Generational Conflict, Russian Style: Ivan Turgenev's Father and Sons

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, translated by Michael R. Katz (1862; Norton, 1994)

I was a senior in high school when a friend urged me to read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862). The friend was two or three years older than me, but the way I looked up to him he might as well have been a full-grown adult. He was tall and cool, full of wisdom. I hung on his every word. Looking back, I wonder if he urged me to read the book or simply recommended it. In any case I went out at once and bought a copy.

Fathers and Sons remained on my bookshelf for several years. I seem to remember opening it once or twice; I wasn’t compelled. After college, when I had lost touch with that friend, I downsized my personal library and parted with the book. But I never forgot who first recommended it.

Now some decade and a half later, I have finally read Turgenev’s novel, and I understand why my friend recommended it. No novel I know offers a tenderer depiction of generational conflict. It contains lessons that at seventeen I couldn’t have grasped. Lessons necessary for all of us now...

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