The Jew and Other Stories

by Ivan Turgenev

In studying the Russian novel it is amusing to note the childish attitude of certain English men of letters to the novel in general, their depreciation of its influence and of the public’s 'inordinate' love of fiction. Many men of letters to-day look on the novel as a mere story-book, as a series of light-coloured, amusing pictures for their 'idle hours,' and on memoirs, biographies, histories, criticism, and poetry as the age’s serious contribution to literature. Whereas the reverse is the case. The most serious and significant of all literary forms the modern world has evolved is the novel; and brought to its highest development, the novel shares with poetry to-day the honour of being the supreme instrument of the great artist’s literary skill. To survey the field of the novel as a mere pleasure-garden marked out for the crowd’s diversion—a field of recreation adorned here and there by the masterpieces of a few great men—argues in the modern critic either an academical attitude to literature and life, or a one-eyed obtuseness, or merely the usual insensitive taste. The drama in all but two countries has been willy-nilly abandoned by artists as a coarse playground for the great public’s romps and frolics, but the novel can be preserved exactly so long as the critics understand that to exercise a delicate art is the oneserious duty of the artistic life. It is no more an argument against the vital significance of the novel that tens of thousands of people—that everybody, in fact—should to-day essay that form of art, than it is an argument against poetry that for all the centuries droves and flocks of versifiers and scribblers and rhymesters have succeeded in making the name of poet a little foolish in worldly eyes. The true function of poetry! That can only be vindicated in common opinion by the severity and enthusiasm of critics in stripping bare the false, and in hailing as the true all that is animated by the living breath of beauty. The true function of the novel! That can only be supported by those who understand that the adequate representation and criticism of human life would be impossible for modern men were the novel to go the way of the drama, and be abandoned to the mass of vulgar standards.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Russia, Russian Literature, Collections

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1868

About the author

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short-story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852) and the novels Rudin (1856), Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), and Fathers and Sons (1862).

These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.

Reviews

[Alisa Aliaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude all I do lately is cry at books + the baby monkey on Tiktok named 'Punch'

I'm not sure exactly what re-lit the spark for Turgenev, but I can't get enough of these short stories. Writing style captures a lot of the philosophies and social truths that you'd see from Dostoevsky or Tolstoy without the sprawling timeline and prolonged tensions. 

You get the emotional depth without a lot of the exhaustion that comes with 1300 pages of a novel. His short-stories are more about emotional observation and moral ambiguity. There's a saying: "we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." This feels like the anchor of his writing.

And of course, it wouldn't be a Russian story without the voluptuous melancholy we associate with the canon. In these stories, the characters' inner narratives shape their fate- tragically so. He exposes by quietly showing, not telling, their psychological details as you watch it escalate into tragedy.

1) THE JEW
Ok I cried really hard at this story. Takes place in 1800s, a time where Jewish communities were marginalized socially and economically. Many Jewish men, with no other means to support their families, found economic survival by following army camps and selling essential services like laundry or small-scale lending. This was incredibly risky and underscored the hostile nature of their social circumstances, and the vulnerability that comes with exposure to violence and persecution. 

Two main characters: a Russian military officer and a Jewish man named Girshel. Girshel occupies that liminal space I just described. The two meet when he approaches the officer asking if he can be of service in any way. The officer performatively rejects Girshel for being Jewish, but doesn't actually seem to be bothered by him. Girshel realizes that the officer had a crush on a young woman named Sara and offers to get the officer some private time with her for a price. First, Turgenev makes him seems like a creepy, gimlet-eyed, money-minded man for trying to profit at her expense. But your perspective of him shifts when he refuses to fully leave the tent when Sara is alone with the officer. Turns out Sara is his daughter. Their family's position could not be more desperate so he will leverage Sara's beauty but never allows her out of his sight or to be exploited 3. He is eventually stopped by a different officer who searches his belongings and accuses him of being a spy since he had a hand-drawn map of the camp in his coat. This is where Turgenev lets you decide if you think he is actually a spy, or if he just drew a map for basic orientation. He is hanged for this and his daughter is present the entire time.
I can't describe his death b/c it's so unsettling. The hanging isn't even the worst part; it's the mockery of his desperation and fear of leaving behind his wife and daughter. "We all could not help smiling, though it was intensely horrible to us, too. The poor wretch was half-dead with terror." 

Violence becomes bureaucratic. Suspicion is irredeemable. And so he is hanged, his daughter watches & curses them for being bloodthirsty dogs, and when his wife comes to collect his clothing, they toss her a few dollars instead. The language Turgenev uses is deliberately sharp to bring attention to the common perception and narrative of Jewish people in Russia at the time. And by the end of the story, you have no clarity on whether he was a spy or if he was just a loving dad with no other way to support his family. You get to decide for yourself based on who you are and where your mind/heart lie. Ok I'm done writing about this one bc I'll start crying again. If there is one thing I hate, it's collective moral distancing---especially when interpretation is already so so fragile 3.

2) THE UNHAPPY GIRL
This one hit too close to home, so I can't get too detailed but I don't think I cried as much. Susanna is a woman in the 1800s navigating rigid and unforgiving social demands. She lives in a deeper psychological reality than her environment allows her to express. Though she is still heavily eroticized by the men around her, while simultaneously being targeted by them to aggressively push her into submission. The central male figure connects with her emotionally, but is a bit shallow. He's fascinated by her inner world/intensity but doesn't quite connect with it. The other male figures romanticize her sadness and project onto her. This misalignment/gap isn't exposed until they read the manuscript she wrote before dying by su1cide.

As with any su1cide, there's no easy person to blame, but there's no one who made a positive difference either. I imagine she'd have been calmer/safer if her environment allowed her to just be left alone--- because intense people don't feel lonely when they're alone. Solitude is chosen, grounding, and clarifying. But feeling isolated in company is suffocating and profoundly destabilizing. I imagine she felt misread, trivialized, mismatched, surrounded but unseen-- all through interactions that she didn't really want in the first place. This kind of social dissonance feels worse. But even with that... her manuscript still suggests that she wanted a connection, but the right kind of connection.

The men/suitors in her life read her manuscript after she dies and they realize that she was aestheticized when she was alive, and understood only after she was gone. Can't help but wonder what could've been different if she just gave the manuscript to Fustov while she was alive...Once again, we see things as we are, not as they are. (Honestly at least they read it lol <3 )

There are three more stories, The Duellist, The Portraits, and Enough: A Fragment from the Notebook of a Dead Artist. I'm not going to review the rest of them but my favorites of these in order were The Duellist, Enough, followed by The Portraits. 

The Duellist is like the male version of The Unhappy Girl. Sweet, emotionally literate man is a victim of the rigid male social codes in Russia at the time (resolving basic conflict by fighting to death (See Alexander Pushkin's death). To cope with the situation, he romanticizes the girl he's crushing on and tries to think of their secure future together once he wins. But this is all projection. And he doesn't win. He dies. And the girl was honestly just someone he was fond of, but he was forced to take it more seriously than he would have otherwise. What might've remained a fleeting crush escalates due to pride, honor culture, and masculine performance. 

He didn't see things as they were, he saw them as he was. 

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five short stories, "The Jew" is only 30 pages or so - a brief story of a Jew near a soldiers camp trying to get money and accused of being a spy. "Andrei Kolosoff" is a man who falls in love with Varya, then realising he no longer loves her, drops her, but isn't persuaded to see her again. The friend (narrator) tries to comfort the girl, get tangled up and makes a mess of things.
Back to the army for "The Bully" an interesting portrait of a man who lives up to the title, he is befriended by Feodor, who the tries to get him to visit the girl who is in love with him - no more spoilers...
"Pyetushkoff" is the story of a daft man who falls for a bakers daughter, but doesn't really get very far. Finally "The Two Friends" are bachelors on adjoining estates, one tries to find his friend a wife, he doesn't manage it - but his friend finds one.
They're published in chronological order and the Two Friends (1853) is in my view the strongest, written 5 years before On the Eve, it is a precursor in style to that story.

[Don Cafone · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Жида" прочитал, остального пока нет. Пусть это будет вместо собственно "Жида".
Страдания по Эмми Россум в Призраке Оперы плюс расизм во все стороны. Хуята хуятинская.

[Yasser Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, well-written.