This book contains three short works that provide a wonderful example of the Russian approach to romantic literature. The form is wonderful, the characters perfectly created and the plot shores up the authors ideas with an most resonant clarity.

First love shows the blend of comedy and tragedy that is so prevalent in Russian works of the period. The events portrayed are those that could occur in daily life even to today. The emotions that are evoked are real and timeless. It surely adds proof to the argument that Russian works of this period age so much better than do those authors from other countries whose works have survived.

Spring Torrents is the longest of the works and still provides a feel that the length is exactly perfect for the tale. If the prologue does not pull you into the story you have an absences of a great concern that plagues many of us. How many of us fear reaching that point (or have reached that point)in life where we recognize all of the great loss of opportunity which has occurred in our life. From this prologue the story races along explaining how one of us has reached the position when the concern has become a reality. Wonderful feelings are evoked on the path.

This book is highly recommended for all and is a must read for the Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol and Dostoevsky fans.

First love is a wonderful evocation of youth, love and life in 19th century Russian life. I challenge anyone not to be moved by this book, which is both humorous and touchingly melencholic.

If reading in translation has proved difficult for you in the past, Freeborn's translation of Turgenev's short stories will suprise you in a wonderful way. There were times when I forgot that I was in the process of reading, but rather felt that these very scenes were being lived out before me, a bodiless and voiceless viewer.

Turgenev's understanding of and ability to capture the complete emotional processes of people in love in this collection touched me in its sincerity and genuine clarity. All the insane, skipping-over-themselves thoughts and quick jealousies that people experience are completely captured in stories like "First Love" and "Diary of a Superfluous Man."

Turgenev is a great introduction to Russian fiction. I'm sorry that I didn't discover him earlier.

These stories were so completely perfect- so compelling that I read through them all and longed for more at the end. They cover London and the countryside, every class and just about every condition without compromising either story or plot. I am shocked that I am the only reviewer- Pritchett has been cited by so many authors as their favorite storyteller that I expected he would have a huge following. These tales, written over the course of his lifetime are particularly powerful after WWII. He draws the structure-loving British groping to put things back to normal when there is no more normal, the foundations have been ruptured. They are economical and illuminating with no small bit of irony at the end. He joins Maugham and Cheever as the masters of their times and only one other- Carver- can come close to their success and genius. Check him out, especially if you're enamoured of a good story, anything British and genuine compassion without sentimentality.

Forty-one years ago, V.S. Pritchett went looking for what makes London itself. He wrote this before McDonald's arrived, just before the Beatles and 007 put it on the world's pop map, just as cranes were setting out the beams for glass and steel skyscrapers. Much has happened in the interim, but what Pritchett found explains not only its past but its future. He makes neat work of reconciling the many ironies in a place that reinvents itself every so often without much of a plan, but which also hangs onto traditions, ways of being and a passion for order. This is a tour of neighborhoods, but also of centuries and the historical events and personages that have contributed to the city's enduring character. It moves seamlessly between the concrete image and the abstract idea. Pritchett's prose is crystalline, his insights spooky at times (he describes those new skyscrapers as having a "smashable impermanence" to them). The photographs by Evelyn Hofer are haunting. There will always be a London. This should be required reading for visitors to that city.

"The Pritchett Century" is quality, from its gracious Foreword by Pritchett's son Oliver and John Bayley's lucid Introduction, on through 695 pages authored by "the grand old man of letters" himself. Bayley tells us, "Pritchett was fascinated by trades." This volume offers only a fraction of Pritchett's achievements over a 70-year span as a master craftsman in the writing trade whose stunning output included novels, memoirs, literary criticisms, and books of travel. In his short fiction, his true genius shines through with an unassuming sort of brilliance. This fine collection is merely a "teaser," but a hefty one chosen by his son with loving care: three selections of autobiography, eight of travel writing, passages from two novels, 13 short stories, passages from biographies of Turgenev and Chekhov, and 21 literary criticisms of writers as diverse as Sir Walter Scott, S.J. Perelman and Salman Rushdie.

Pritchett's short stories deserve particular mention. Here, Oliver has chosen some of his own favorites as well as those of his father and mother; all 13 were first published between 1938 and 1989. They are wonderful. Like chocolate truffles, you must taste them to know how delectable they really are, so indulge yourself in a miniature gem like "The Liars," a tale of two people, aged and lonely and helping each other make it through the afternoon. And, "When My Girl Comes Home," cited as the author's favorite. There are 11 others to savor. Then, surely you'll agree with what was said of V.S. Pritchett: "No one living writes a better English sentence."

We know that "The Pritchett Century" was the 20th Century - his life spanned 1900 to 1997. Read Pritchett. Read his novels, his memoirs, his literary criticisms, his travel books, but above all read his short stories. Read other 20th Century masters of short fiction, like Isaac Bashevis Singer, Elizabeth Bowen. And read William Trevor who, into the 21st Century, keeps on creating exceptional stories that are graced with a similar sort of unassuming brilliance.

Hazel Motes, protagonist of "Wise Blood," is an accidental prophet. Though the novel precedes the much better "The Violent Bear It Away," it can be read as a sort of sequel to that novel - what might have happened to young Tarwater if we were allowed to see his adventures in the city.

Motes goes around the city in the evenings, preaching the Church Without Christ, a church in which the individual is free from the 'bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus' - freed from tradition, from dogma, from traditional notions of salvation. Motes preaches the coming of a new Jesus - a contemporary that modern (or post-modern) people can relate to.

In his quest, Motes is pursued by two individuals, Sabbath Hawks, the daughter of a blind false prophet, and Enoch Emery, a wannabe disciple. Emery wants very badly to find that new Jesus and receive a revelation from him.

Full of strange and compelling, if somewhat distant characters, including a small mummy and a gorilla suit, "Wise Blood" does not have the plot flow of "The Violent Bear It Away," and it is a little more haphazard, but it is a wonderful first glance into Flannery O'Connor's genius fictional mind, possessed with finding Christ in existentialism with or without Kierkegaard.

Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood contains many reoccuring and undermining religious themes. Her main theme includes the redemption of man by Christ. She also depicts the grotesques in society through her use of her subject matter. O'Connor bluntly uses this religious theme to prove that redemption is difficult for her characters because of the distorted sense of moral purpose in her characters. Throughout her novel, a major emphasis is placed on materialsim and money. Through her use of imagery, symbols, and details, O'Connor produces the unbalanced prosperity of the society, which leaves little assurance to blissfulness in life.

Her protagonist, Hazel Motes, becomes a fated preacher or even prophet; however, Hazel rejects any form of Christ in his life including the image of himself. Even though it is rejected, his fate dominates him throughout the novel, and via his rejection of Christ, Hazel preaches the Church without Christ. Hazel finds that his reason for existence is to form the Church without Christ. Eventually, Hazel sacrifices everything in his life so as to not accept Christ which eventually destroys him. It would have been much better to sacrifice everything he had to begin with in order to accept Christ and let Christ take over from there. This would have prevented Hazel's destruction rooted from his rejection of Christ. This proves O'Connor's purpose of showing a society full of people who cannot accept Christ and who are, at most times, destroyed in some way in their attempt to reject their religious side.

O'Connor mocks evangelism and the all too popular "preachers for profits," who have no training in religion what so ever, in order to display her scorn for popularized anti-cerebral religion. Hazel, whose name is actually Hebrew for "he who sees God," ironically but purposefully covers himself with a figurative veil. This veil covers his soul and his senses from seeing Christ as He should be seen. His nickname, Haze, also proves his inability to see clearly.

Throughout this novel, Hazel runs into several people who perform mysterious acts of goodness for him trying to help Hazel find Grace. This is also ironic condiering that most of Hazel's acquaintances are profiteer preachers. Some of these acquaintances include: Asa Hawks, an ex-evangelist, who pretends to blind himself for sympathy and profit as he "hawks" for money around the city; Enoch Emery, the boy with "wise blood," who cannot find his inner self and becomes Hazel's follower in the Church without Christ; and Hoover Shoats, another profiteer preacher, who pretends to agree with Hazel's beliefs just to gain profit from it.

Haze's car is a major sumbol of the novel. This car becomes Hazel's "church." Hazel lives in his car and preaches from his car. His car becomes the "rock" which Hazel builds his church upon. He and his car become "one." After his car is destroyed, Hazel sees himself as destroyed. Hazel is weaned out of his fantasy/rejection world and into reality. He eventually forces himself to Christ as he sees he is "not clean." He begins his stage of repentance by blinding himself, stuffing his shoes with glass and rocks, and wrapping barbed wire around his chest. Inevitably, his destruction came.

This book was very revealing and well-written. O'Connor selects certain audences with the books she wrote. This book contains a majority of religion. A person who perfers not to read about religion probably ought to but will not want to. The way O'Connor incorporated her hidden themes into her novel provided the reader several ways to interpret her implied religious beliefs.

What an insane book. It's really quite incredible. Flannery O'Connor found all the problems of society, injected them into absurdly weird yet decidedly realistic scenarios and made a book about it.

This book deals with obsession, self worth, and generally a whole bunch of people trying to escape themselves, or at least what they think defines themselves. And to boot, it can be terribly funny in a twisted way. Flannery O' Connor rocks.

It's about Hazel Motes and the various well defined characters that ram into his life, and he doesn't even notice them. There's the ... blind preacher's daughter, and the suburban washup teenager, and the blind preacher, who all play pivotal roles in Motes' existence, though again, he doesn't realize it. Hazel pretty much goes through the book living in his own world, even though he hates his head also. Motes, after all, is a strange character who is desperately seeking peace with himself, and as you'll see he never fails in punishing himself. He's obsessed with Christ and purity, yet he loathes Christianity and purity. So he creates the Church of Christ Without Christ, and as he tries to promote it, a series of terrifying and subtle events occur that will make you bugeyed with wonder and horror and disgust. He descends from what you would think is a good proper religious fanatic, to a degraded near maniacal individual, and that's what really captivates you, though O'Connor provides ample sideshows. And then, the end is as strange and satisfying as the rest of the book.

This is a strange crazy incredibly captivating and overwhelmingly intense book that only lasts a hundred or so pages, but after you'll probably run to Jane Austen. But then in their own funny ways, both Pride and Prejudice and Wise Blood are full of that irony that makes us think about what a bunch of hypocrites we can be to ourselves sometimes.

VS Pritchett has written a splendid two-volume autobiography, which covers his childhood through his initiation as a writer. It is beautifully written and hilariously funny in places.

His early life was rather chaotic, both as a Christian Scientist and because of the ups and downs of his father's business, which meant they were frequently poor and the the children farmed out to grandparents. What is remarkable is his rise, from voracious reader to first-rate literary talent. Blocked from admission to university because he was put on a "craft" track in the leather trade, he gave it up and went abroad, the next best thing to a degree. In Paris as a semi-bohemian, he started writing, which led to jobs and a career.

His descriptions are so marvelous that I have remembered some of them for over 20 years. While a child writing for public-library event, he said he wrote the words so that they would "burn into the table" (if memory serves!); the essay was so good that the teacher thought he was really a professional writer. Nothing spectacular, but a first-rate story of coming of age.

I recommend it for any aspiring writer who wants to feel that some order might emerge from his/her chaos of early hopes. ALso for the literarati, it is the emergence of an unusual mind.

"The Golovlyov Family" by Shchedrin is an excellent book. I've read both American and English literature, but this is a whole new literature form that seems to have the best of both worlds; it has the vivid descriptions of English literature, yet the simplicity of American works, that is, there's no nonesense dialog of meaninglessness that's often found in English novels. My first thought at reading the book was how could a translation be SO good, and how good would the Russian version be?

There is much emotion in the book, and the feelings permeate or pulse out of the book, absorbing and drawing in the reader like a good book should. Although set in the 1800's at the time the first Russian revolution ( I'm by no means a historian by the way), the book is not heavily focused on politics as works of Orwell are. The political affairs are a very distant and small prop on this rich stage of a book.

When reading the book, however, I strongly recommend the note taking of names, because some characters are referred to by more than one name. It's not hard to follow if you jot a few reminders down when introduced to each character, this will save much confusion later.

On a final note, if you're reading this book, read it purely for it's own sake. This isn't an adventure book with a climax and an unbelievable series of events at the end, so if that's what you're expecting, you'll regret reading the book. However, if you're after some brilliantly rich literature, with excellent characters, settings, and unfoldings of events, then this is a book I highly recommend. It truly is a masterpiece.

A very important novel of the 19th Century. How it is included in the best novels of the 20th Century by the New York Times is beyond me. The book was begun more than 30 years before 1900. Although completed in 1872, it lay unpublished for nearly 30 years; presumably until such time as some of its anti-Victorian ideals would be more palatable to the British public.

The story principally centers around the life of Ernest Pontifex, an impreesionable and naive young man who is reared by devout Anglican parents. Their well meaning cruelty shelter Ernest and cause him to make bad decisions and derail his ambitions. As a result of the consequences of these bad decisions, Ernest learns to manage his own life and becomes a success despite his early failures.

Although important in its time, the novel is brutally slow.

The Way of All Flesh covers six generations of strife in the Pontifex family, and spans a period from 1750 to 1880. However, the bulk of the story concerns the life of Ernest Pontifex, from about age 5 up to age 28, and describes his unsatisfactory relations with his parents, his school, his church, his wife, and his friends. Sometimes we feel sorry for Ernest, because many of his problems are caused by unbelievably cruel or thoughtless people, and sometimes we're furious with him, because he himself is the author of at least half of his troubles, but either way his misfortunes make him stronger and move him steadily along the path to maturity. Throughout, the book remains an easy read, although the writing is very witty and often rewards close examination.

Even today, 100 years after the book's publication, a reader finds many things to identify with. Anyone who felt unjustly treated by his or her parents or teachers will find much to sympathize with here. Anyone who has wrestled with the conflict between Reason and Faith will find much to think about here. Given how much change the last century has seen, it's surprising how many of the issues still seem fresh and relevant, and the book definitely makes you think about them. It is easy to see how many people have described reading The Way of All Flesh as a turning point in their lives.

A point worth keeping in mind: the characters are all described from Ernest's point of view. Several clues tell us that Ernest exaggerates the cruelty of various characters - some of whom seem evil beyond belief, and I think it's quite clear that, at these points, we're supposed to smile at Ernest - not shake our heads at the author. This is most obvious with Ernest's schoolmaster, Dr. Skinner, whom Ernest consistently sees as a pompous fool, but who we also know is very popular with the best students, and who shows other signs of being a much better man than Ernest believes him to be.

The footnotes in my edition (Penguin Classics 1986) are very skimpy, focusing on comparing elements from Ernest's fictional life to Samuel Butler's real one. The failure of the notes to translate passages in French or Latin, or to explain very contemporary references, is inexcusable. (E.g. but for the recent controversy over his Beatification, we'd have no clue that "Pio Nono" was Pope Pius IX.) Hoggart's introduction (1966) is decent but a bit dated, not having weathered as well as the book itself!

I read this book after reading all the reviews on Amazon not knowing what to expect: Incredibly boring or amazing insightful? I have read many books written in that same time period. I believe this to be the most mature work to come out of England in the late 19th Century(although it was published later). I enjoy Dickens, Hardy, and Eliot very much, but Butler makes their works look like grocery store fiction. I can see how many people might be bored if they were expecting a great story. While the story is excellent, it is more a book about ideas. Butler uses his hero to voice his commentary on Victorian ideals. Most of it is still very relevant today, though. I think it will be most relevant for people that have been exposed to the religious right wing who still hold many Victorian values. I enjoyed the characters and the story was compelling. There are many beautiful passages. It was very funny at times and somewhat sarcastic. The narrator reminded me of Hemmingway born 50 years earlier in England. What impressed me the most was Butler's modern style of writing. Much less wordy than Dickens. Dickens would have taken 800 pages to express the same thoughts. I also felt a real kindred to the main character Ernest. This is ultimately a coming of age book which most people will be able to relate to in one way or another (unless you haven't grown up yet). I would recommend it to all serious readers.