Smoke

“Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel.”

Ivan Turgenev gave his generation a literary legacy that dealt with the extraordinary moral complexities of his age.

A novel of haunting beauty, Smoke is a fascinating account of one of Turgenev's favorite themes: man's inability to love without becoming a slave to the destructive power of passion.

It is considered by many to be one of Turgenev's greatest love stories.

Set in Baden-Baden, Smoke is an exquisite study of politics and society and an enduringly poignant love story.

Grigory Litvinov has arrived in Baden after spending years in the west; here he plans to meet up with his fiancée Tatyana—when a chance encounter brings him face to face with Irina, an old flame, now married to a prominent aristocrat.

This chance meeting derails all Grigory’s plans for the future and sends his life into utter turmoil.

IVAN TURGENEV (1818–1883) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright known for his honest portrayals of Russian serfs in the feudal system of the nineteenth century. Unlike his contemporaries Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, whose writings focused primarily on church and religion, Turgenev believed in the need for Russia to Westernize. He criticized the provincial society and political turbulence of his time through sophisticated and passionate prose. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. He also wrote such masterworks as The Diary of a Superfluous Man, First Love, Torrents of Spring, King Lear of the Steppes, Smoke, and A Sportsman’s Sketches.