Review: Padgett Powell on Ivan Turgenev

This is about Turgenev, specifically a new translation of what was once called Fathers and Sons, now called, apropos of the times, Fathers and Children, but we will have to suffer through some germane ungermane before we get to him, Turgenev. In the tenth grade in the marvelous backwater of Jacksonville, Florida, I was enjoying one of the putatively ironic perks of being in an academic backwater: I was a sophomore taking Latin, third-year Latin, reading Virgil, in a small class of five students, three of whom were seniors and one a junior fellow who was an even odder duck than I. Two of the seniors were girls, one of whom, a redhead, had her eye on me but was, I presumed, thinking it unseemly to advance. Her business is not even ungermanely ungermane. The third senior was Bert King, who was the Star Student of the State of Florida, which was a thing then and for all I know is still a thing. I am using Bert’s real name because I am looking for him and cannot find him. More than the amber lucidity of the Virgil, more than the possibly imaginary lascivity of the redhead without the courage to pull a trigger, what caught my eye in this venture was Bert King, Star Student of the State of Florida.