Genre: Published 1800 - 1900
Chapter: 29
Listen: 5
This book contains three novellas by one of the major writers of Russian literature. The first, A LEAR OF THE STEPPES, is a brilliant re-imagining of Shakespeare’s play King Lear, wherein a larger-than-life father makes a life-altering decision with consequences unforeseen by him. FAUST begins at Section 11. In a series of letters to a friend the writer recounts his chance meeting with a married woman whom he had known years earlier when both were single and committed to each other. The ensuing events are vividly revealed in the letters. Section 19 introduces ACIA, the final “ETC.” of the book’s title. Turgenev poignantly portrays the twists and turns of human emotions in this moving psychological portrait of two people who fall in love. Leo Tolstoy believed Acia to be one of Turgenev’s greatest stories. (Lee Smalley)