The background is Russia in the 1860s, a country disfigured by the hideous legacy of serfdom. As a character in Woody Allen's Love and Death might say: Katya loves Arkady, Arkady loves Bazarov, Bazarov loves Odintsova, Odintsova loves Odintsova. Even the seemingly heartless Bazarov who renounces everything but scientific progress, manages to lose his heart to a cold but highly intelligent widow named Odintsova, while Arkady arouses the attentions of her sweet sister Katya. In the meantime, the young people do the things young people do.
"I've fallen behind, he's gone ahead," the father says, which could be the lament of any sensitive father whose kid has just come home from his first year at Swarthmore. Bazarov is a kind of nihilistic hipster, whose friends discuss topics such as "Is marriage a prejudice or a crime?" Arkady has fallen under Bazarov's spell, but he's still deeply attached to his kind, loving father, a very minor and incompetent landholder, who laments his son's new urbanity.
Petersburg to visit their families in the hinterland. They're the "sons" in the title, back from university in St. The novel's two main characters are Arkady and Bazarov. A vodka martini on the front porch might be in order. In short, it's a Russian masterpiece, one written so beautifully and with such economy, that when you finish reading it you feel a little shaken and a little stirred. My favorite novel is Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, a 200-page ravishing knockout of a book that explains just about everything you need to know about families, love, heartache, religion, duels and the institution of serfdom in 19th-century Russia, not to mention advice on how to seduce your housekeeper's young daughter. And the series continues all summer long on NPR.org.
All Things Considered talks with writers about their favorite buttonhole books. All readers have them - and so do writers. Browse Our Critics' Picks, Plus Get Excerpts and RecipesĬall them buttonhole books, the ones you urge passionately on friends, colleagues and passersby.
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