Monday, September 29, 2008
Conrad on Turgenev
'In truth, it is not the convulsed terror-haunted Dostoievski but the serene Turgenev who is under a curse. For only think! Every gift has been heaped on his cradle: absolute sanity and the deepest sensibility, the clearest vision and the quickest responsiveness, penetrating insight and unfailing generosity of judgement, an exquisite perception of the world and an unerring instinct for the significant, for the essential in the life of men and women, the clearest mind, the warmest heart, the largest sympathy - and all that in perfect measure. There's enough there to ruin the prospects of any writer.'
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Perfection.
ReplyDeleteEr, up to a point. But who would you prefer to be marooned with on a desert island? With Turgenev you might at least recall the elegance and wit which helped to pass the long days of waiting for rescue. With Conrad and his unerring ability to find gloom in the brightest of rays, you'd have drowned yourself long before any sails appeared on the horizon.
ReplyDeleteFor God's sake Appleyard. Capitalism is collapsing, Sarah Palin is imploding and I've got an upset tummy.
ReplyDeleteThis is no time to be writing about dead Russians.
Didn't Conrad take a lot from Dostoevsky? And doesn't The Possessed/Devils have some very sharp things to say about Turgenev-to whom, admittedly, the gambler owed a lot of money?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Nick. It wasn't the drink was it?
ReplyDeleteI always thought Turgenev was incredibly overrated meself. 'Spring Torrents' in particular is a foreshadowing of the narcissistic contemporary novel about nothing much at all.
ReplyDeleteFirst Love and Fathers and Sons - how to construct novels. Turgenev, Chandler and Wodehouse should be taught to ten year olds.
ReplyDeleteThe first Russian novel I read was Gardiners translation of On The Eve, (five shillings) sublime, a copy will be buried with me.
ReplyDeleteHe was a bit of a whiner though, spending what? Ten? Fifteen years in a miserable menage a trois? Not that that has anything to do with the quality or lack thereof of his books, mind. Dostoevsky's parody, mentioned by the Captain above is both wicked and hilarious.
ReplyDeleteHolmes, you astound me! I met that David Cameron in a bar in Birmingham. Very nice man.
ReplyDelete