Specially timely, then, is the appearance, in an
English translation, of _The Fishermen_ (STANLEY PAUL), by DIMITRY
GREGOROVITSH. It is a wonderfully appealing story, which has been put
into English--presumably by Dr. ANGELO RAPPOPORT, though he is only
credited on the title-page with the authorship of the Preface--in such
a way that the spirit of the original is admirably preserved. I had
not read a couple of pages before the charm of the style laid hold
upon me. The story is quite simple, concerned only with a group
of peasants, fisher-folk, living on the banks of a great river.
GREGOROVITSH is like TOURGENIEV in his devotion to peasant and country
types, but otherwise more akin to our own younger school of realists
in the minuteness of his observation. Throughout the story abounds in
character-study of a kind that, while building up the figure with a
thousand details, will add suddenly some vivid touch that brings the
whole wonderfully and unforgettably to life. An example of this is
_Akim_, that perfect type of the hopeless incompetent, whose very
futility, while it rightly exasperates his fellows, makes him a
delight to the reader; so that his death, at the end of the first
part, comes with an effect of personal loss. For my own part, as poor
_Akim_ had never once before accomplished what he set out to do, I
was quite expectant of his recovery, and proportionately disappointed.
Throughout also there are pen-pictures of Russian scenery, full of
vivid colour; while the story itself, though inevitably in a somewhat
minor key, is never sordid or pessimistic.
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