- Paperback: 128 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (26 May 1983)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 014044436X
- ISBN-13: 978-0140444360
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 292,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
"In my opinion ...every love, happy as well as unhappy, is real disaster when you give yourself over to it entirely." This heart-felt sentiment expressed by Turgenev's unfortunate character, Rakitin, sums up the central predicament of this, Turgenev's most celebrated play, completed in 1850 during the period of his extensive travels abroad. Probably drawn from his experiences of frustration and unhappiness at the hands of the famous Pauline Viardot, "A Month in the Country" explores the complexities of that most universal of themes, the eternal love triangle, and transforms what could be termed an almost hackneyed subject into a brilliant tragi-comedy. With his fresh and subtle play of paradox and a new psychological penetration into character that anticipates the theatre of Chekhov, Turgenev creates a dramatic "month" which surely realizes Henry James' evaluation of the writer as "beautiful genius".
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"A Month in The Country" is the sad tale of a woman who is loved by her husband and a close family friend, and yet has fallen in love with her son's tutor, despite the fact that he loves her daughter. Confused? Welcome to Russian theatre.
The play is nowhere near is complicated as it first sounds, it has a beautifully rhythmic flow that takes you through the hilarity of the situation, but also the sadness. The role of the bored housewife lusting after Belyaev urges you to wonder whether she is a cruel temptress or a wronged heroine- in the same way Chekhov presented Yeliena in "Uncle Vanya". If you haven't read Chekhov's play, you should have a look at it too- but A Month in the Country is, for itself, definitely worth a very good look.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Prefiguring Chekhov's theatre work, Turgenev in dramatic form can seem to lack the precision and beauty of his prose work. On the page, A Month In The Country seems to offer little more than the romantic complications of Russian ladies and gentlemen in a setting isolated from the rest of the world with little in the way of any defining national or social characteristics, but its openness necessarily allows much more to be drawn from it in a stage setting.
Despite the lack of any real drama - the romantic entanglements are almost entirely verbal, the complications and realisations agonised over often in soliloquies - structurally the drama and the interaction between the various players of differing ages and classes is purposefully and powerfully achieved, reaching a conclusion of complete devastation of almost everyone involved without anything actually seeming to have occurred.
Despite the lack of any real drama - the romantic entanglements are almost entirely verbal, the complications and realisations agonised over often in soliloquies - structurally the drama and the interaction between the various players of differing ages and classes is purposefully and powerfully achieved, reaching a conclusion of complete devastation of almost everyone involved without anything actually seeming to have occurred.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Turgenev's greatest play
12 Oct 1999
Format:Paperback
A reviewer before me said Turgenev came in the footsteps of the other great Russians. He might have been after Gogol, whom was the first master of fiction to turn to realism, but he was basically a frontrunner of both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky (and Chekhov). At Gogol's death in 1852 Turgenev wrote an eulogy on Gogol and published the short-story cycle "A Sportsman's Sketches", and was banished to his estate. After this he went abroad and spent most of his time in Paris, where he more than anybody made Russian literature known to the outside world. His greatest novels were "A Nest of Gentlefolk", "On the Eve" and of course "Fathers and Sons". "A Month in the Country" is a pleasant and amusing play of the day, and his very best. One that later also highly inspired Chekhov. Further reading recommended: "The Essential Turgenev".
Turgenev's skill shines through
9 May 2005
Format:Paperback
This is not a dramatic masterpiece, but anyone who appreciates Turgenev will benefit from it. I was motivated to read this play in preparation for its performance by the United Players of Vancouver next month.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Russian+19th century=good
15 May 1998
Format:Paperback
In the footsteps of other such amazing Russian authors comes Turgenev, and his wonderfully written play 'A Month in the Country.' If you love Russian literature of this time period, and you like Love triangles, and plays, then this story can not go wrong.
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