Smoke cover art

Smoke

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About this listen

 Set in Baden-Baden, Smoke is Ivan Turgenev's most cosmopolitan novel. First published in 1867, it is an exquisite study of politics and society and an enduringly poignant love story. Smoke, with its European setting, barbed wit, and visionary call for Russia to look west, became the center of a famous philosophical breach between Turgenev and Dostoevsky.

A balanced and objective commentator, sensitive, intelligent, Turgenev is dedicated to the highest claims of art. His work lives for its universal qualities of understanding and devotion to aesthetic standards.

(P)1999 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Russia
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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