The edge of the nest : the solitude of Ivan Turgenev

The Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev lived in turbulent times. This fictional biography, solidly founded on historical and literary research, explores his life and work – from his childhood, dominated by his tyrannical mother, to his last years, in the tender care of Pauline Viardot, the Franco-Spanish diva who was the love of his life. Author Christopher Cruise offers insights into other affairs and flirtations, together with his ambivalent relationship with his illegitimate daughter Paulinette, the result of a half-hour liaison with a servant girl. The reader is transported to many parts of Europe, from the revolutionary streets of St Petersburg to the cultural salons of Paris. The intense generational clash of his era inspired his best-known work, Fathers and Children, while his mother's cruelty ignited in him a lifelong horror of violence and injustice which found expression in A Sportsman's Sketches, a book that contributed to Czar Alexander II's decision to emancipate the serfs. The influence of the radical critic Belinsky transformed Turgenev from a 'superfluous man' on the fringes of society, to a probing writer and thinker. His relationships with some of his fellow Russian writers – Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Herzen and Bakunin – were often stormy, but in France he was admired and esteemed by many members of the French literary and musical worlds, including Flaubert, George Sand and Zola. Considered by his peers as a traitor to his class and by the radical left as a woolly liberal, by the end of his life he had won the respect – and even love – of the majority of young Russians seeking a democratic future for their tormented country.

Take As Directed gives Canadians a much-needed guidebook to safely navigate our encounters with health-care providers and optimize the management of our own health. In recent years, evidence indicating that our health-care system can be made safer has emerged. Here, a family physician and a pharmacy professor discuss the role each of us can play in achieving the best and safest possible health outcome for ourselves and our families. In clear and engaging language, Take As Directed walks the reader through the call to the family doctor's receptionist, the examination room encounter, the pharmacy counter, a visit to the emergency department, and a stay on the hospital ward, and outlines common pitfalls in these encounters. Health-care consumers will learn how to provide critical information to their caregivers and know what information they must obtain from them. Since many adverse health outcomes are related to the use of medications, readers will learn how to safely and effectively use their prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs.

Take As Directed is the first and definitive source book to:

• offer down-to-earth advice on how Canadians can obtain good health care, even in a "sick" system.
• outline communication styles of health-care providers and offer tried-and-true tips and tricks on dealing with various "bedside manners."
• offer guidance on optimizing the use of medications at home and reducing the chances of experiencing an adverse drug event, one of the commonest reasons for visits to Canadian emergency departments.
• identify trustworthy sources of health and medication information on the web.

All health-care consumers will benefit from the sage voices of the authors, two of Canada's most respected health-care professionals.

Fictionalized biography is a dangerous genre: history purists chafe at anything that cannot be one hundred percent verified, while novel addicts perhaps lose patience with information that doesn’t immediately carry the story forward or reveal new aspects of the characters. In an effort, if not to please, at least to mollify both parties, I can claim not to have tampered with the essential facts of Turgenev’s life (e.g. where and with whom he was at any given time) but my interpretation of these facts has been coloured according to the dictates of my imagination.I have tried always to bear in mind some lines Umberto Eco wrote on the subject of fictionalized biography: ‘In order to give us a vivid image of a character, the author reconstructs dialogue that may not have taken place exactly as he described; we may accept this but we demand that the writer’s reconstruction be based on documents which, if they do not confirm those conversations, at least do not render them implausible.’ This fictional biography, solidly founded on historical and literary research, explores the life and work of Ivan Turgenev - from his childhood, dominated by his tyrannical mother, to his last years, in the tender care of Pauline Viardot, the Franco-Spanish diva who was the love of his life.