Recommended Biography of Turgenev - Henri Troyer's "Biography of Turgenev" Summary and Comments
Turgenev (1818-1883)Wikipedia.
A biography is the best way to learn about Turgenev's life.
Among them, I recommend Henri Troyer's "Biography of Turgenev" (translated by Hiromiko Ichikawa, Suiseisha).
Henri Troyer is already a familiar name on my blog.
Henri Troyer is a Moscow-born Russian-French novelist and biographer who is very prolific.
His best-known works are The Biography of Pushkin andA Biography of Dostoevsky., ,Pyotr the Greatand countless other famous biographies such as "Ekaterina the Empress".
Henri Troyer's biography of Turgenev is the work presented here.
The translator's afterword describes the characteristics of this "Biography of Turgenev" as follows.
His focus is on the historical figures, literary figures, and artists of both his native Russia and France, where he was educated and lived, as well as the political figures and their associates from the early modern period to the present.
While focusing on these real people and their personalities, Troyer also brings into relief the social, historical, cultural, and genre backgrounds, as well as the personalities of the royalty, aristocrats, and fellow writers closely associated with the protagonists.
The author has been using the techniques of historical dramas and novels, and has been searching for and examining an enormous amount of data, and has been building up detailed facts and selecting them with the utmost care not to tell lies or deviate from the facts in a documentary-like manner. （The work is based on a documentary approach, and the characters are created through the accumulation of detailed facts and the selection of those facts.)
Each of Henri Troyer's biographies, while at times appearing to depict a historical drama consisting of a group of people, organically intertwines these relationships to form the main character, all converging on the single person of the title. When the reader closes the last page, he or she is left with a certain feeling about the character and his or her life. （The book is a work of art.)
In this biography of Henri Troyer, these episodes are reproduced without end. For example, the "big boy" humor of his youthful maritime accident, the nasty satirical poems that ridiculed his rival Dostoevsky, and the letters he continued to write to young women in his old age, all of which are omitted in biographies that are heavy on reverence for the great writer Turgenev. The book is full of details that are usually omitted in biographies with a strong reverence for the great Turgenev.
The feud between Tolstoy and Turgenev, which also intrigued Akutagawa, is one of the highlights of the book, both from the standpoint of the literary world and in terms of the way the two men's qualities appear when they clash, but Troyer does not make any unnecessary commentary, nor does he add any elaborate finesse. Troyer does not add any unnecessary notes, nor does he add a grand fin, but the reader can vividly feel Tolstoy's distress at feeling that his sister has been played with, and Turgenev's inner feelings at having his manuscript of "Father and Son" neglected, through his simple and to the point drawings based on facts, and can vividly sense their psychology and situations. We witness the two men's attempted duel, so to speak, while perceiving the various emotional folds of the two men.
Suiseisha Henri Troyer, Biography of Turgenev, translated by Hiromiko Ichikawa, p. 255-257
Like his other biographical works, Troyer uses a narrative narrative style in this work to tell the story of Turgenev's life.
And as you will see in this afterword, he has also written about episodes that are often omitted in biographies that revere the great writer Turgenev.
Troyer's attitude is that in order to understand Turgenev's personality, it is necessary to include such aspects of his life.
However, this is my personal impression, but I got the impression that Troyer did not have the same fondness for Turgenev as he did for Dostoevsky and Pushkin.
In reading the book, I feel that Turgenev's pettiness and one-sided attitude are strongly portrayed. This may be due in part to the fact that there is not much commentary on Turgenev's work in this biography.
If there is a commentary on his work, we can appreciate the wonderful aspects of his work, but if the main focus is on his personal life, we can't just worship him.
I felt the same way about this in Troyer's "Biography of Balzac". His "Biography of Balzac" was also narrated in a way that made it harder to get a good impression of Balzac than other writers' "Biographies of Balzac". (Balzac, the great French writer, also has a messy personal life. (French writer Balzac also has a messy personal life, nothing compared to Turgenev's.)
But if you think about it, that may be a fair attitude for a biographer. But if you think about it, that may also be a fair attitude for a biographer.
Perhaps it is because Troyer has written biographies of many great people and writers that he dares to write in such a way. I am not an expert here, so I can't say for sure.
That is not to say, however, that Troyer's "Biography of Turgenev" is not interesting. Rather, it was an outstandingly interesting biography.
This is a must see, especially if you want to know more about Dostoevsky. You will understand why Dostoevsky hated him so much. And you can also learn why Turgenev became such a Turgenev, going back to his childhood.
Each episode was very interesting.
I highly recommend this biography.
From the next article, this "Biography of Turgenev" and Seiro Sato'sThe Life of Turgenev."I will discuss the days of his childhood, which became the original experience of his literary life, and the incident in a maritime accident in his youth, which was mentioned in the translator's afterword earlier.
This is the recommended biography of Turgenev - Henri Troyer's "Biography of Turgenev".
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