Rating: 
Summary: I would rank this book as 6 stars if I could!
Review: As the previous reader from Philadelphia said, Turgenev's "Sketches" blows all the other writers out of the water. I'm afraid this review could do Amazon.com some degree of harm, since Turgenev's little book makes all other short-story collections superfluous in comparison! The 25 stories constitute a profoundly spiritual exaltation of the Russian peasant. A deep and powerful expression of life, love, and the universal traits of human goodness course through this book and make it an irrestible masterpiece. The story "Living Relic" is more beautiful and spiritual than any other story I have ever read, the story of a woman with a faith stronger and more touching, perhaps, than many a figure in the Bible. This book is such a powerful portrait of the nineteenth-century Russian serf and it's author such a devoted champion of them and such an enemy of base human servitude and slavery, that Turgenev was arrested and forced into exile as a result. The reader of this spectacular book will not regret purchasing it.
Rating:
Summary: this is the missing link!!
Review: Chekov and Mausappant?? Hemingway and Carver?? James Joyce's Dubliners? Great short story writers and great short story collections are definitely part of these writers legends. But after I read this awesome book of related short stories and realized it was written in 1852... my jaw just dropped..wow.. thought provoking fiction with a desire to make a differance and perfect epiphanies and an ultra modern kinda vibe.. way way ahead of its time..great
Rating:
Summary: High art
Review: Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the greatest books, but Turgenev was the greatest writer." That doesn't really make sense, but it is high praise of a genius, by a genius. Hemingway's favorite story is "Rattle of Wheels." I love it, too. But my favorite in here is "The Singers." Two lines that resonated with me from this book (the first one an introvert like me can relate to). 1)"`I, too, have been corroded by introspection.'" and 2)"`One needs people, if only to have somebody to yell at.'" As you can see, from those lines, these aren't always the sunniest of stories (though some of them are), but they are among the best ever written.
Rating:
Summary: A Collection of short stories for those who don't like them
Review: I don't like short stories, never have and I don't know why. I had to read this collection for a course and found it pretty good. The professor told us that this was Hemingway's favorite book which Hemingway had read over and over. In fact, Hemingway modeled some of his own stories on those here, particularly the Hemingway stories where nothing happens except someone might make a pot of coffee. But let's face it, these are not so much stories (narrations of events in time) as sketches of characters. Any plot would be too much plot and would interfer with the general effect, which is to show us the life and times of Russians before the liberation of the serfs. I liked "The Singers", as other reviewer have, but the true masterpiece, worth the entire price of the book, is "Living Relic." Nothing happens in that story except we learn again the beauty and strength of the human spirit and in the process the redemptive nature of true literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Cor!
Review: In giving this book only three stars, I'm not rating Turgenev but rather the translation. I'm not a translator myself, I'm sure it's very difficult rendering dialogue from another time and place, etc., etc. but I finally couldn't abide the translator's choice in this case to render the voices of nineteenth century Russian peasants in Cockney (or other English) slang.Examples: "He was a right pain to his peasant girls." "They felt right idiots." "He's not a gent, is he?" "Help us, mate." "Judge for yourself, mate." "He's the soul of kindness, he is." "Gavrila comprehended-like how to get out of the wood." The use of "'cos" for "because." The use of "gotta"--"And I've gotta tell you this." And what was for me the last straw, in the story Bezhin Lea, "Cor!" and "Cor, stone me!" If you like this kind of thing, you'll love the book. For Russian lit in translation, give me Constance Garnett (and her Edwardian diction--which works so well, perhaps because it seems natural in contrast to the forced quality on display in "Sketches") or else the current team of Pevear and Volokhonsky.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons from a Master
Review: It's taken me until now to get to Sketches From A Hunter's Album. Now I have finished it and now I am grieving. It will stay in my nonlending collection so I can savor it even after the surprise has gone. It's like losing a friend. Turgenev calls these 'sketches' rather than stories. It's a good distinction. More story writers should concentrate on their sketch pads. The sketches are of places and people in the rural south of Russia in the 1840s. Each is strung thematically on Turgenev's wandrings through the countryside while hunting for game birds. Each begins with a mention that he was hunting in a certain place. He goes into lovely thoughtful and surprising descriptions of the woods or marsh, the sky, the smells, the sounds, the light. Even in translation, these are exquisite. He speaks of shifting light shining through the leaves onto the forest floor, or unbreatheable noonday heat, or changing skies at the advent of a storm, a dawn, or a sunset; he calls up moments from your own life that you thought could not be shared with anyone who wasn't there and he makes you relive those moments as if he had been there with you. For anyone who has spent time out of doors, these little Aldo Leopold nature essays standing alone would be reason enough to read the 'Sketches', but these are just hors d'œuvre to his descriptions of the persons he meets while hunting. When sketching people, Turgenev does gracefully what Dickens tried to do and did clumsily; that is, he describes the physical characteristics of a person and gives you a fully formed description of their character as well, and he does this without sounding forced and without showing himself. (And you will burst out laughing at the sudden recognition that, indeed, someone does look 'like a root vegetable'.) "Sketches" was published twice in Turgenev's lifetime and in the second edition he added to it. In the earlier sketches, Turgenev brings a character to life in a description; the character may speak a few words, and disappear from the scene, as people do in real life, leaving the reader to speculate what became of him. Yet, Turgenev has given us enough insight into the character that we think we know what probably happened next, and so the story is complete. These are elegant Aristotelian constructs with the action taking place offstage, and, oh elegance! with the final action taking place in the reader's imagination after the story has ended. If my description leaves you wondering, read them! (Would that I could spur you to act as Turgenev spurs his readers to think. Ah, but it's too much... .) This is what Turgenev does. He starts you thinking, but requires you to complete the story. In the later sketches Turgenev is just as deft in his descriptions, but perhaps to satisfy the market or his editors he adopts a more plot driven model. These later contributions can more truly be called stories rather than sketches. They are equally well-crafted, but they demand less of the reader. Curiously, they give us less as well. The hunter's travels theme gives the collection an interrelatedness, almost like a picaresque novel. As in Huckleberry Finn or Don Quixote, neither the author nor the protagonist directly express opinions, but as stories accumulate the reader acquires the author's strong politicized view. We meet the aristocrats and peasants of rural Russia. The serf-holding system had been 'liberalized' in the early 19th century, but it is revealed as the unnamed slavery it was. Landlords control peasants' rights to marry; they name the persons to fill regional conscription quotas; they assign agricultural and residential alotments; and thoughtless and uncaring aristocrats use these powers carelessly or maliciously to destroy lives. Liberal aristocrats fare no better than traditional feudalists, as Turgenev details social reformers' well-meaning disasters which beggar both for the peasants and the bumbling aristocrats who direct them. America often forgets that its civil war was part of a European pandemic of peasant revolts driven by the extended logic of the Enlightenment. As masters and slaves in the United States were struggling with the immorality of a divine order handed down from a prior age, the masters and servants in Europe did the same. The 1840s, 50s, and 60s were tumultuous times in central and eastern Europe. Turgenev, arrested and exiled in 1852 because of the 'Sketches', has an historical place akin to the American abolitionists of the same day, however, unlike Harriet Beecher Stowe, Turgenev draws his characters in three dimensions with humanity, with love and understanding even when he does not forgive them their moral failings. The 'Sketches' would be an interesting book to teach alongside Huckleberry Finn.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons from a Master
Review: It's taken me until now to get to Sketches From A Hunter's Album. Now I have finished it and now I am grieving. It will stay in my nonlending collection so I can savor it even after the surprise has gone. It's like losing a friend. Turgenev calls these 'sketches' rather than stories. It's a good distinction. More story writers should concentrate on their sketch pads. The sketches are of places and people in the rural south of Russia in the 1840s. Each is strung thematically on Turgenev's wandrings through the countryside while hunting for game birds. Each begins with a mention that he was hunting in a certain place. He goes into lovely thoughtful and surprising descriptions of the woods or marsh, the sky, the smells, the sounds, the light. Even in translation, these are exquisite. He speaks of shifting light shining through the leaves onto the forest floor, or unbreatheable noonday heat, or changing skies at the advent of a storm, a dawn, or a sunset; he calls up moments from your own life that you thought could not be shared with anyone who wasn't there and he makes you relive those moments as if he had been there with you. For anyone who has spent time out of doors, these little Aldo Leopold nature essays standing alone would be reason enough to read the 'Sketches', but these are just hors d'Âœuvre to his descriptions of the persons he meets while hunting. When sketching people, Turgenev does gracefully what Dickens tried to do and did clumsily; that is, he describes the physical characteristics of a person and gives you a fully formed description of their character as well, and he does this without sounding forced and without showing himself. (And you will burst out laughing at the sudden recognition that, indeed, someone does look 'like a root vegetable'.) "Sketches" was published twice in Turgenev's lifetime and in the second edition he added to it. In the earlier sketches, Turgenev brings a character to life in a description; the character may speak a few words, and disappear from the scene, as people do in real life, leaving the reader to speculate what became of him. Yet, Turgenev has given us enough insight into the character that we think we know what probably happened next, and so the story is complete. These are elegant Aristotelian constructs with the action taking place offstage, and, oh elegance! with the final action taking place in the reader's imagination after the story has ended. If my description leaves you wondering, read them! (Would that I could spur you to act as Turgenev spurs his readers to think. Ah, but it's too much... .) This is what Turgenev does. He starts you thinking, but requires you to complete the story. In the later sketches Turgenev is just as deft in his descriptions, but perhaps to satisfy the market or his editors he adopts a more plot driven model. These later contributions can more truly be called stories rather than sketches. They are equally well-crafted, but they demand less of the reader. Curiously, they give us less as well. The hunter's travels theme gives the collection an interrelatedness, almost like a picaresque novel. As in Huckleberry Finn or Don Quixote, neither the author nor the protagonist directly express opinions, but as stories accumulate the reader acquires the author's strong politicized view. We meet the aristocrats and peasants of rural Russia. The serf-holding system had been 'liberalized' in the early 19th century, but it is revealed as the unnamed slavery it was. Landlords control peasants' rights to marry; they name the persons to fill regional conscription quotas; they assign agricultural and residential alotments; and thoughtless and uncaring aristocrats use these powers carelessly or maliciously to destroy lives. Liberal aristocrats fare no better than traditional feudalists, as Turgenev details social reformers' well-meaning disasters which beggar both for the peasants and the bumbling aristocrats who direct them. America often forgets that its civil war was part of a European pandemic of peasant revolts driven by the extended logic of the Enlightenment. As masters and slaves in the United States were struggling with the immorality of a divine order handed down from a prior age, the masters and servants in Europe did the same. The 1840s, 50s, and 60s were tumultuous times in central and eastern Europe. Turgenev, arrested and exiled in 1852 because of the 'Sketches', has an historical place akin to the American abolitionists of the same day, however, unlike Harriet Beecher Stowe, Turgenev draws his characters in three dimensions with humanity, with love and understanding even when he does not forgive them their moral failings. The 'Sketches' would be an interesting book to teach alongside Huckleberry Finn.
Rating:
Summary: A lesson
Review: Simply, one of the greatest book ever written. Turgenev's style is wonderfully evocative, and yet it has not an ounce of sentimentalism: its depictions of natural landscapes are incredibly lucid, almost detached, in a sense; today, we could say his writing has a "zen-like" clarity. His human character are little parts of this whole, but Turgenev's panteism has nothing of the desperate, ferociously ironic pessimism of, say, Thomas Hardy; his vision is perfectly impartial, and yet sympathetic: each of his characters appears in his fundamental, intact dignity of human being. I'm not myself a starry-eyed dreamer: but reading this book, with its wonderfully easy and aimless wanderings, is like psychoterapy; you can't get out of it but feeling calmly hyper-oxygenated, as it were; you can't read this book but thinking that this man, Turgenev, mysteriously understood what it is like to be fellow sharers of this strange place, Earth, and of this strange thing, life. If something like "occidental buddhism" does exist, this book is a lesson in it.
Rating:
Summary: Painful, Fabulous, True
Review: This is a book of short, accessible stories which give some idea why people who read a lot call the Russian writers great. Taken separately, these stories seem sentimental portraits of the Russian countryside, its serfs and lords. Pretty girls, amusing drunks, and the scent of grain and dirt and isolated village life. These stories, printed separately in magazines, were part of how Turgenev built his literary reputation. But taken as pieces of a whole--when these stories were collected and published together in 1852 they got Turgenev arrested for his depiction of the vicious cruelties perpetuated under the Tsarist regime. In Turgenev's day, the Russian land laws badly needed reform, and these were the stories that told it as it was. There are one or two clunkers in here--stories where the idea or the characters doesn't quite make it. Maybe in another collection of stories they could carry their weight--but not when they've been printed next to stories of the quality of "Khor and Kalinych" and "Bezhin Lea." But this seems almost a ridiculous criticism to give of a book which, overall, contains such power and human meaning. This is a beautiful and disturbing book. 5 stars. No quibbling with that.
Rating:
Summary: Painful, Fabulous, True
Review: This is a book of short, accessible stories which give some idea why people who read a lot call the Russian writers great. Taken separately, these stories seem sentimental portraits of the Russian countryside, its serfs and lords. Pretty girls, amusing drunks, and the scent of grain and dirt and isolated village life. These stories, printed separately in magazines, were part of how Turgenev built his literary reputation. But taken as pieces of a whole--when these stories were collected and published together in 1852 they got Turgenev arrested for his depiction of the vicious cruelties perpetuated under the Tsarist regime. In Turgenev's day, the Russian land laws badly needed reform, and these were the stories that told it as it was. There are one or two clunkers in here--stories where the idea or the characters doesn't quite make it. Maybe in another collection of stories they could carry their weight--but not when they've been printed next to stories of the quality of "Khor and Kalinych" and "Bezhin Lea." But this seems almost a ridiculous criticism to give of a book which, overall, contains such power and human meaning. This is a beautiful and disturbing book. 5 stars. No quibbling with that.
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