BOOKS
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fe lt tha t there was room for yet ano th er less- than -definiti ve
biography-less definiti ve, perhaps, if there were any way to measure
it, than Yarmo linsky's
Turgenev: T he Man, H is Life, and H is Art
(1926 and 1959).
As straight recorder of th e deta il s of a life, P ritchett scores no
higher, perhap s, th an we should have expected hi m to: he is no more a
researcher than T urgenev is an " inven tor. "
It
is as cr iti c, after all-as
"fi rs t reader" in Frye's phrase-tha t we expect him to reward u s. H e
"reads" the major novels and man y of the sho rter works, but in an
oddl y incompl ete and merely recapitul a li ve way. We find ourselves
noting lacunae instead of ill umina ti ng percepti on s; we a re given an
incomp lete and no t entirely accu ra te portra it of Bazarov;
On the Eve
may well be on e of T urgenev's wea kes t novels, but one wonders how
this judgment can be reached without takin g into account the extraor–
dinary fin a l episode in Veni ce. Repea tedl y the work of fi ction is
reduced to a biographical da tum: hi s mo ther 's savagery, his father 's
sexual adventurin g, hi s own pass ive dependency on Viardo t. These
observa ti ons are no doubt true, but they are neither new n or helpful ,
and they tell us littl e about T urgenev's arti stic vision .
On more than one occasion we sen se the lunge for insight, but the
returns are di sappo intin g. He is cl ose to percepti veness when he says of
T urgepev that " he had th e eyes of a na tura list; tha t is to say th ere is no
day-dreaming in it, no Wo rdsworth ian mora l content. " There is
rever ie on occasion , but Pritchett is q uite ri ght tha t th ere is no world
beyond the ev idence of th e senses. Na ture's mood is indifference, its
yield eni gma. But he is onl y ha lf ri ght when , in pursuit of the same
point, he contrasts the "eyes" of Tolstoy and T urgenev: wha t T olstoy
sees in nature is still and settl ed for good; what T urgenev sees " is
already chang in g." There is change in T urgenev, bu t it is n o t develop–
ment; it is th e random result of time's flux , with out regul arity,
directi on , or depth . P ritchett has no t un derstood tha t Tolstoy's o bj ect
seems vivid and permanent because, as the master of
process,
he roots it
in a changing na tura l and mEtaph ys ical-transcendenta l, Wo rds–
worthi an-o rder, and p laces its perceiver (usua ll y a major character )
in an equall y complex p rocess of menta l change tha t is simpl y beyond
Turgenev's reach .
One minute we may think P ritchett has isolatEd the secret of the
play of character in T urgenev : " WE have the sen sa ti on of peopl e li vin g
in and out of thEir chan ging judgment of o ne ano ther, and a ll in a
single clear stream "; a moment later we conclude tha t thi s is an
imprecise way to charact eri ze all good drama ti c writin g. And some-
