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Three Sketches from a Hunter's Album
One of 60 low-priced classic texts published to celebrate Penguin's 60th anniversary. All the titles are extracts from "Penguin Classics" titles.
64 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 1996
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Ivan Turgenev
1,832 books2,758 followersIvan 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 16, 2023
Yet another quick read from my dad’s collection of Penguin 60’s classics. This is just three short stories from the Authors larger work of the same name. Lovely writing.
Loner, Meeting and Relic are the three stories. Loner is about an unnamed rich narrator being helped from a storm by a lone woodsman living with his daughter in the middle of a wood. Meeting has an unnamed narrator voyeuristically watching a young peasant girl being rebuffed in marriage by a servant of status. The final story has the narrator coming across a servant once known. But who fell ill with a wasting disease and who is essentially a mummy lying on a bed, moved from room to room by other servants.
The author brings out the class system in Russia at the time and his negative view of it. Rich writing. Need to dig out the complete book and another 22 short stories.
Loner, Meeting and Relic are the three stories. Loner is about an unnamed rich narrator being helped from a storm by a lone woodsman living with his daughter in the middle of a wood. Meeting has an unnamed narrator voyeuristically watching a young peasant girl being rebuffed in marriage by a servant of status. The final story has the narrator coming across a servant once known. But who fell ill with a wasting disease and who is essentially a mummy lying on a bed, moved from room to room by other servants.
The author brings out the class system in Russia at the time and his negative view of it. Rich writing. Need to dig out the complete book and another 22 short stories.
March 2, 2017
Three stories taken from Sketches from a Hunter's Album, published is a Penguin 60s Classic. The original consists of 25 stories.
These three short stories strike me as very Russian in their writing. I don't really even know how to expand on that, but they are not stories about hunting. They are stories about events that occur when the main character is returning from, should be, or has been rained off his hunting.
1 - Loner - a stormy night, and returning from a hunt the unnamed main character meets a forester, who takes him to his run down house to shelter. The following day the forester detects a peasant cutting a tree in a nearby valley. Instead of holding up the forester who is returning our character to the road, they travel instead to intercept the peasant. The short story covers how the interaction ends. 3/5
2- Meeting - having nodded off to sleep in the forest, an unnamed hunter wakes to see a young woman nearby, apparently waiting for someone to turn up. After a time, a man turns up ("To all appearances he was the pampered valet of some rich young master. His clothes displayed pretensions to good taste and dandified casualness...". Obviously the dislike was instant! The story is a voyeuristic telling of their conversation. 2/5
3- Living Relic - rained off a hunt, Pyotr Petrovich and his companion leave the forest and repair to the companions farm to shelter the weather. The following morning while wandering the grounds, Pyotr comes across a withered and lame form - who recognises him and calls to him by name. Astounded he finds that the woman was once a dancer known to himself and his mother. The story unfolds as Lukeria explains how she came to be in her state, and situation. 4/5.
The writing is very descriptive - a little over descriptive at times, especially for a short story where we spend a page on the light coming through the leaves of a tree, but nevertheless lovely writing.
Published 1835, I guess the translation must have carried out some updating, as for me it didn't read as dated or archaic.
Across the three stories, this evens out to a 3 star book.
These three short stories strike me as very Russian in their writing. I don't really even know how to expand on that, but they are not stories about hunting. They are stories about events that occur when the main character is returning from, should be, or has been rained off his hunting.
1 - Loner - a stormy night, and returning from a hunt the unnamed main character meets a forester, who takes him to his run down house to shelter. The following day the forester detects a peasant cutting a tree in a nearby valley. Instead of holding up the forester who is returning our character to the road, they travel instead to intercept the peasant. The short story covers how the interaction ends. 3/5
2- Meeting - having nodded off to sleep in the forest, an unnamed hunter wakes to see a young woman nearby, apparently waiting for someone to turn up. After a time, a man turns up ("To all appearances he was the pampered valet of some rich young master. His clothes displayed pretensions to good taste and dandified casualness...". Obviously the dislike was instant! The story is a voyeuristic telling of their conversation. 2/5
3- Living Relic - rained off a hunt, Pyotr Petrovich and his companion leave the forest and repair to the companions farm to shelter the weather. The following morning while wandering the grounds, Pyotr comes across a withered and lame form - who recognises him and calls to him by name. Astounded he finds that the woman was once a dancer known to himself and his mother. The story unfolds as Lukeria explains how she came to be in her state, and situation. 4/5.
The writing is very descriptive - a little over descriptive at times, especially for a short story where we spend a page on the light coming through the leaves of a tree, but nevertheless lovely writing.
Published 1835, I guess the translation must have carried out some updating, as for me it didn't read as dated or archaic.
Across the three stories, this evens out to a 3 star book.
February 17, 2023
06/10: Russia
I love the Russians. The short stories are filled with moments of transcendent nature and glimpses of abject, desperate poverty. Our titular hunter interacts with an uncompromising forest warden, a rejected and humiliated peasant girl, and a former servant trapped in an immobile husk of a body.
It's all offered without comment, without introspection or trying to draw some saccharine lesson from their suffering, as if the author is a butcher slapping down a cut of bleeding life, saying 'Take it'. Pointless and cruel, and beautiful and sublime. There's no questioning why. Just take it.
I love the Russians. The short stories are filled with moments of transcendent nature and glimpses of abject, desperate poverty. Our titular hunter interacts with an uncompromising forest warden, a rejected and humiliated peasant girl, and a former servant trapped in an immobile husk of a body.
It's all offered without comment, without introspection or trying to draw some saccharine lesson from their suffering, as if the author is a butcher slapping down a cut of bleeding life, saying 'Take it'. Pointless and cruel, and beautiful and sublime. There's no questioning why. Just take it.
June 14, 2025
Yermolai and The Miller’s Wife by Ivan Turgenev – This is part of The Sportsman’s Sketches, which is 873rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – a few hundred of the books there are reviewed on my blog, where this is my best take https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
9 out of 10
This was entertaining, especially given that to some extent, I identified with Yermolai – Russian, and thus a sort of enemy as he would be, now that Putin is the most serious danger in our area…we have Orange Jesus too, but the fool is busy with The Gaza Strip Aka The Future Riviera of The Middle East, without…
- The Palestinians
‘Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair, and thick sarcastic lips’ – I like the age here, the head of hair, maybe not the class, he is a peasant, who has a very interesting dog – ‘He was a source of special delight to the cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with shouts and abuse… He was exceedingly ugly’
My favorite writer, along with Marcel Proust, is Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... and he wrote about a traveler, who went to Russia in the middle ages, and an experience that may be repeated today, I think
- People of all ages, classes and sexes would get very drunk, and fall under the table
It seemed this was their sole purpose, or words to that effect, why I put here with sarcasm is because I say they must be doing that today, to accept this tyrant, and furthermore, enjoy his doings, at least if we are to believe in the polls, and talks with the odd Russian who came here, one said to me that Putin is harasho
Yermolai ‘had a wife too. He went to see her once a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one’ - he ‘treated his wife with cruel harshness’ and
- This is why I see myself in him
The spouse insists that I am like Yermolai, not that she is familiar with this story, but I mean the type, cruel, selfish, it is part of what Eric Berne https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... explains in his psychology classic Games People Play, especially the IIWFY, the most played one
- If It Weren’t For You
Partners accuse each other, sometimes it is just one of the two, of being the reason why they have not become rich, famous, both and whatever failure, unachieved goal, except it was discovered that we pick someone who would keep us from doing what we do not want, feel able to do anyway, some sort of a scape goat
To be clear, I am not really that vicious – come to think of it, this Orange Buffoon who leads the free world, as in he changed the Gulf of Mexico, wants to invade Panama, Greenland, Canda to become a state, and more recently, he wants to do some ethnic cleansing and turn Gaza into The Riviera of The Middle East, may serve some purpose, compared with him –‘grabbing women by their pussy’ – I am an angel
Now a little about The Miller’s Wife – the narrator and Yermolai arrive at this miller, and they want to spend the night, only the miller does not want them there, he is afraid they may start a fire, not on purpose, accidentally, eventually, they agree on some outhouse, where the host agrees to have them for the night
Arina Timofyevna is the name of the wife, and she has her own little story, told by this rich man, who wanted a good maid for his wife, and found Arina – however, the spouse of this fellow had a few rules, one of which is that her servants are not allowed to get married, because they would be distracted and their service would suffer
It was so heartless, and yet, this chap is talking as if the spouse is a saint – she ‘spoilt her too much; she dressed her well, fed her from our own table, gave her tea to drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So, she waited on my wife like this for ten years’ and do you think they are grateful, see the dedication for what it is?
- No
The poor girl falls in love, she will get pregnant, and she is thrown out, even worse, this boyar says ‘he could not blame his footman’, the father of the child, it was a time of absolute sexism, the man was tempted, what could the poor fellow do?
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
9 out of 10
This was entertaining, especially given that to some extent, I identified with Yermolai – Russian, and thus a sort of enemy as he would be, now that Putin is the most serious danger in our area…we have Orange Jesus too, but the fool is busy with The Gaza Strip Aka The Future Riviera of The Middle East, without…
- The Palestinians
‘Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair, and thick sarcastic lips’ – I like the age here, the head of hair, maybe not the class, he is a peasant, who has a very interesting dog – ‘He was a source of special delight to the cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with shouts and abuse… He was exceedingly ugly’
My favorite writer, along with Marcel Proust, is Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... and he wrote about a traveler, who went to Russia in the middle ages, and an experience that may be repeated today, I think
- People of all ages, classes and sexes would get very drunk, and fall under the table
It seemed this was their sole purpose, or words to that effect, why I put here with sarcasm is because I say they must be doing that today, to accept this tyrant, and furthermore, enjoy his doings, at least if we are to believe in the polls, and talks with the odd Russian who came here, one said to me that Putin is harasho
Yermolai ‘had a wife too. He went to see her once a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one’ - he ‘treated his wife with cruel harshness’ and
- This is why I see myself in him
The spouse insists that I am like Yermolai, not that she is familiar with this story, but I mean the type, cruel, selfish, it is part of what Eric Berne https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... explains in his psychology classic Games People Play, especially the IIWFY, the most played one
- If It Weren’t For You
Partners accuse each other, sometimes it is just one of the two, of being the reason why they have not become rich, famous, both and whatever failure, unachieved goal, except it was discovered that we pick someone who would keep us from doing what we do not want, feel able to do anyway, some sort of a scape goat
To be clear, I am not really that vicious – come to think of it, this Orange Buffoon who leads the free world, as in he changed the Gulf of Mexico, wants to invade Panama, Greenland, Canda to become a state, and more recently, he wants to do some ethnic cleansing and turn Gaza into The Riviera of The Middle East, may serve some purpose, compared with him –‘grabbing women by their pussy’ – I am an angel
Now a little about The Miller’s Wife – the narrator and Yermolai arrive at this miller, and they want to spend the night, only the miller does not want them there, he is afraid they may start a fire, not on purpose, accidentally, eventually, they agree on some outhouse, where the host agrees to have them for the night
Arina Timofyevna is the name of the wife, and she has her own little story, told by this rich man, who wanted a good maid for his wife, and found Arina – however, the spouse of this fellow had a few rules, one of which is that her servants are not allowed to get married, because they would be distracted and their service would suffer
It was so heartless, and yet, this chap is talking as if the spouse is a saint – she ‘spoilt her too much; she dressed her well, fed her from our own table, gave her tea to drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So, she waited on my wife like this for ten years’ and do you think they are grateful, see the dedication for what it is?
- No
The poor girl falls in love, she will get pregnant, and she is thrown out, even worse, this boyar says ‘he could not blame his footman’, the father of the child, it was a time of absolute sexism, the man was tempted, what could the poor fellow do?
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
December 30, 2015
Chekhov he is not.
May 22, 2025
turgenev writes with the ache of someone watching a world he both loves and grieves. a hunter’s album doesn’t shout; it hums through the rustle of leaves, the crackle of campfires, the long silences between lives misunderstood or overlooked. these aren’t just sketches they’re elegies for a vanishing russia and gentle protests against a brutal system.
“bezhin meadow” left me haunted. “khor and kalinych” made me quietly furious. “the office” felt too real like i could still hear the clerk’s sigh echoing.
you read this and realize: change doesn’t always start with fists. sometimes it begins with someone really listening.
“bezhin meadow” left me haunted. “khor and kalinych” made me quietly furious. “the office” felt too real like i could still hear the clerk’s sigh echoing.
you read this and realize: change doesn’t always start with fists. sometimes it begins with someone really listening.
September 5, 2024
3.75⭐️
July 22, 2025
Living Relic is otherworldly fantastic, the other 2 stories are nice reads too
August 16, 2017
Turgenev, klasik Rus tarzının hakkını vererek yaptığı uzun ve detaylı betimlemelerle , kendinizi geçen yüzyıl sonunda Rus köylüsünün yaşadığı ortamda hissettiriyor. Sesi , kokusu, rengi ile. Bu anlatım insanların zorlukları, çileleri, inançları ile tamamlanınca Tolstoy'un rahat hayatını reddederek , mujiklerin yaşamına benzer bir hayatı tercih etmesinin arkasındaki haksızlık ve zorluğu hissediyorsunuz. Bu nedenle biraz kasvetli bir okuma. Turgenev bir anlamda , bu hikayeleri ile, o dönem için sosyal dökümantasyon bazlı bir belgeselcilik yapmış.
November 28, 2008
I don't get Russian literature at all. This is one of the reasons I grabbed this off the shelf to read. It convinced me that I need to keep reading more Russian literature.
July 9, 2013
Loner - 2/5
Meeting - 1/5
Living Relic - 3/5
Hemingway loved this guy, I don't get it. Maybe his novels will be more up my alley?
Meeting - 1/5
Living Relic - 3/5
Hemingway loved this guy, I don't get it. Maybe his novels will be more up my alley?
February 15, 2014
I think I really like Ivan Turgenev. I'll have to find more of his stories.
November 30, 2014
Great Russian character creator.
November 16, 2023
Nabokov , "Turgenev's best (in way of Russian landscape) was beautifully developed by Chekhov.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews