19 پرداخته ، نویسنده بدین گونه به دغدغه های مردم روسیه نگاهی هم انداخته ، افکاری که در پیرامون مذهب ، عشق و ایده های روشن فکری شکل گرفته اند ، شمایل <br />روسیه قرن 19 را نشان می دهد : متجددانی بی عمل و منفعل مانده در تناقض مذهب و روشن فکری ، تصویری از یک جامعه به بن بست رسیده<br /><br />در آخرین جمله کتاب ، تورگنیف از لحظات و احساساتی در زندگی می گوید که تنها باید اشاره ای به آن ها کرد و از کنارشان گذشت ، البته او مشخص نمی کند که اگر این احساسات بی اندازه قوی و لحظات هم بسیار مهم و آینده ساز باشند باز هم از کنار آن ها می توان به سادگی گذشت ؟؟

Now I know why I don't read more Russian literature. However, to be fair, I can understand why the readers of 1859 would consider this their most popular novel by Turgenev. Tragic melodrama of ruined lives would have appealed at that time, in that place.

This book was not off to a good start for me:<br /><br /><i>“Before the open window of a handsome house, in one of the streets on the outskirts of the provincial town of O, sat two ladies, one of fifty and the other an <b>old lady of seventy.”</b></i><br /><br />What? Who are you calling old? Lol.<br /><br />Okay, I recovered myself and dove in with good intentions and tackled the second problem, which is just something that comes with reading Russian novels, you have to sort out all those names so that you don’t have to pause and say “who?” all the time. <br /><br />But finally, I had conquered them and never blinked knowing that Fyodor Ivanych Levretsky was Fedya and Elena Mikhaylovna Kalitin was also Lenochka. <br /><br />I settled into the story, and was fairly interested when we got our first glimpses of Fedya (we are on endearment terms at this point) falling for his wife. We are told the moment we meet him that he has left her in Paris, so we know there is going to be something juicy here. But alas, that part passes rather quickly and I dare say everything after that is boring.<br /><br />I am going to admit to being disappointed that the choice this time for the <i>Obscure</i> group was a Russian novel. The last one was a Russian novel as well, so this might be turning into the Obscure Russian novels group. But, no, that is unfair, because the other Russian novel was <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/4934.The_Brothers_Karamazov" title="The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky" rel="noopener">The Brothers Karamazov</a>, and that one isn’t even obscure.<br /><br />If you want to read Turgenev, and you have not read him before, go for <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/19117.Fathers_and_Sons" title="Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev" rel="noopener">Fathers and Sons</a>. Far superior. Some novels are obscure for a reason. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

<i>“Woe to the heart that has not loved in youth!”</i><br /><br />I love Turgenev’s gentle prose. His writing feels more accessible than the other Russian greats, more personal. He details the countryside--flora and fauna; weaves in religion, complete with vestments and ceremonies; illustrates household customs and traditions; and even blends specific works of literature and music into his story. <br /><br />What I enjoy about Russian literature is the struggles, the recognition of beauty, the yearning for truth. This story has all that, but on a smaller, personal scale. Fyodor Ivanych Lavretsky comes from a messed-up family. We follow his strange upbringing and education, and his attempts to invent and reinvent himself. He makes a bad marriage to a wonderfully-written, love-to hate character, the enchanting, manipulative Varvara Pavlovna. <br /><br /><i>“She had much practical sense, a great deal of taste, and a very great love of comfort, together with a great faculty for obtaining it for herself.”</i><br /><br />There are extended family members who think they know best. There is the promise of true love. There is angst, but with less wailing and gnashing of teeth than, say, Dostoevsky. It’s maybe closer to your angst or mine, softer, more relatable.<br /><br />So I would call this a little, not-so-melodramatic melodrama, a soap opera that takes place in a house of gentlefolk, and I found it touching, sweet and enjoyable, from beginning to end.

<blockquote>"لحظات و احساساتی در زندگی هست که تنها باید اشاره‌ای به آن‌ها کرد و از کنارشان رد شد"</blockquote><br /><br />نمی‌دونم آیا تا حالا با اون دست از آدم‌ها که به لحاظ ظاهری خیلی اهل فضل و کمالات هستن، اهل موسیقی، اهل کتاب، تئاتر و خلاصه همه جنبه‌های یک روشنفکر و یک انسان والاتبار رو دارن، آدم‌هایی که با بذله‌گویی‌ها و خوش‌صحبتی‌هاشون می‌تونن به سادگی در دل هر کسی نفوذ کنن و خودشون رو تو هر جمعی جا کنن. اما در درون آدم‌های احمق یا بدتر از اون، آدم‌های پست و فرومایه‌ای بیش نیستن! مواجه شدین یا نه. آدم‌هایی که اگرچه به ظاهر خیلی اجتماعی هستن اما هیچ خیری به جامعه نمی‌رسونن و فقط در بند خودشون هستن. خوب، به این‌ها اضافه کنید، مهمونی‌ها و شب‌نشینی‌های روسی رو و اون وسط یک آدم صاف و ساده (لاورتسکی)، یک آدم کاردرست اما مفلس و بدبخت (لِم) و یک روح پاک (لیزا) رو قرار بدید تا شاهد نکبت زندگی اونها باشید. این میشه خلاصه "آشیانه اشراف"ا<br /><br />نمره دادن به این کتاب کار سختیه چون بنظرم کتاب تا اواسطش افتضاح بود اما اواخرش خیلی خوب بود. بنظرم اساسا کتاب از جای اشتباهی شروع شد. یعنی به جای اینکه کتاب رو با معرفی "ماریا تیمافیونا" شروع کنه و از دل هزارتوی روابط فامیلی که کلی به شرح و بسط بی‌فایده اون‌ها می‌پردازه تا برسه به رابطه نَسَبی با "لاورتسکی"، می‌شد از همون اول با خود لاورتسکی شروع کنه و داستان رو جلو ببره. حقیقتا بخش زیادی از این کتاب مربوط می‌شه به سرگذشت خانوادگی و شجره نامه افراد که نه تنها در معرفی اون کاراکترها مفید نیست، بلکه خسته کننده هم هست.<br /><br /> در عوض، پایان کتاب، خیلی خوب بود. من برای اولین بار بود که واقعا حس کردم که خودم هم پیر شدم و وجودم از حسرت پر شده. احساس تلخ و عجیبی بود. مدتی طول کشید تا از اون حس بیام بیرون. لااقل تجربه من اینطور بود.<br /><br /><br /><i><br />پ.ن: ظاهرا داستان لاورتسکی خیلی با زندگی خود تورگینف قرابت داشته و شاید هم این همه شجره‌نامه که توی این کتاب اومده بی‌حکمت نیست و شاید تورگینف بیشتر برای دل خودش این داستان رو نوشته.</i>