Ken’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Ken’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Kathleen -- Richard Freeborn came up with the "natural stillness" line, and though I don't quite get it through the lens of Dostoevsky (who is out of bustling St. Petersburg, for one, and who has a monkey mind for the ages, for two), I certainly understand for Tolstoy and Turgenev.

What attracts me to the two T's is the estates out in the country. In the summer scenes, I can almost hear the crickets and the birds and feel the heat. And lime trees. Always the lime trees throwing shade over a garden.

Oh. And people rich enough to do nothing. I always wanted to be a gentleman farmer myself because there's so little heavy lifting. I guess that's equivalent to 19th-century Russia's "superfluous man."

For all that, you need stillness, and T-Squared seem to serve it up in abundance. Plenty of quiet for the Lavretsky's and Levin's of the world to think (too much).

Another Lavretsky-Levin connection, though much muted in this book = plowing the land, and thus joining the peasants for a good sweat.

Varvara is not the first wife, as Lavretsky never gets as far as marrying Liza, so I guess she'll have to settle for being the only wife (and faithful customer at the teller's window of the Lavretsky National Bank).

I did not find Liza as cardboard as you did (more later), and maybe would say that Varvara is more the stereotype in the way a minx is. (Or vixen, maybe? Animal with an "x" required, maybe?)

Now Marfa is a character. Probably my favorite among the women, even though hers is (sadly) a supporting role. She is just as perceptive as Marya is clueless. OK, Marya isn't CLUELESS as she does pull that rotten "behind the arras" trick at the end. That. Is. Low.

The heated pool (it is Russia, after all) is ready and the discussion thread is up. When you finish the book, jump in and make some waves!

In his introduction to the Penguin edition of Home of the Gentry, Richard Freeborn writes that "the greatest of the nineteenth century Russian novelists wrote out of the profundities of a silent country. In a real and literal sense Dostoevsky wrote out of the nocturnal silence of St. Petersburg, Tolstoy from the rural silence of Yasnaya Pollyanna and Turgenev from the summer quiet of Spasskoye. Their novels have the special, spell-binding absorption of voices speaking out of a natural stillness. None of Turgenev's novels is more eloquent of such stillness than Home of the Gentry."

In addition to the stillness is the theme of fleeting happiness: "Turgenev tended to believe that man is never destined to experience happiness save as something ephemeral and inevitably foredoomed."

Turgenev's second novel, written in 1859, met critical praise when it came out and was particularly embraced in Victorian England for its "quiet, elegiac tone." Of course, one reader's quiet elegiac tone is another reader's quiet, elegiac humdrum. And though he was once considered the equal of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Turgenev's star has set considerably over time. Still, he remains a major player in Russia's Golden Age of Literature that gave us so many great novels.

With our June discussion, we pick up this work, which Freeborn calls the most "Turgenevan" of Ivan Turgenev's works. What does that eponymous adjective mean to you as a reader? What were some strengths and weaknesses of the plot, characterization, description, and writing style?

And finally, how important is the socio-political situation of 1840s Russia to understanding and appreciating this work? Turgenev, who studied in Berlin and had definite European (vs. Slavophile) sympathies, was in the thick of it with his works, after all, and, with Lavretsky, we get yet another version of "the superfluous man."

These and any other concerns and questions are fair game as we begin our June discussion of Lavretsky, Liza, and other gentlefolk / peasants in and around the Home of the Gentry. Mind your Marya's from your Marfa's and jump in when you're ready!

Cindy wrote: "Darrin wrote: "I purchased the Penguin edition translated by Freeborn...mostly because I like those Penguin black book covers. It is arriving Wednesday, I think."

That's the version, I have Darrin..."

I finished today, too. Thread goes up tomorrow night!

We just journeyed from the house to the Thoreau cabin in the woods for the holiday weekend and (grrrr) I forgot the Hirsch book I've been reading and was only 50 pages away from finishing.

The bad news it it'll have to wait. The good news is I have the Gentry with me. (They looked around and said, "Needs some gentrification, this joint.")

So I read.

Nick wrote: "“Scrofulous” is certainly a memorable word. I seem to recall it turning up in Brideshead Revisited. It’s just not used enough!"

It may not be USED enough (by writers), but it's acted out early and often (by politicians, lobbyists, and corporate types -- for starters).

Had to look that word up, then the word "scrofula." Reminded me of the Gland Old Party (GOP) or something.

Glad you're in your destination nation, Darrin!

Sue wrote: "She feels the love Diane…or the coming of food."

Much like us, dogs are walking stomachs.


I thought I might finish the book I'm on before starting the Turgenev, but maybe not. I expect to enter the Home of the Gentry tomorrow or Thursday. Warming up on my patronymics and matronymics.

It's almost as if the nickname or diminutive or whatever fits the situation. Or the mood.

You get a small echo of it here in the States. My mother only used my middle name (after the first) when she was angry and looking for me to come face the music. Others, I've heard, experienced the same thing. Weird.

I might as well let it be known here that, during this discussion, I will ask that you address me as Kenneth Alexei Dmitrivich Craft.

Or Sasha will do.

Sue wrote: "My copy does have a list of characters with a pronunciation guide but with no guide as to who each name is. Just the name!"

Pencil it in, pencil it in!

Names are always an issue with Russian literature due to the Russians' fondness for nicknames, terms of endearment, patronymics, matronymics, etc.

Some Russian translations come with a helpful guide to names and families (almost like dramatis personae found before a play) in the front or back, like my copy of War & Peace. This one doe not.

You could create your own "Who's Who score card" as a bookmark. It'll interrupt your reading early on, but less so as you go deeper into the book.

I just finished reading our runner-up for June, Gesualdo Bufalino's Night's Lies.

Review is here.

Nick wrote: "Copy received, five chapters read. I have the old black Penguin edition, love those black spines, in remarkably good condition from 1985. Translator is Richard Freeborn."

Before everyone's love affair with the NYRB paperbacks, there was everyone's love affair with the black-spined Penguins. I have more than a few, too!

Very cool, Darrin. And you'll be about as close to Russia as a guy can get (without entering Russia).

Let's see... if my RISK game board memories serve, that'd be Kamchatka you'll be near.

Lydia wrote: "Hi, Ken, and all...is the June book by Turgenev, also known as "Home of the Gentlefolk?" I don't see "Home of the Gentry" at my library and it sounds like a translation difference, thanks, Lydia"

Welcome to obscurity, Lydia. I guess gentlefolk and the gentry are all one in Russia. We could use some gentle folk in power over there, in fact.

Carol wrote: "Ken wrote: "Too soon for me to start. I'm reading one of the finalists now, Night's Lies."

I got the copy this week, How do you like it?"


I've been doing a lot of silly, physical labor this week -- picking up sticks in the woodsy back lot, for one -- so I'm only some 37 pages in, but so far, so good. It reminds me of Sartre's short story, "The Wall," being a night before execution story.

If you don't go in for philosophy or religion, there's nothing like a night-before-your-execution as a primer. As Horace Greeley didn't say: "Go deep, young man!"