Cover of The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev Ebook The Diary of a Superfluous Man
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The Diary of a Superfluous Man

Author
Ivan Turgenev
Series
World Classics
Language
English
Length
166 pages
ISBN
9781910150030
Published
15 December 2013
Imprint
Sovereign
  • loneliness
  • alienation
  • existential struggles
  • insignificance
  • superfluousness
  • society
  • diary entries
  • inner turmoil
  • reflections
  • isolation

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Description

A man writes himself down as leftover. Turgenev’s Diary of a Superfluous Man is the Russian type in a private key: unused talent, unused love, a life that happened beside the main story. Loneliness without costume, and the strange dignity of admitting you were not needed. Chulkaturin’s entries have the chill of a man watching his own funeral in slow motion. Turgenev made a type that later novels never quite escaped: the unused heart. Later Russian novels stole the type and rarely improved it.

Author

Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) grew up on a wealthy Russian estate, studied at the universities of Moscow, St Petersburg, and Berlin, and later settled largely in France. A Sportsman's Sketches revealed the intelligence and dignity of serfs through apparently effortless country scenes; Fathers and Sons caught the rift between liberal parents and their impatient, nihilist heirs.

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