The Jew and Other Stories

by Ivan Turgenev

In studying the Russian novel it is amusing to note the childish attitude of certain English men of letters to the novel in general, their depreciation of its influence and of the public’s 'inordinate' love of fiction. Many men of letters to-day look on the novel as a mere story-book, as a series of light-coloured, amusing pictures for their 'idle hours,' and on memoirs, biographies, histories, criticism, and poetry as the age’s serious contribution to literature. Whereas the reverse is the case. The most serious and significant of all literary forms the modern world has evolved is the novel; and brought to its highest development, the novel shares with poetry to-day the honour of being the supreme instrument of the great artist’s literary skill. To survey the field of the novel as a mere pleasure-garden marked out for the crowd’s diversion—a field of recreation adorned here and there by the masterpieces of a few great men—argues in the modern critic either an academical attitude to literature and life, or a one-eyed obtuseness, or merely the usual insensitive taste. The drama in all but two countries has been willy-nilly abandoned by artists as a coarse playground for the great public’s romps and frolics, but the novel can be preserved exactly so long as the critics understand that to exercise a delicate art is the oneserious duty of the artistic life. It is no more an argument against the vital significance of the novel that tens of thousands of people—that everybody, in fact—should to-day essay that form of art, than it is an argument against poetry that for all the centuries droves and flocks of versifiers and scribblers and rhymesters have succeeded in making the name of poet a little foolish in worldly eyes. The true function of poetry! That can only be vindicated in common opinion by the severity and enthusiasm of critics in stripping bare the false, and in hailing as the true all that is animated by the living breath of beauty. The true function of the novel! That can only be supported by those who understand that the adequate representation and criticism of human life would be impossible for modern men were the novel to go the way of the drama, and be abandoned to the mass of vulgar standards.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Russia, Russian Literature, Collections

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1868

About the author

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short-story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852) and the novels Rudin (1856), Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), and Fathers and Sons (1862).

These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five short stories, "The Jew" is only 30 pages or so - a brief story of a Jew near a soldiers camp trying to get money and accused of being a spy. "Andrei Kolosoff" is a man who falls in love with Varya, then realising he no longer loves her, drops her, but isn't persuaded to see her again. The friend (narrator) tries to comfort the girl, get tangled up and makes a mess of things.
Back to the army for "The Bully" an interesting portrait of a man who lives up to the title, he is befriended by Feodor, who the tries to get him to visit the girl who is in love with him - no more spoilers...
"Pyetushkoff" is the story of a daft man who falls for a bakers daughter, but doesn't really get very far. Finally "The Two Friends" are bachelors on adjoining estates, one tries to find his friend a wife, he doesn't manage it - but his friend finds one.
They're published in chronological order and the Two Friends (1853) is in my view the strongest, written 5 years before On the Eve, it is a precursor in style to that story.

[Don Cafone · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Жида" прочитал, остального пока нет. Пусть это будет вместо собственно "Жида".
Страдания по Эмми Россум в Призраке Оперы плюс расизм во все стороны. Хуята хуятинская.

[Yasser Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, well-written.