Faust

I was attracted to this novella by Turgenev because I love the Faust story, and indeed this is a sort of variation on the myth. A young man meets a girl who has been brought up in isolation, never having read anything fictional, never hearing any stories. He’s attracted to her, but her strong mother suggests that they’re not a good match; humbled, he agrees. Years later, when the girl is married, they meet again; this time her mother is dead. He introduces her to Goethe’s Faust, and she’s altered irrevocably.

It’s a great idea, but while Turgenev is supposed to be one of the great Russian writers, I wasn’t touched by it – it lacked that spark that the other authors have, that real passion – it felt more like a writing exercise than anything that the author really felt, even though apparently he was a great fan of Goethe. Great writing of course, but it didn’t grab me.