Turgenev
I have thought of myself for years as someone who would read Turgenev with pleasure - without actually reading any Turgenev. When I was a student, it seemed more important to read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Turgenev's country-house comedies, highlighting the fecklessness of high-minded landowners, seemed a little depressing in substance. But two weeks ago, I was reading a piece in The New York Review of Books - a review of a new life, I believe - when a wave of shame deluged me. Virgin Soil was the first book that I could get my hands on.
¶ Virgin Soil.
