Sketches from a Hunter's Album

by Ivan Turgenev

Other authorsRichard Freeborn (Translator)

Paperback, 1972

Status

Available

Call number

891.733

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Penguin Classics (1972), Edition: 6th printing, Paperback, 272 pages

Description

The first major writing by Turgenev that gained him recognition. The stories in this collection were written based on Turgenev's own observations while hunting at his mothers' estate. This work exposed many injustices of serfdom and led to Turgenev's house arrest and eventual abolishment of serfdom in Russia. A fine example of realist tradition in Russian literature.

User reviews

LibraryThing member richardderus

The Book Report: This edition of "A Sportsman's Sketches" or "Sketches from a Hunter's Album" contains 13 of a possible 25 short fictions published by the tyro writer in Russia's preeminent literary magazine, The Contemporary, from 1847 to 1851. These were his first prose outpourings, designed to

sustain his independent life far away from his autocratic and abusive mother. He brought these luminous, beautiful vignettes to life in partial imitation of his beloved's husband's work...Louis Viardot, much older husband of opera singer Pauline Viardot, and author of Souvenirs de chasse, a very similar collection of huntsman's memories of the countryside and people of Viardot's youth...but of his own youthful world at his mother's country estate.

The stories all illustrate the young author's liberalism, his disdain for the serf system sustaining a luxurious lifestyle for some and penury and privation for most. They were hailed by his fellow liberals, and entered the canon of Russian literature on the strength of that appeal. But generations of readers will attest that what keeps people reading these vignettes is a certain deftness and facility with characters and descriptions that is so robust that it even survives translation. These are objects of rare beauty. Not much when considered as stories, they blossom into beauty when viewed as moments lived by a very acute observer.

My Review: "Singers" is possibly my favorite of the sketches. The bleakness of the village, the unexpectedness of the singing contest in such a place, and the sheer animal drive of humans to find SOME joy in life...memorable.

"Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands" makes me weep...the dwarf, his simple belief that the world is good but mankind is not, his strength and certainty, all in contrast to our helpless and feckless narrator...how clear is Turgenev's picture of the unfairness of privilege unearned.

"Forest and Steppe" is, alone, the best reason I can give to you to go and get this book and read it. It shimmers. Its beauty of image and of imagination is simply unsurpassable. It is as close to perfect as any piece of writing I've ever seen.

So many of the others are, while good and worthy pieces of fiction, just not superb, that I feel it's best to say...the reason to read this collection is the cumulative effect of many a small, beautiful moment, not a Grand Revelation. More like walking in the woods by yourself, noticing birdsong and small shy flowers, than stumbling all unaware across the Grand Canyon.

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LibraryThing member Bernicia1949

I read no Russian; but I bought this, hoping to replace the old copy I have put out by Signet in the 60s. Whatever the quality of the translation--and perhaps someone who also reads Russian can let me know--the Penguin version is very much inferior in use of the English language and its tone (as of

cultured people in the post-Napoleanic, pre-American Civil War period). Instances: the description of a game bag, in the Signet version "embroidered in worsted" in the Penguin version simply "worsted"; or "One beautiful July morning I rode over to his place"(Penguin) versus "One fine July morning I went over to his place on horseback" (Signet). In the second case "rode" could have been on one of several kinds of wheeled vehicle which in other places the hunter used. Or "They're cutting it [the wood]down," (Penguin) instead of "I'm having some timber felled there."
I've seldom been so disappointed in a book!

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LibraryThing member ErnestHemingway

“I’ve been reading all the time down here. Turgenieff to me is the greatest writer there ever was. Didn’t write the greatest books, but was the greatest write. That’s only for me of course. Did you ever read short story of his called The Rattle of Wheels? It’s in the 2nd vol. of A

Sportsman’s Sketches. War and Peace is the best book I know but imagine what a book it would have been if Turgenieff had written it. Chekov wrote about 6 good stories. But he was an amateur writer. Tolstoi was a prophet. Maupassant was a professional writer, Balzac was a professional writer, Turgenieff was an artist.”
Letter to Archibald MacLeish, 1925
Selected Letters, pg. 179

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LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind

A truly excellent collection of short stories. I confess that Turgenev's most popular work left me cold, but this more than made up for it. Excellent stories and parables about the nature and beauty and tragedy of life across all layers of society. The only fault I could find was almost certainly

due to the clunkiness of the translation, which I won't let detract from my admiration this time. Excellent stuff.

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LibraryThing member jwhenderson

In his Preface to "The Seasons" the Scottish poet James Thomson said, "I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such

magnificence?"
This is a theme that runs through the Sketches From a Hunter's Album. The beauty of the sylvan glade or the summer sun glistening off the meadows flowers is brought to life by the prose of Turgenev in these vignettes. Certainly the characters are also finely drawn and include all social stratas while emphasizing the narrator's interactions with peasants and serfs. It is the latter that impress the reader by the respect and generosity with which they are treated. The combination of fascinating characters and beautiful nature writing made this book a joy to read. I found myself looking forward to the next chapter with expectation that I would be treated to another even more interesting facet of the countryside and its denizens. I was not disappointed until the end of the book and only then because I did not want it to end.
Considering this book was first published in 1852 after having appeared serially as separate sketches, it is a further wonder because the serfs would not be freed for another decade. These short stories revealed Turgenev's unique talent for story-telling. And they greatly influenced Russian short story writers into the early 20th century, including Anton Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kuprin and others. The stories remain fresh today, even in translation, and reward the reader with their magnificence. But let me leave you with a quote from Turgenev himself that expresses my feelings as well:
“the deep, pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy memories pass in slow procession over the soul”

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LibraryThing member shawnd

This was my first Turgenev. I was told to read Fathers and Sons first. I have enjoyed vignettes of wealthy Russian landowners going bird hunting as asides in stories by Gogol, Pushkin and others. I was a little suprised that this entire book - or a lot of it - was these stories. The Doctor's Story

was not and was amazing. Aside from a couple, most are about meeting peasants and other landowners while hunting. Apparently some political undertones here made it past the Tsar's censors about giving serfs freedom, but it didn't overwhelm the book. I would say a good filler to round out a Turgenev portfolio but be ready for lots of hunting and bird counts.

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LibraryThing member vesnaslav

Although Turgenev never intentionally set out to overthrow Russian serfdom when he penned this collection of vignettes around 1850, that was precisely what occured. Fiercely empathetic toward the peasants, Turgenev himself was well educated and upper class. Philosophically, he was also a

Westernist, spending a great deal of his adult life abroad, including France.

This collection of short stories, however, is distinctively Russian in its locale, thought and soul. The main characters are, in essence, not the narrator and his hunting companion, but rather the peasants they encounter, the vast expanse of sky, the open fields and woods of the Russian provinces.
Turgenev exquisitely describes the joy of pheasant hunting and the great outdoors.

By far, the most poignant story involves a young woman who is nearly fading from this life. Living Relic deals with a peasant woman who sustained a ridiculous but grave injury while stepping off her porch. No longer able to take care of herself, indeed, not able to do much more than lie on her bed and pleasantly speak to any who might pass by, Lukeria embraces the joyous spirit which had always been hers. She tells the narrator, after nearly losing her breath, "I don't need anything. I am quite content, praise God!"

Through each story Turgenev writes of the vastness of Russia and the grandness of her indomitable spirit.

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LibraryThing member xine2009

Turgenev is great. This book has astoundingly beautiful passages about nature. OK, the narrator shoots some birds, but this isn't detailed or bloody and makes up about 2% of the content.

LibraryThing member pmtracy

A Sportsman’s Sketches by Ivan Turgenev is a collection of short stories or observations (sketches) from the viewpoint of a Russian nobleman traveling his lands to both survey them and hunt for sport. [Note that this book is sometimes titled Sketches from a Hunter’s Album.]

When you can’t

enjoy a novel in the original language, then the book is only as good as the translation you have at hand. This particular edition was translated by Constance Garnett who did an excellent job of making Turgenev approachable.

While somewhat pastoral through the idyllic scenery that is described in detail, Turgenev’s main focus is the people that the sportsman encounters. Through discussions and business dealings, we learn that most people are not as they initially appear. Poor, unhealthy peasants display some of the deepest wisdom while privileged and well respected gentry are abusive and take advantage of their position. Class distinctions are important in this book, but the narrator tends to take a more positive view of those well below his station. One lesson that is consistent through most sketches is that your actions have a great impact on how others treat you.

My favorite descriptive passage in the book was when the hunter is lying on his back and looking up through the trees into sky. In the middle of his detailed description, he flips his viewpoint to be that of peering into the depths of the ocean. This ends in one of my favorite phrases:

“the deep, pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy memories pass in slow procession over the soul”

Turgenev is a Russian master that is more easily understood by Westerners than some of his contemporaries. His sentence structure (depending on the translator) may still be very complex, but the subject matter is simple. This was relatively short for a piece of Russian fiction, but it’s a great sample of Turgenev’s style and made me interested in reading more of his work.

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LibraryThing member martin1400

Turgenev lays bare the injustices and arbitrariness of the serf system simply through recounting stories in which the humanity of all the characters, good, bad and middling, and with all their flaws, is allowed to speak, and his breathtakingly beautiful evocations of the natural world of the

Russian countryside create the background and context. There's humour too, as there must be in all accounts of human interactions, and pathos which at times is almost unbearable. As with the 'A Russian Gentleman' and 'Years of Childhood' volumes of Sergei Aksakov's autobiographical trilogy, Turgenev's 'Sketches from a Hunter's Album' seems to take you to the actual living reality of rural Russia under serfdom. A wonderfully evocative book and a joy to read.

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LibraryThing member pnorman4345

A series of short stories about rural russian in the 1830's. The are three (wonderful) aspects: the description of the countryside, the injustices inherent in the institution of serfdom and, on occasion, its bad effects on the nobility, and the glorious feats of the soul that some do to achieve

'humaness' and more.

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LibraryThing member pmtracy

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LibraryThing member jeffome

Lovely little book of beautifully descriptive stories & observations of a Russian Nobleman's encounters with both nature and people as he traveled about the Russian countryside in the mid 1800's. His discourse relative to peasants was always very respectful, and his unease with the double-class

system lurks gently below his text. That was interesting, but even more stellar to me were the unbelievable descriptions of the beauty of unspoiled nature....woods especially, but fields, gardens, roads, rivers, springs, weather.....all with striking descriptions that could actually make you see, feel and smell all that he described....not an easy task. While from the perspective of a hunter, in closing he even admits that not all can appreciate the love of hunting.....but how can you anything but envy the hunter whose world is the glory of nature. Interesting read......

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LibraryThing member thorold

On the face of it this seems a very modest, unassuming collection of short stories, most of them little more than sketches or anecdotes, narrated by a gentleman who has inherited his grandfather's estate in the Russian countryside and goes there to shoot for a few weeks of the year. But it's

considered to be one of the most politically influential texts in 19th century Russian literature.

The reason for that seems to lie in the way Turgenev's sportsman-narrator engages with the country people he meets and tries to discover their stories and the way they live. Naturally, they all turn out to be complex human individuals, each with a unique background and personal characteristics, and highly-specific relationships, problems, hopes and dreams. The serfs stubbornly refuse to dissolve into the romantic notion of "Russian peasant" (spirituality, resignation, stubbornness, tradition); the landowners equally fail to fall into any stereotypical notions we might have of gentlemanly or aristocratic attitudes.

Moreover, it often turns out that the serf characters have had their lives messed up in multiple ways by the thoughtless and arbitrary behaviour of their owners. The narrator never explicitly criticises this behaviour, but he notes its effects, and he leaves us to draw our own conclusions about whether that sort of thing is acceptable in a modern European country in the middle of the progressive nineteenth century.

The narrator is always described as a sportsman, but shooting birds doesn't enter much into the stories. The usual pattern is that he goes to a particular place in order to shoot, there's a lyrical description of the landscape, and then something happens to prevent him from getting to grips with the birds, and he meets someone who turns out to have an interesting story. More often than not, something else then happens to prevent that person from quite getting to the end of the story, so we are left dangling slightly, and have to work things out for ourselves a little. A couple of times we get someone who appears as a minor character in one story and is then fully developed in their own right in the next, but apart from that there is no overall development between the stories.

Oddly enough, Turgenev's technique reminded me very strongly of Mary Russell Mitford, a writer from a rather different background, but with the same kind of intelligent interest in how rural life works and what problems country people have to deal with. And the same sort of mix of lyrical-but-precise scenic description and realistic observation of human behaviour. Lovely, compassionate and very compelling writing in both cases.

The 2020 Ecco edition of the Hepburn translation (originally published by Everyman) comes with an extra introduction by Pakistani-American writer Daniyal Mueenuddin, who talks about how relevant he still finds Turgenev's stories to the semi-feudal agricultural society he grew up in.

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