In this sensitive and original portrait, V. S. Pritchett seeks to enlarge our understanding of the Russian master Ivan Turgenev through an examination of his life and his art. We see the shy, gentle youth growing up in nineteenth-century Russia on the enormous 5,000-serf family estate of Spasskoye, which his tyrannical mother ruled with absolute power. Later, Turgenev’s moving portraits of peasant life in “A Sportsman’s Sketches” were to contribute to the emancipation of the serfs in Russia. We see Turgenev, the student, becoming Westernized in thought, yet never losing the Russianness that was central to him as a man and as an artist. There is Turgenev, the dashing “bon vivant,” surrounded by admirers; the engaging storyteller; the political radical; the literary genius. And there is Turgenev the lover, mesmerized by the great Spanish operatic soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia. His lifelong love affair with her is one of the great themes of Turgenev’s career.
