Hunting Nature

Reviews / Votes

Turgenev (1818-83) was a passionate, lifelong hunter, and in this scholarly work, Hodge (Wellesley College) argues that hunting greatly affected Turgenev's work. In making his case, Hodge thoroughly examines Turgenev's writings-mainly novels and short fiction but also other types, such as prose poems and letters.

(Choice) A new book on Ivan Turgenev, a writer who has recently been a focus of renewed scholarly attention, is bound to excite interest. That is all the more the case for Thomas Hodge's monograph, which is elegantly written, beautifully produced, lovingly illustrated, and ambitious in its overarching claim.

(The Russian Review) Hunting Nature: Ivan Turgenev and the Organic World is, quite simply, the best analysis of Turgenev yet written. It captures his essence, it is also, incidentally, a fascinating history of Russian field sports. At its core, however, Hunting Nature addresses one of the central preoccupations of our time: humanity's engagement with, and alienation from, the natural world. Most of us in today's climate live detached from the land, and many of today's intelligentsia, presumably a majority, would regard with abhorrence the hunting of animals for pleasure. For these reasons we have tended to overlook Turgenev's hunting and to get his writing fundamentally wrong. In Hodge's words, 'if we ignore the gun, we will remain partially deaf to the lyre.' Precisely because I am not a hunting person, I know I shall treasure Thomas P. Hodge's book and return to it as a guide not only to Ivan Turgenev, but also to the mindset of the past.

(Contemporary Western Rusistika)