Set in Baden-Baden, Smoke is Ivan Turgenev\'s most cosmopolitan novels.
A melancholy evocation of impossible romance, Smoke represents the apogee of Turgenev\'s later fiction..
Around this love story Turgenev constructs a sharply satirical expos of his countrymen, which famously embroiled its author in a heated quarrel with Dostoevsky.
However, a chance encounter with his old flame, the manipulative Irina-now married to a general and a prominent figure in aristocratic expatriate circles-unearths feelings buried deep inside the young man\'s heart, derailing his plans for the future and throwing his life into turmoil.
On his way back to Russia after some years spent in the West, Grigory Mikhailovich Litvinov, the son of a retired official of merchant stock, stops over in Baden-Baden to meet his fianc e Tatyana.
Smoke, with its European setting, barbed wit, and visionary call for Russia to look west, became the center of a famous philosophical breach between Turgenev and Dostoevsky.
It is an exquisite study of politics and society and an enduringly poignant love story.
Set in Baden-Baden, Smoke is Ivan Turgenev\'s most cosmopolitan novels
