134
PARTISAN REVIEW
(Although o th ers have written o n it since, it was Prit chett 's cas ua l essay
on Goncharov's
Ob lomov,
I beli eve, th at first a lert ed me to the
ambi va lence in that work 's condemn a ti on and celebrati on of the
no ti on of class ica l
otium
in feuda l Ru ss ia.)
The Gen tle Barbarian,
Pr itchett 's new bi ograph y o f T urgenev,
raises a number of q ues ti ons about thi s un easy, if somel imes beneficial,
exch ange. Pritchett lacks Russ ian , hence access to untransla ted letters,
compl ete ann o ta ted editi on s, var iant texts, and a vast body of na ti ve
commentary; wha t can he tell us
without
a ll thi s sch olarl y equipment?
Some, o f course, he has at second hand , the evi dence selected by the
Russ ian- spea king academi cs who have p receded him. H e graciously
acknow ledges hi s debt to Maga rshak's and Ya rmo linsky's biographies,
and es peciall y to Ap ril Fitzl yon s's study of P auline Vi ardot, Tur–
genev's lifelong love. Beyond th at there are a sca tterin g of commenta–
ries, and selections of letters in French and Engli sh , but little else. We
begin , nevertheless, with hi gh hopes- Sir Victor will wing it-but we
end with the depress in g questi on : Wha t went wrong? T he answer is
complicated, and imp li ca tes Pritchett , hi s p ubli shers, and, in a certain
sense, T urgenev himself.
The stra ight biogr aphi cal ma tter is unexcepti ona l, an elegant
gloss, to a degree, on cl umsier, th ough firsth and, studi es. Pri tchell
presents hi s own modes t commentary on the famili ar materi al, di s–
agreeing for examp le with Magarshak on the ex tent of T urgenev's
phys ical in volvement with Viardo t. T he sto ry o f hi s lon g, strange
entanglement with her is fres hl y told th anks to new ma teri a l from the
Fitzlyons study. T he o ther well-known fi gures, scenes, and dil emmas
are a ll adequa tely there. T urgenev's aw ful mo ther, who th reatens to
run away with any biography of her son , shap in g hi s life and hi s work
till the day he d ied, p lays her role in P ritchett 's scr ip t like the old
trouper she has become. T he fi erce and foo li sh q uarrels with T olstoy
and Dos toevsky are retold with a proper emphas is on their comic
aspects. T urgenev's comp lex sta te of suspension between literary and
politi cal facti on s, and hi s steady defen se of the au tonomy of art against
their cl a ims on it, are sketched in , although witho llt enough deta il to
take us any grea t di stance into Russian intell ectua l life. His central
positi on as European man of letters is mini ma ll y conveyed-mos t of
the names are g iven , with an anecdo te o r two, but lilli e is sa id about
wha t he gave to or took from th e many wr iters and intell ectua ls he
knew. Pritchett recentl y sa id that there was no " definiti ve" bi ography
of Turgenev. T hi s does no t mean , as it mi ght seem to, th at he had
meant to prov ide it, but, ra ther, th a t he (or the p u bli sher) must have
