Three Sketches from a Hunter's Album

Three stories taken from [b:Sketches from a Hunter's Album 28458 Sketches from a Hunter's Album Ivan Turgenev http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390257863s/28458.jpg 535003], published is a Penguin 60s Classic. The original consists of 25 stories.These three short stories strike me as very Russian in their writing. I don't really even know how to expand on that, but they are not stories about hunting. They are stories about events that occur when the main character is returning from, should be, or has been rained off his hunting.1 - Loner - a stormy night, and returning from a hunt the unnamed main character meets a forester, who takes him to his run down house to shelter. The following day the forester detects a peasant cutting a tree in a nearby valley. Instead of holding up the forester who is returning our character to the road, they travel instead to intercept the peasant. The short story covers how the interaction ends. 3/52- Meeting - having nodded off to sleep in the forest, an unnamed hunter wakes to see a young woman nearby, apparently waiting for someone to turn up. After a time, a man turns up (“To all appearances he was the pampered valet of some rich young master. His clothes displayed pretensions to good taste and dandified casualness...”. Obviously the dislike was instant! The story is a voyeuristic telling of their conversation. 2/53- Living Relic - rained off a hunt, Pyotr Petrovich and his companion leave the forest and repair to the companions farm to shelter the weather. The following morning while wandering the grounds, Pyotr comes across a withered and lame form - who recognises him and calls to him by name. Astounded he finds that the woman was once a dancer known to himself and his mother. The story unfolds as Lukeria explains how she came to be in her state, and situation. 4/5.The writing is very descriptive - a little over descriptive at times, especially for a short story where we spend a page on the light coming through the leaves of a tree, but nevertheless lovely writing.Published 1835, I guess the translation must have carried out some updating, as for me it didn't read as dated or archaic.Across the three stories, this evens out to a 3 star book.