"Os trastes, o lixo inútil, as futilidades vazias que enchiam todas aquelas cabeças, aquelas almas! E não só de noite, não só em sociedade - mas em casa, a todas as horas do dia, em toda a extensão e profundidade das suas existências! E,no fundo, que ignorância! Que incompreensão por tudo aquilo que faz e adorna a vida humana!"

Why do we take people for granted? Why, just because of our love for them and maybe their love for us, do we assume their loyalty and why do we insist on underestimating the social factor and the true, weak nature of the human heart? We hope, we believe and then we’re shattered, this is what is and what should never be. It always has been, as the strength required by genuine love remains unknown to most people for all of their lives.
Although at first I thought it was just one more beautifully written sad love story, Smoke touched me in a way that classical romance books haven’t done in years. It is not Anna Karenina, but it makes you feel something, and I think this should be enough for it to be worth being recommended.

The first Russian Classic I've ever read,
It has surprised and elated me beyond my expectations,
The ideas were evergreen, albeit the narrative, simple and addictive,
A perfect new beginning, like Litvinov, into a new landscape of literature.

'Smoke' like many of Turgenev's other works is a fairly short novel, especially for a Russian author of that time period. I highly recommend it to anyone who'd like to read 19th Century Russian lit but doesn't have the stamina to read something long and involved. Turgenev was, in his personal life and as a writer, very influenced by Western European culture so his novels definitely have that flavor to them. 'Smoke' is no exception and he can at times be critical of Russian society- in specific the aristocracy. 'Smoke' does hint at the political but really it's a light read with a great tortured love story. Enjoy!

A comic tragedy satire of Russians traveling Europe. The copy I read was published in 1896 translated by Constance Garret. The introduction is amusing in that I know that 20 years later the very themes Turgenev addresses will come to a boil in the October Revolution. Smoke satirizes the Russians who are all about position, who you know, hoe well you converse in the salons of Petersburg, how well you ride, or dance. The very people who will "lead" the Whites in the revolution. The very people who if they would have promoted men of ability could have avoided the Revolution that would devour them all. As a side note there is a poignant attack on the women of the aristocracy that would have scandalized Petersburg of the time. Turgenev describes one of the women at a picnic as wearing a yellow hat. Since most Russian novel reserve the color yellow for prostitutes. One has to laugh at the comparison. A good read.

Originally published on my blog here in November 2004.

Earlier in 2004, it was announced that the United Kingdom divorce rates had risen quite sharply, and one of the causes suggested by commentators was the way that the Internet has made it easier to trace old lovers, causing people to abandon their current partners in something of an attempt to recover lost youth. Though meeting someone from the past after a long time can cause something of a jolt, and people do tend to romanticise their past affairs (because they didn't suffer from the specific flaws that mar current relationships), it is likely that whatever it was that made it not work out the first time will still be there in some form, which means that picking things up where they were left off is probably doomed.

Shorn of the digs at Friends Reunited, this is basically the idea behind Smoke. Many years ago, the central character Litvinov was engaged to the young and beautiful Irina Osinin. Her family was aristocratic but impoverished, but she was offered a single chance to make her name in society. Urged to do so by her father and by Libinov (persuaded by her father that she should take the opportunity), she becomes a great success, and this proves the end of the match between the two young people. Now, ten years later and again on the verge of marriage, Litvinov is visiting the fashionable German spa of Baden-Baden, seemingly populated entirely by Russians, when he meets Irina again. Irina is now married, but clearly despises her husband, and she is still extremely beautiful. Litvinov is tempted to renew their relationship, but is torn by his duty and his desire to remain true to his fiancée - a sincere desire, despite the resurgence of all his old feelings for Irina.

The plot serves more as the hook for a series of satirical portraits of the Russian upper classes abroad, particularly in the first half of Smoke; these seem to be the main point of the novel. They are variously revealed as stupid, provincial, vulgar, superficial and vain - or as combinations of these qualities. The two main characters are more fully fleshed out than this, and much more sympathetically portrayed - and yet Turgenev is careful to make them flawed as well.

Smoke is the novel which first made Turgenev's name outside Russia, though today the earlier [b:Fathers and Sons|19117|Fathers and Sons|Ivan Turgenev|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309284007s/19117.jpg|1294426] and the play [b:A Month In The Country|579788|A Month In The Country (Russian Texts)|T.A. Greenan|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347912172s/579788.jpg|2911774] are deservedly far better known. This anonymous (and, I suspect, early and hence out of copyright) translation has obvious flaws (details such as the consistent use of the word "thrashing" rather than "threshing" to describe the processing of grain suggest to me that the translator was not a native English speaker, and some phrases use idiomatic expressions which are no longer current), but it does possess a certain liveliness which is presumably derived from the atmosphere of the original.

As a Russian novel about illicit love, Smoke is overshadowed by [b:Anna Karenina|15823480|Anna Karenina|Leo Tolstoy|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352422904s/15823480.jpg|2507928]n - but that is of course true about most novels. It is one of the most accesible nineteenth century Russian novels, with none of the problems cited by some as reasons to avoid them - it is short, has a smallish number of characters with distinct names, and avoids dullness through the use of satire.

Set in Baden-Baden, a small spa town in the foothills of the black forest, in the south west of Germany, near the border of France and Switzerland. Grigory Mikhailovich Litvinov has arrived in the town after spending years in the west; here he plans to meet up with his fiancée Tatyana. While there, he bumps into Irina an old flame, who is now married to a prominent aristocrat General Valerian Vladimirovitch Ratmirov. This chance meeting derails all Girgory’s plans for the future and sends his life into turmoil. Smoke is a melancholy novel of an impossible romance and an apogee of Ivan Turgenev’s later novels.

I know what my wife would say, this is a typical Russian novel about a man that has a fiancée that has waited for him all these years while he was out west but then an old flame turns up and he doubts his relationship. This is a common trope in classic Russian literature but this is also autobiographical for Ivan Turgenev. At the time of writing this novel, Turgenev was living in Baden-Baden to be near his lover Opera singer Madame Viardot. Creepily, he moved next door the singer and her husband. His relationship with Madame Viardot turned into a lifelong affair that resulted in Turgenev never marrying, although not sure what her husband thought of it all.

Smoke is a satirical novel aimed to highlight the problems Ivan Turgenev found with mother Russia. The conservatives are unwilling to change and adapt to the help modernise Russia, while he believed that the revolutionaries were glorifying a Slav mysticism, which we all know as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. With one novel, Turgenev managed to alienate the majority of Russia in one hit; the book even sparked a heated feud with fellow writer Fyodor Dostoevsky.

While this satirical exposé into his fellow countrymen was met with a lot of criticism within Russia, Smoke was still published in the March 1867 issue of The Russian Messenger. The Russian Messenger is one of the best Russian literary magazines during the 19th century publishing the majority of the great pieces from this country. Smoke may not be the best Ivan Turgenev novel to start with but it was an interesting book to read none the less. The amount of debate it sparked was fascinating to explore and I believe Smoke holds a well-deserved spot in the Russian canon.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/literature/regular-segments/russian-lit-project/smoke-by-ivan-turgenev/