“When the unbearable midday heat compelled us to seek shelter, he led us to his bee-garden in the very depth of the forest. .”A Sportsman’s Notebook, by Ivan Turgenev, is just that: a notebook-style series of sketches, of people and places in rural Russia, observed by a wealthy young man while out hunting, usually with dogs in tow, often with a faithful serf. The Notebook captures the bitter, almost unbearable joy that comes of finding one’s body out in nature. The Notebook has no plot, no particular drive, other than to convey to us the sights, sounds and people of the Russia in which Turgenev grew up. Turgenev sketches for us both the ugliness and magnificence of the world he knew, and lets us simply languish in it.

Source: The Irish Times June 13, 2020 04:52 UTC