Post by kungfuzu on Dec 15, 2023 18:43:05 GMT -8
As part of my general education on 19th Century Russian literature, I finished Ivan Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" a couple of weeks back.
The edition I read was the Kindle edition published by Grapevine Press, with translation by Ralph E. Matlew.
The book opens in the spring of 1859 with Nikolai Kirsanov, a gentleman in his early-to-mid forties standing outside a “posting house” i.e. coach station. He is a modest landholder having about 5,500 acres of land with 200 serfs. Kirsanov is the son of a major general who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars. Nikolai’s older brother, Peter, also became a soldier of some note. Nikolai would have become a soldier as well, but he broke his leg before he could be commissioned and became lame as a result of the accident. So instead of becoming a soldier, his father sent him to St. Petersburg for a university education.
Nikolai has been waiting for five hours when the tarantass/coach for which he has been waiting arrives. Out steps his son, Arkady, a new university graduate, whom Nikolai dearly loves. But in addition to Arkady, a certain Evgenii Vasiliev Bazarov alights from the coach. Bazarov is a medical student and somewhat older that Arkady. Arkady clearly looks up to the man.
During the brief period it takes to ready the carriages for the trip home, Bazarov makes it known that he is not an old-fashioned Russian, but a new man i.e. a nihilist. Arkady parrots the same line and this revelation leaves Nikolai somewhat uncomfortable and confused.
Much of the rest of the book consists of different episodes of Bazarov preening his superiority of mind wherever he goes. First, he and Arkady’s uncle Peter, are at loggerheads. Then he looks down his nose at Arkady’s cousin Matvei, a local bureaucrat. While in a nearby town, he also sneers at Sitnikov, a friend and former student as well as Kukshin, an “emancipated” woman who is married to some wealthy man who lives elsewhere. She soaks her husband and Sitnikov, Bazarov and Arkady soak her for champagne and a meal.
Through the good graces of Sitnikov and Kukshin, Bazarov and Arkady come in to contact with Mdm. Odintsov, a extremely wealthy young widow who stands out due to her demeanor and looks.
It happens that Bazarov and Arkady are invited to visit Mdm. Odintsov’s estate. They take up this invitation with alacrity. During their stay Bazarov’s iron self-control, his disdain for everything and everyone, begins to crumble before his fascination with Mdm. Odintsov. In a poignant encounter, he ruefully admits that he loves her. Unfortunately, Odintsov holds no such affection for him,. To my mind, she is interested in him the same way one would be interested in a talking monkey. Or the way someone would experiment with a new drug, but be disappointed with its effects.
Bazarov leaves Odintsov’s estate and goes to stay with his humble parents. His father, Vasili, is an ex-military doctor and his mother, Anna, a typical country housewife. Both worship the ground Bazarov walks on. His mother is extremely demonstrative in her affection, while his father tries to put on the face of a comrade or hearty friend. They have not seen Barzarov for three years, but he can give them only three days of his time before he cannot help himself and leaves. He makes up an excuse that he must honor an appointment which he had earlier made. He assures them he will return soon.
He visits Nikolai’s estate while Arkady is away, has a duel with Peter, tends Peter’s wound and then ends up again at Odintsov’s where Arkady has been staying. By this time Arkady has grown close to Odintsov’s sister Katya and wishes to marry her.
Bazarov and Odintsov are not reconciled and Bazarov says they will never again meet. During this visit he also tells Arkady that there is no need for them to see more of each other. It is time to move on.
Bazarov returns to his parents and stays there with his experiments and walks in nature. He also helps his father with patients.
One day his father is asked to help a patient with typhus. Unfortunately, the disease is at an advanced stage and there is nothing he can do for the man. Ever curious, Bazarov decides to perform some sort of autopsy on the body and cuts himself while doing so. There is no antiseptic nearby and it is a couple of hours before he returns to his father and asks him to tend the wound.
Both father and son know what will follow. Odintsov visits him toward the end. She sits in his room and when she leaves kisses him on the forehead. Bazarov dies the next day.
The world turns. Arkady marries Katya, Odintsov marries some government official, Peter moves to Dresden in order to make room for Arkady, Katya and Nikolai’s new family. Vasili, and his wife, are keepers of a small cemetery and take special care of one particular grave everyday.
I much preferred “Fathers and Sons” to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Kamarasov.” "Fathers and Sons" is not full of insane people and crooks as is the case with Dostoevsky’s work. It also avoids most of the completely useless, and sometimes unbelievable, aristocrats populating “War and Peace.”
That said, there is something happening in mid-nineteenth-century Russia that is not attractive. Nihilistic intellectuals such as Bazarov are appearing as religion loses its hold.
Luckily, the Bazarov’s of the world still have a long way to go before they gain power as Bolsheviks. In the end, Arkady returns to the traditional ways of his class as does Mdm. Odintsov. Nikolai raises a new family and Peter does what retired officers do.
Turganv goes into some detail as to the background of all the main characters. By doing so, he would appear to be not only analyzing human nature in general, but the Russian character in particular. His characters do not seem to be as bizarre as those of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but they still exhibit a distinct difference when compared with Western Europeans. Some of that difference may just be our viewing things from AD 2023 and not AD 1859.
If there is a villain in the book I would say it is Mdm. Odintsov. She plays with people, perhaps not even realizing that she is doing so. She is bored and looking for some type of emotional and intellectual stimulation. I am not sure she is capable of experiencing such stimulation even if it were presented to her on a silver platter.
Bazarov is clearly a victim. Some might say he was true to himself. But what does that mean? He is a man who must have a very low opinion of himself and life in general. He is adrift, bound to nothing. A true intellectual. That species does not appear to have changed much in the intervening 175 years.
But the most pitiable victims are Bazarov’s father and mother. They have lost their precious son and have nothing to look forward to on earth but death. Thankfully, they have each other, and their Orthodox religion, for comfort until that comes. One cannot but have great sympathy with such characters.
I can recommend the book for anyone who wishes to sample Russian literature of the nineteenth century, without having to immerse oneself in the full oddness of that time and place.
The edition I read was the Kindle edition published by Grapevine Press, with translation by Ralph E. Matlew.
The book opens in the spring of 1859 with Nikolai Kirsanov, a gentleman in his early-to-mid forties standing outside a “posting house” i.e. coach station. He is a modest landholder having about 5,500 acres of land with 200 serfs. Kirsanov is the son of a major general who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars. Nikolai’s older brother, Peter, also became a soldier of some note. Nikolai would have become a soldier as well, but he broke his leg before he could be commissioned and became lame as a result of the accident. So instead of becoming a soldier, his father sent him to St. Petersburg for a university education.
Nikolai has been waiting for five hours when the tarantass/coach for which he has been waiting arrives. Out steps his son, Arkady, a new university graduate, whom Nikolai dearly loves. But in addition to Arkady, a certain Evgenii Vasiliev Bazarov alights from the coach. Bazarov is a medical student and somewhat older that Arkady. Arkady clearly looks up to the man.
During the brief period it takes to ready the carriages for the trip home, Bazarov makes it known that he is not an old-fashioned Russian, but a new man i.e. a nihilist. Arkady parrots the same line and this revelation leaves Nikolai somewhat uncomfortable and confused.
Much of the rest of the book consists of different episodes of Bazarov preening his superiority of mind wherever he goes. First, he and Arkady’s uncle Peter, are at loggerheads. Then he looks down his nose at Arkady’s cousin Matvei, a local bureaucrat. While in a nearby town, he also sneers at Sitnikov, a friend and former student as well as Kukshin, an “emancipated” woman who is married to some wealthy man who lives elsewhere. She soaks her husband and Sitnikov, Bazarov and Arkady soak her for champagne and a meal.
Through the good graces of Sitnikov and Kukshin, Bazarov and Arkady come in to contact with Mdm. Odintsov, a extremely wealthy young widow who stands out due to her demeanor and looks.
It happens that Bazarov and Arkady are invited to visit Mdm. Odintsov’s estate. They take up this invitation with alacrity. During their stay Bazarov’s iron self-control, his disdain for everything and everyone, begins to crumble before his fascination with Mdm. Odintsov. In a poignant encounter, he ruefully admits that he loves her. Unfortunately, Odintsov holds no such affection for him,. To my mind, she is interested in him the same way one would be interested in a talking monkey. Or the way someone would experiment with a new drug, but be disappointed with its effects.
Bazarov leaves Odintsov’s estate and goes to stay with his humble parents. His father, Vasili, is an ex-military doctor and his mother, Anna, a typical country housewife. Both worship the ground Bazarov walks on. His mother is extremely demonstrative in her affection, while his father tries to put on the face of a comrade or hearty friend. They have not seen Barzarov for three years, but he can give them only three days of his time before he cannot help himself and leaves. He makes up an excuse that he must honor an appointment which he had earlier made. He assures them he will return soon.
He visits Nikolai’s estate while Arkady is away, has a duel with Peter, tends Peter’s wound and then ends up again at Odintsov’s where Arkady has been staying. By this time Arkady has grown close to Odintsov’s sister Katya and wishes to marry her.
Bazarov and Odintsov are not reconciled and Bazarov says they will never again meet. During this visit he also tells Arkady that there is no need for them to see more of each other. It is time to move on.
Bazarov returns to his parents and stays there with his experiments and walks in nature. He also helps his father with patients.
One day his father is asked to help a patient with typhus. Unfortunately, the disease is at an advanced stage and there is nothing he can do for the man. Ever curious, Bazarov decides to perform some sort of autopsy on the body and cuts himself while doing so. There is no antiseptic nearby and it is a couple of hours before he returns to his father and asks him to tend the wound.
Both father and son know what will follow. Odintsov visits him toward the end. She sits in his room and when she leaves kisses him on the forehead. Bazarov dies the next day.
The world turns. Arkady marries Katya, Odintsov marries some government official, Peter moves to Dresden in order to make room for Arkady, Katya and Nikolai’s new family. Vasili, and his wife, are keepers of a small cemetery and take special care of one particular grave everyday.
I much preferred “Fathers and Sons” to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Kamarasov.” "Fathers and Sons" is not full of insane people and crooks as is the case with Dostoevsky’s work. It also avoids most of the completely useless, and sometimes unbelievable, aristocrats populating “War and Peace.”
That said, there is something happening in mid-nineteenth-century Russia that is not attractive. Nihilistic intellectuals such as Bazarov are appearing as religion loses its hold.
Luckily, the Bazarov’s of the world still have a long way to go before they gain power as Bolsheviks. In the end, Arkady returns to the traditional ways of his class as does Mdm. Odintsov. Nikolai raises a new family and Peter does what retired officers do.
Turganv goes into some detail as to the background of all the main characters. By doing so, he would appear to be not only analyzing human nature in general, but the Russian character in particular. His characters do not seem to be as bizarre as those of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but they still exhibit a distinct difference when compared with Western Europeans. Some of that difference may just be our viewing things from AD 2023 and not AD 1859.
If there is a villain in the book I would say it is Mdm. Odintsov. She plays with people, perhaps not even realizing that she is doing so. She is bored and looking for some type of emotional and intellectual stimulation. I am not sure she is capable of experiencing such stimulation even if it were presented to her on a silver platter.
Bazarov is clearly a victim. Some might say he was true to himself. But what does that mean? He is a man who must have a very low opinion of himself and life in general. He is adrift, bound to nothing. A true intellectual. That species does not appear to have changed much in the intervening 175 years.
But the most pitiable victims are Bazarov’s father and mother. They have lost their precious son and have nothing to look forward to on earth but death. Thankfully, they have each other, and their Orthodox religion, for comfort until that comes. One cannot but have great sympathy with such characters.
I can recommend the book for anyone who wishes to sample Russian literature of the nineteenth century, without having to immerse oneself in the full oddness of that time and place.
