"For Turgenev, we do not have an answer"

October 1, 2022 9:32 PM

I am looking for this very surprising quote several decades ago, about Russian and English novelists, but can only remember the rough outline.

I remember reading a quote by an English (the language) author, that compared English and Russian novelists, and went roughly like:

"For Tolstoy, we have Shakespeare; for Dostoevsky we have Hardy; for Turgenev, we do not have a counterpart"

I am sure I have all the names wrong, except for Turgenev!

Could anyone point me to the proper quote?

posted by raheel to Writing & Language (1 answer total)

The quote does not ring any bells but it sounds like something Vladimir Nabokov might have said in his Lectures on Russian Literature. It's been decades since I read it, so this is probably wrong, though. And of course Nabokov did not rate Turgenev very highly, but still above Dostoevsky (whom he called "a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian").
posted by fregoli at 2:42 AM on October 2, 2022