Review Four Star Review: "This tragic but sweetly enjoyable story is a rare treat." -- Foreword Reviews, January 2005 Product Description Tolstoy considered Asya, written in 1858, one of Turgenev's two best stories, along with First Love. Asya is a tragic story of two Russians abroad who are in love but conceal it from each other. Constance Garrett and Isabel Hapgood translated Asya in antiquated style approximately 100 years ago. Despite the story's superb character portrayals, it has rarely been available since. This translation is based on the Russian text published in 1961 in Moscow by the Government Publishing House of Artistic Literature. From the Publisher Foreword Reviews awards four stars for Asya. January 3, 2005 This tragic but sweetly enjoyable story is a rare treat that hasn't been available in an English translation for a hundred years. It is a Russian work only recently translated, and while the language at first feels a bit antiquated, as the reader delves into the story, they will find it suits the period. Asya hasn't been widely available outside its native tongue, and this particular translation was based on the text published in 1961, entitled Collected Writing, with Asya's story appearing in Volume Six. Even though American readers may not be familiar with him, author Ivan Turgenev was a giant in Russian literature in the mid-1800s. He was born in 1818 and was a frequent traveler to Western Europe. He never married and died in 1883 in France; this text was translated by Daniel Farb. The story begins with N.N., a young Russian man traveling abroad in search of exterior adventure and interior self knowledge. On his travels he meets a brother and sister who are also from Russia and their shared geography creates a quick bond. So begins a complex friendship between these three, though soon love blossoms when N.N. finds himself, almost against his will, falling in love with Asya. The title character is a doomed girl with a strange past who sees the world and everything in it through her own rose-colored, if slightly out-of-focus, lens. Asya subconsciously returns N.N. romantic feelings, though neither one of them is fully aware of their yearnings for the other. True to Russian literature tradition, tragedy befalls the pair. Two souls could have been brought together, but failed to share their mutual feelings, and so they end up lost to each other forever. Amidst the narrative there is a lesson here, and that is the power of the story and of Turgener's writing; throughout, there is an almost torturous and urgent quality that demands the reader subconsciously will each of the characters to share their feelings with the other. Even though it was written over two centuries ago, Asya speaks to the heart as sincerely as if it were published today. The story shares that there is no greater tragedy than what might have been. -Barbara Desmond