Fathers and Sons (by Ivan Turgenev) Group Read - May

Hi Everyone! Here is the thread for the May group read of Fathers and Sons (sometimes translated as Fathers and Children) by Ivan Turgenev. I suppose we can just chit-chat away when everyone starts reading it. Perhaps we should have a rule about alerting each other when we post a spoiler by using something like this beforehand: **SPOILER ALERT**.

I think this will be a tiny group, but we'll see.

Hi Kerri- Thanks for setting this up. I recently acquired a copy thanks to you, so I will be joining. I probably won't start it until after the 15th.

I'd like to try to read it since I just picked up a copy a couple of weeks ago, but it's going to be a really crazy month and I don't know if it's a good book for distracted, pick-it-up-and-put-it-down reading.

#3 - Hi Ursula - Thanks for stopping by! I would call this a low-enthusiasm-generating book. Ha! So, no worries if you don't get to it. (I suppose I should be more of a cheerleader than that, but it is what it is.) Let us know if you start it though. I'll start it if someone else does.

In re #4. It is sad but probably all too true that this will be, as you suggest, "a low-enthusiasm generating book." Sad, and unjust, and a judgement on the tastes of our time. The challenge-scene will be as almost unintelligible to modern readers as the old man's challenge itself was to Bazaroff. Despite such pessimism, would anybody like to organize a little group-read of all six of Turgenyev's novels? I can't think of many contemporary novelists who would be worthy to carry his pencil-box. I suspect that were Turgenyev alive today, he wouldn't even publish, lest he be tarred with a very dark brush -- guilt-by-aqssociation and all that. -- Goddard

I have got a copy and will be back when I start reading it.