Product Description

On one level the novel is about the homecoming of Lavretsky, who, broken and disillusioned by a failed marriage, returns to his estate and finds love again - only to lose it. The sense of loss and of unfulfilled promise, beautifully captured by Turgenev, reflects his underlying theme that humanity is not destined to experience happiness except as something ephemeral and inevitably doomed. On another level Turgenev is presenting the homecoming of a whole generation of young Russians who have fallen under the spell of European ideas that have uprooted them from Russia, their 'home', but have proved ultimately superfluous. In tragic bewilderment, they attempt to find reconciliation with their land.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #408566 in Books
• Published on: 1970-06-30
• Original language: Russian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140442243
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Language Notes
Text: English, Russian (translation)

About the Author
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in 1818 in the Province of Orel, Russia. His series of six novels reflect a period of Russian life from 1830s to the 1870s: they are Rudin (1855), A House of Gentlefolk (1858), On the Eve (1859; a Penguin Classic), Fathers and Sons (1861), Smoke (1867) and Virgin Soil (1876). He also wrote plays, which include the comedy A Month in the Country; short stories and Sketches from a Hunter's Album (a Penguin Classic); and literary essays and memoirs. He died in Paris in 1883 after being ill for a year, and was buried in Russia. Richard Freeborn was an Oxford don for ten years. He was a Professor at UCLA and at Manchester, and then Professor of Russian Literature at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies in the Federal University of London from 1964 until his retirement in 1988. Author of books on Turgenev, the rise of the Russian novel and the Russian revolutionary novel as well as a history of Russia, translations of works by Turgenev and Dostoevsky, and four novels.

Customer Reviews

Not to be Missed!
All congenitally melancholy souls will love this novel, where intense romantic and spiritual conflicts unfold in the dreamlike setting of a nineteenth century Russian estate. This is a beautifully written, extremely lyrical work...it will especially appeal to devotees of Romantic piano music. The final few paragraphs are unforgettable and heartbreaking. I consider Home of the Gentry to be the most quintessentially "Turgenevian" of all the author's works. I have read the novel many times, and I never tire of it. If you are new to nineteenth century Russian literature, this is a good work with which to start. The novel is not long, and most chapters are quite short. Each one stands like a perfect little jewel, and many passages will remain in your memory for a long time. Like most Russian novels of the period, Home of the Gentry is a novel of ideas. Your reading will be enhanced if you have some background in the cultural dynamics of the period and understand the intellectual caste to which the protagonist belongs - he is a "superfluous man," and his conflicted ideological stance relates directly to issues that were intensely debated in the 1840s. Although knowing something about this situation is helpful, I imagine that even those readers who have no prior knowledge of the period will enjoy the work immensely. If nothing else, Turgenev's elegiac portrayal of the Russian countryside is unrivaled....even Tolstoy cannot match Turgenev's affecting depictions of the land itself. Freeborn's translation reads smoothly, and there is a helpful introductory essay in this edition.

Delicate and smart this book is a treat to the romantics
Unlike his famous contemporaries Turgenev's writing is not heroic and it's not full of pathos.Home Of The Gentry is a sensitive 'quiet' novel, the characters are portreyed delicately with an impossible combination of cynicism and true love for humen nature. The touching love story is a reward for those who like smart observations and have a real passion for the truely romantic.

A melancholic homecoming...
It is the archetypal story of the 'homecoming'. Turgenev captures the pathos and longing of returning. Where Tolstoy is the master of the epic, the great renouncer of sex and lust, Russia's prophet, Turgenev is the poet of landscapes, emotions, quiet moods and unfulfilled love. When you read Tolstoy, you can feel his brooding presence in the pages of his stories; with Turgenev, it is a bit more solemn, modest and melancholic. He is the wistful Russia, a thinker, a romantic. When the large tempos of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky overtake you, turn to Turgenev and appreciate his brief glimpses of beauty. First Love, On The Eve and A Month in the Country are also equally rewarding.