SOURCE: Jackson, Robert Louis.¹ “Turgenev's ‘Knock … Knock … Knock! …’: The Riddle of the Story.” Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A. 28, no. 3 (1996-1997): 353-76.

In the following essay, Jackson rejects the unfavorable critical reviews of “Knock … Knock … Knock! …,” calling Turgenev's story one of the strongest in Russian literature.

We regard each other quite indifferently, that is, when we are in a good mood … We do not know how to love or respect one another, we have not developed within us an attentiveness to human beings. Long ago it was said about us, and quite correctly: “We are shamefully indifferent to good and evil.”

—Maxim Gorky

As we know, even such an appreciative critic of Turgenev's writings as Pavel Vasil'evich Annenkov placed the Russian writer's “Knock … Knock … Knock! … A Study” (“Smuк … Smuк … Smuк! … Smuduy,” 1871) among his “weak pieces.”² On the contrary, “Knock … Knock … Knock! …” belongs...