Faust by Ivan Turgenev
My rating: 4/5 cats
who knew turgenev did the supernatural?? well he did. cuz this is. and yet it is still a “real book” despite the presence of haints, although david would most likely be among turgenev’s detractors for this.
from the introduction:
This led to a degree of criticism from those of his contemporaries who insisted on the pre-eminence of realism in literature, but such disapproval might be countered with the argument that here the supernatural should actually be interpreted not literally, but psychologically, as the projection of the characters’ troubled feelings about their situation.
so—phew—still “real literature” and not some early russian paranormal romance. consider yourself countered!!
this book contains two novellas, which is the usual format for hesperus books (and if you don’t know them, you should check out their list, because they are great, and strangely—they seem to do a lot of books that involve supernatural elements from authors who don’t usually do the supernatural, which is interesting. interesting to me, anyway.)
this is somewhat similar to turn of the screw with all its spooky ambiguity, but without all that tortured prose. yeah, i said it: henry james is a drag, man.
not a “drag man.”
that we know of.
so, faust. this is about the dangers of literature upon the fragile human psyche, and the transportive power of words. it details the a story of the relationship that develops between a man and a woman with whom he was enamored in his youth. despite being married now, with children of her own, she still obeys the commands of her now-deceased overbearing mother to avoid fiction and poetry at all costs, with their deleterious effects on the mind. our “hero” is having none of that, and determines to expose her to his great love of literature, and insists on reading to her, and her pesky husband, from faust. in german. which her husband is shitty at. score one for our narrator.
so anyway, she is naturally overwhelmed by it (what’s hotter than faust after all, am i right, ladies?), and this does indeed give rise to powerful emotions. and then horrible things happen, as they will in russian literature.
it is occasionally a little overblown for my tastes. i generally have little patience for View Spoiler », but there are occasional lines like these:
You’re like ice: until you melt, you’re as strong as stone, but when you melt, not even a trace of you will be left.
and
“I know how to do only one thing,” she said, “Remain silent until the last moment.”
yum, right?
the second novella, yakov pasynkov, is more like hardy where everyone falls prey to unhappy and unfulfilled passions and the threads get all tangled and hopeless. he loves her who loves him who is duty-bound to her and then everyone dies. not really, but no one is happy at the end and everyone is nursing their frustrated passions forever. not a spoiler, because—again—russian lit. everyone is gloomy until the bitter end. sigh.
so for my first turgenev, it was definitely satisfying, and i really liked the introductory material. (which, incidentally, was written not by smug-boy simon cowell,
as i initially thought, but by simon callow,
which makes more sense)
and now i have fulfilled my “real book” reading and can return to the tripe i generally go for, right? bring on the james patterson.
hopefully this attempt at a review will not get deleted by my stupid-assed fingers, as the first one i wrote for this book did. which was probably the best review ever, i will have you know.
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