59. On Turgenev.

Dearly Beloved,

My favorite book is Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Turgenev, (1818 to 1883) translated from the Russian. I regret I'm not up to the original in Russian , but Richard Freeborn's translation does well enough. The attraction of Turgenev's writing is his ability to describe the natural world and to spice that with descriptions of the huge diversity of people he meets on his travels as a hunter. His description is multidimensional for he will describe the progress of the day from dawn, the colours, the clouds, the mists or clear skies as they change. Then there are descriptions of the physical terrain through which he travels, hills, woods, valleys, cliffs and plains, wild and cultivated, are all described along with the wild animals and plants that he encounters. Then nestled in these terrains are the people and their stories. He uses that old technique of nested stories as found in both Chaucer and the Tales of the Arabian Nights. On one occasion he gets lost amongst the fields and woods and after dark comes upon a group of boys who have driven out horses to graze so that they escape the flies of the daytime. In this tale, Bezhin Lea, we are then treated to a wealth of stories, most of them of the supernatural as the boys talk their way through the evening and night whilst the potatoes boil on the fire. Here we have seductive water spirits, ghosts and unexplained noises in the night.

Of course Turgenev is a hunter but he does not hesitate to relay the criticism and condemnation of hunting, notably by the dwarf Kasyan who condemns the shooting of a woodcock as “a sin” and then sets out clearly which animals are for the use of man and excludes most wild animals. Kasyan like most of the other characters in the stories, is a serf. The agent of his master has moved him away from the perfection of “The Beautiful Lands” to a less fertile and diverse area where making a living is more difficult. Turgenev is unusual in that his compassion trumps his financial and social interests. He owned 19 villages, yet he campaigned for the liberation of the serfs and behind the wonderful descriptions of the Russian countryside in his writings, lurk the mistreatment of the Russian people, both peasants and house serfs who are effectively enslaved to their masters or mistresses. At one time the authorities confined Turgenev to his estate because of his political activities.

Turgenev's sketches reminded me of the wonderful benefits of studying wildlife where one encounters the diverse beauties of nature but without the necessity to kill animals but rather to conserve and nurture them. In Oman when studying a rare goat-antelope, we stayed several weeks on a mountain terrace at 5000 ft altitude and in the quiet warmth of the evening the sound of bee eaters (Merops apiaster) contact calling could be heard far below. Gradually the calls became louder and finally a small flock of the birds would be visible and the wing beats audible as they passed upward over the cliff to finally reach the plateau one thousand feet above us, still calling to one another. Then once again silence would fall and we would watch the last of the sunlight disappearing from the peaks above.

On another occasion I was dropped by helicopter onto a difficult-to-reach terrace in the Jabal Akhdar (the green mountain) which was rumored to be good wildlife habitat. Here, by chance, I met two local men, hunters, who showed me how the terrace was set out for hunting with blinds to hide behind but also that there were earthenware pots which had been let into the ground. The mouths of the pots were set in rivulets down which water flowed into the pots during rain. Across the mouth of each pot was a dried sprig of thyme to prevent stones passing into the pots. These pots provided an invaluable water supply to hunters in an area without a natural spring or water pools. I stayed the night with the hunters and they produced a red fox which they had shot earlier in the day, identical to the European variety apart from its sandy colour. This was our evening meal. Thus did the unspeakable eat the uneatable, and were glad of it. A fox's hind leg tastes a little like ox heart and has a similar, tough texture. The next day I ran and leapt down a very steep wadi following and imitating the moves of the two hunters, their leaps and their shuffles, probably the most difficult piece of mountain descent that I have ever done. Within a month I had contracted malaria and never again attained the level of fitness experienced on that wonderful day.

Turgenev was no saint. He spent much of his life trying to persuade his mother to hand over some of her riches to him. His novel, The Torrents of Spring, is full of wonderful, atmospheric descriptions of nature, including a powerful description of a ride on horseback to a forest hut where the main characters make love. This seemed very romantic until I realised that it was the story of a married couple who had a bet that the wife could not seduce the central character – it was actually quite decadent. But then who are we to cast stones, especially that first stone, and which serfs have we helped liberate?

Peace,

Paul.

Completed 18 August 2021.


Two Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) on catching a bee.The female (in front) awaits the offering which the male will make."  Pierre Dalous own work.  Wikipedia Commons.

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