Ivan Turgenev
3 books
- Quiet, sad, and lovely in a way that sneaks up on you. Lavretsky comes home to Russia with a wrecked marriage behind him, meets Liza, and for a few chapters happiness seems actually possible.
- Bazarov swaggers in sneering at everything, love included, and then life quietly calls his bluff, which is where it starts to hurt. It's short, tender under its arguments, and the scenes with his aging parents will stay with you longer than any of the philosophy.
- Elena is the reason to read it, a young woman so restless for a purpose that when the Bulgarian revolutionary Insarov shows up, you feel her whole life tilt. It's quiet and it will hurt a little near the end, but Turgenev earns every bit of it.