Volume 26, Number 5 · April 5, 1979
'The Least Unsafe Man of Genius'
By Henry Gifford
Turgenev: His Life and Times
by Leonard Schapiro
Random House, 382 pp., $15.95
Professor Schapiro's extremely well-prepared biography of Turgenev is the latest word on the subject, taking into account all the new material of the recent decade. It is particularly strong on the social and political background, the 'times' at the center of which Turgenev so unerringly stood; and it is throughout discreet, judicious, fair-minded—a book of which Turgenev would have approved, for it has been written very much in his spirit. The authors does not claim to have altered a by now familiar picture. Turgenev's is a story that has been often told, and told satisfactorily. Nor does Schapiro allow himself to 'interpret' Turgenev. He presents the facts of his literary and personal life, with scrupulous care to ensure that these will be reliable; and he maintains that readers will probably find his book confirming them in views they already hold. He does, however, express one central conviction about the man:
Review, 2437 words
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