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Smoke

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Smoke

By: Ivan Turgenev
Narrated by: Stuart Langton
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Written by one of Russia’s literary masters, Smoke is both a poignant love story and a brilliant socio-political study. Marked with a barbed wit and a visionary modernism, it became the center of a famous philosophical breach between Turgenev and Dostoevsky.

On the brink of marriage, Grigorii Litvinov visits the fashionable European spa of Baden-Baden, a scene dominated by the Russian upper classes. Among them is the beautiful Irina Osinin, Litvinov’s first love, to whom he was engaged ten years earlier. Litvinov’s struggle with a nostalgic passion is set against the background of a society pulled both toward and against change as it feels the influence of the West.

A sensitive and intelligent commentary on human nature, Turgenev’s Smoke endures for its high aesthetic standards and its universal qualities of understanding.

(P)1999 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Russia
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Critic reviews

“Enthusiasts of strong social and political commentary couched in novel format will appreciate this story…An excellent story of change permeating into all levels of society.”

(Midwest Book Review)

“Turgenev ridicules with a most exquisite sensibility the politics of the royals and upper crust.”

(AudioFile)
All stars
Most relevant
Don't be put off by the sample extract of this book. The narrator has a strong accent when reading the introduction but the actual book is beautifully read and sounds completely different.
The book is less famous than Fathers and Sons, although like his other works it is amusing, sensitive and intelligent. Well worth a listen.

Read Turgenev!

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes - entertaining view of mid-19th century Russian society and mores

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I leave that sort of thing to Turgenev!

Which character – as performed by Stuart Langton – was your favourite?

Potugin was the least disagreeable

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

A pity the narrator doesn't know French and mispronounced it constantly

Those Russians!

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Well read, apart from butchering the sections in French… the story doesn’t quite reach the heights T achieved elsewhere. But is fascinating still, love as a dangerous obsession, and T took a great deal of criticism for his depiction of Russia and Russians as wafting smoke.

Loves rough path

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When you pick someone to read a Russian novel with crucial sections of dialogue in French, please choose someone who can speak French. Stuart Langton cannot and the result is that those sections are horribly mangled, often incomprehensible. He's a strange choice altogether. Not very comfortable with the genre. Interesting story but poorly read.

Poor reading

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