The portrait game

This book is not very interesting as ‘normal reading’, but does provide a glimpse into the 19th century, and into the world of Ivan Turgenev and his circle. Imagine a time when there were no electronic diversions, where to pass the time people engaged in conversation and played parlor games, and in this case, created a parlor game. The “portrait game” started with Turgenev drawing a quick sketch of an imaginary person, and proceeded to each of his friends around the table speculating on the person’s personality, jotting their thoughts down one by one and folding the paper as they went so that no one would be tainted by another’s view. Turgenev would then read the comments aloud to the merriment of the group. The papers from show more games over many years with different players were preserved, and the book is basically filled with the individual sketches and analyses.

The story of Turgenev’s long-standing love for Pauline Viardot is well known; she was internationally known for her singing but married to a man twenty-one years older. Despite this Turgenev was a frequent visitor to the Viardot household, and lived with the family at intervals for many years. Turgenev and Pauline are at the center of the games in this book, and seeing their imaginative responses while wondering what it was like for him to be there, apparently as a friend only, is mildly interesting. I found the book skimmable only, however. show less