Another old book jot…from November 2021.

I just finished reading The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett (translation 1899). I’ve read works by Turgenev translated by various people and think Garnett does a great job with his style and voice. It’s a collection of one novella and four short stories:

The Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850)

A Tour in the Forest (1857)

Yakov Pasinkov (1855)

Andrei Kolosov (1844)

A Correspondence (1856)

I found these stories moving and beautiful, often touching on interrupted or unrequited love and the negotiation of the sorrows of life and, sometimes, a sort of acceptance.

A Tour in the Forest has become one of my new favorite short stories, and all of the stories in this collection resonated deeply.

Sometimes one comes across particular books or stories at what feels to be just the right time. I think that’s the case here.

“There is no getting happiness by struggling for it. But we must not forget that it’s not happiness, but human dignity, that’s the chief aim in life.”