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Character portraits in this story are the core of what makes it an interesting read, especially the women and how the people around them react to and interact with them. Liza, a pretty 19 yo, deeply Christian and sincerely pious; Glafira, unmarried, stern, hardworking, and unappreciated by her family (as daughter, sister and aunt over two generations) though her devotion makes their life of privilege possible; Varvara, a beautiful sensualist who owns her pleasures and defies convention; Marya, a social matron easily swayed by suave talkers and good dressers; Marfa, older and thoughtful, wisest of the bunch; Malanya, a pretty maid elevated to wife though relegated forever to the servants' quarters when her upper class husband grows bored with her, dying with a broken heart but no argument when she is separated from her son; and lastly, Agafya, a peasant born and married, raised to a household lady for her grace and beauty, ping ponging between the two stations at her master� whims, then choosing in the end her own destination, a religious pilgrimage from which she doesn't return.

The men? Most all are ineffective egoists, dilettantes, lightly criminal, following their own desires and expecting the privilege of having society and the world give it to them. One exception is the musician Lemm, heartbroken that his talent and hard work and sacrifices for his music come to naught.

I haven't read Turgenev in many years, and never read into his oeuvre as deeply as I did his compatriots T & D. Does the story speak to us today? Some connections to the present can be made, the difference between true Christian faith and outward piety that fauns on the upper crust and shuns the poor or lowly; beauty and youth taking precedence over age and devotion to duty; the differences between the genders in the social construct. So yes, there remain reasons to read him, and this book gives stuff to consider still, but it didn't wow me.