Friday, March 30, 2007

Turgenev's House of Gentlefolk, On the Eve

I've read two of Turgenev's novels since my last post -- at the end of the week I'm always a bit more tired and cannot write as much, so I fuel myself with more reading. Well, Turgenev's plots are so far all romantic entanglements. I am interested to discover that he also mixes in other ethnic groups with the Russians: Poles, Ukrainians, Bulgarians. In House of Gentlefolk, there are comments made about little Russians (Ukrainians) to raise a lot of eyebrows in that ethnic community! The novels continue to be short, easy reads. The stateliness I noticed in the first novel seems to be more like lightweightedness now. Not a lot of happy endings for women who defy convention: in House, the heroine became a nun; in On the Eve, an expatriate widow.

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