Around this love story Turgenev constructs a sharply satirical expose of his countrymen, which famously embroiled its author in a heated quarrel with Dostoevsky. A melancholy evocation of impossible romance, Smoke represents the apogee of Turgenev's later fiction.

Around this love story Turgenev constructs a sharply satirical expose of his countrymen, which famously embroiled its author in a heated quarrel with Dostoevsky. A melancholy evocation of impossible romance, Smoke represents the apogee of Turgenev's later fiction.