Asya by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Russian (1818-1883) Asya was the first novel by I.S. Turgenev that I read. It’s more of a long story than a novel; it has only 57 pages anyway. I.S. Turgenev lived and wrote in the same time as Tolstoy. Ok, on with the review. Asya is a love story, and a tragic one at that. The story is narrated by a character named N.N. so we don’t know his full name. Only that he was 25 years of age when this incident occurred in his life. He wanted to view the world and began to travel, and he did it without a fixed plan. It was in a German town of Z that this story takes place.
The town is on the left bank of the Rhine river. One day, he hears the strains of music being played and he asks a passer by about it. He is told that students from the town B. have come to hold their Kommers in the town of L, which lies on the other side of the river. He goes there and while there he meets two Russians, a young man named Gagin, and a young woman named Asya, who is introduced as Gagin’s sister. N.N. quickly becomes an acquaintance of the two, who live alone as their parents died. And through the many talks, and dinners together, N.N. falls in love with Asya, but he is utterly unable to express his feelings to her.
This forms a long part of the story until towards the end, Asya asks N.N. to meet her at her friend’s house. But before that, he visits Gagin and he is told that Asya has fallen in love with him and she had told Gagin all about it. Gagin asks him to consider and not marry her, as she is only 17, and is driven wildly by her moods. N.N. agrees, and goes to meet her. Asya expresses her love for him, but N.N. rebukes her saying that it was foolish of her to tell her brother everything, Asya is deeply hurt and runs away from the place. The next day, N.N. goes to Gagin and is told that Gagin has left with Asya. A letter is left to him in which Gagin says that he has thought the matter over and he thought that the instant separation of the two was necessary. N.N searches for the two, but in vain and the story ends on a sad note. (The story does not seem to be interesting, isn’t it?)
The main reason I wrote this review and I am recommending Asya to all lovers of Romance, and to all those who hate it, is because of the sheer skill and ingenuity with which Turgenev has portrayed human emotions in this story. We feel immersed in the story as long as we read; each word spoken by the characters touches the heart. There is not one word out of place, it’s like every character plays his or her role to sheer perfection. The sequence of events, the twists and turns, the workings of the heart, the conflicting of emotions, the experience of falling in love, it’s all just amazing. A movie couldn’t have portrayed human emotions in a better fashion. Turgenev’s writing takes us right through a journey of the human heart as we explore the complexities of it, the varying thoughts, emotions and feelings. Asya is a great reading experience, I highly recommend it.