Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883)

For once I read the book before reading the introduction; an approach which has its merits. The analysis in the introduction seemed to be a little over the top at first but then after learning of the letters Turgenev exchanged with Dostoevsky, particularly concerning the former's construction of the character Bazarov, really drives home how truly great novels are so much more than the product of a vivid imagination. The beauty of reading such works is to open my eyes to a place and period show more that was simply neglected in my early education due to the Cold War. Yet Turgenev highlights many issues which remain relevant in modern society: nationalism East or West, revolutionary or evolutionary development, the perpetual quest for newness in youth, to the pointlessness of life when humanity's frailty is illuminated. It also reunited me with the importance of the simple things in life which are often overlooked in our individual quests for glory which probably never arrives: the scene involving Bazarov's grieving parents still haunts me, as does the thought that Arkady is now under-the-thumb in an ever-so-happy way. The great writers were great because of their ability to intellectualise so many issues without a hint of discontinuity - a trait Turgenev displays with relative ease despite his own personal agonising over his critics (both revolutionaries and aristocrats). Indeed, had we never known about Turgenev's agonising from his letters, the work does not belie any such lack of confidence. Yet had I read the introduction first I may well have formed an entirely different view. show less

This short novel packs quite a punch. Dimitry Sanin is a young Russian man travelling back from Italy to his homeland via Frankfort in Germany when by chance he saves a young man's life and falls for the man's beautiful sister Gemma Roselli. She is engaged to a German man Herr Klüber, but feels an increasing attraction between them. At a dinner, Gemma receives an unwelcome advance from another man von Dönhof, but it is Sanin who challenges his behaviour, not her own fiancé. Sanin and von show more Dönhof fight a duel at the latter's insistence, but agree there is no case to answer and shake hands. Gemma splits with her fiancé and the relationship develops with Sanin, who gets on very well with the whole family, in particular Emil, the prospective brother in law whose life he had saved.
Up to this point, the novel has felt quite light-hearted and enjoyable, but fairly inconsequential; I was questioning why this appears in lists of 1001 books you should read before you die. But then the novel takes a darker and more dramatic tone. Sanin by chance meets an old school friend Ippolit Polozov, who appears to be under the control of his wife Maria. Sanin negotiates with Maria for the Polozovs to buy his estate, so he can emigrate to be with Gemma. However, Sanin falls increasingly under the spell of Maria, who contrives to spend more and more time with him, and he starts to feel more emotionally distant from Gemma, against his better judgement. By the end he is almost a slave to her and her husband and has written to Gemma breaking off their impending marriage. The whole story takes place within a framework narrative in which Sanin is looking back in later life, having lost the woman he loves and also (how is not clear) broken free of Maria. The story might have ended there but Sanin tracks Gemma down to New York, where she has married and had children, he writes to her and they are reconciled as friends. This denouement perhaps reduces the punch of the novel a bit, but this is a powerful novel about love and obsession. show less

Fathers and Sons is among those novels that were quickly devoured, despite my initial concern I wouldn't be thrilled by a story in which one of the main characters is a Nihilist with an unpleasant attitude to match. But I was on the contrary pleasantly surprised to find this novel touch on a variety of other subjects I found quite engrossing indeed, so that even Bazarov, the unpleasant proponent of Nihilism in question, became, if not appealing exactly, quite essential to a masterful whole, show more as was evidently Turgenev’s intention all along.

Some of the topics broached here are the major socio-economic shifts going on in Russia during the mid-19th century, with landowners freeing their serfs and allowing them to become paid tenants, with the attendant class conflicts; the concept or what makes up a true Russian identity; the generation gap and how the old guard is always relegated to obsolescence by the young. Social conflicts seem to be at the heart of this novel, but these subjects became all the more interesting with the deft hand of Turgeniev, who presents these topics from the unique standpoints of young student Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, who brings his friend and Nihilistic hero Yevgeny Vasilyevich Bazarov on a visit to his family farm to meet his father and uncle.

Arkady Nikolaevich's father Nikolai Petrovich is excited to get together with his grown son again, looking forward to forging a close friendship with him based on intellectual equality, and thinks of himself as being 'with the times' for embracing modern socioeconomic concerns—having among other things recently emancipated his serfs and removed himself to a smaller house with few paid servants—and keeping up with all the latest authors, though at heart, he is a great lover of the Romantic Old Guard, Pushkin. His hopes are fairly dashed when Bazarov is introduced into the household with his uncouth, brusque manners and disdain for art, tradition, and sentimentality. Arkady has become Bazarov's disciple and parrots his older friend's ideas, though all the while he is made uneasy by Bazarov's repeated critical sallies and generally disrespectful attitude toward his beloved father and his uncle Pavel Petrovich, a gallant aristocrat very much attached to tradition and with keeping up appearances, which Arkady nevertheless sees as a tragic hero. Through this prism we see a whole nation shifting toward what laid the ground for the inevitable Russian Revolution and the Communist USSR, though again, Turgeniev, far from making his protagonists all black or white, lets them evolve throughout the novel and experience conflicting emotions and motivations.

Here, together with a large dose of philosophical doctrine, there is also love and romance and its deceptions, and even an unlikely duel which ends rather unexpectedly. In other words, it is a mix of intellectual ideas and romantic concerns and for this reason, still feels incredibly modern and shows us once again that human nature never really changes much.

A wonderful novel I look forward to reading again. show less

Rereading Turgenev is such a pleasure, keen observations. He published "Fathers and Children" just after the liberation of the serfs in Tsarist Russia, very much the same time as the emancipation of the slaves in the US. The story takes place just before Tsar Alexander II emancipates the Russian peasants but one can see the change coming in the generational shift from the autocratic aristocrats to the enlightened landowners. They are already anticipating the shift and experimenting with show more shared use of the land, so basically sharecropping. And it has problems, just like in the US. The younger generation is aware that there has been some phenomenal change. Arkady is optimistic and his parents are trying to go with the changes. Bazarov is cynical and nihilistic, his parents are well meaning but confused. Worst of all, Bazarov is unkind to his mother, for a Russian a grave sin. If serfs and slaves are no longer chattel what does that mean for women? The early translations distorted the Russian by making the title "Fathers and Sons," so patrilineal. The Russian is clearly "Fathers and Children"--women play a key role in the Russian. The emancipated women are not very appetizing, Kukshina is pretty disgusting. Anna is charming, but has no children. The only positive women are Fenechka, a peasant but so orderly and such a good mother, they at first think she must be German, and Katya, Anna's younger sister, who has combined the best of the old ways with the best of the new. Bazarov is revolutionary but sterile, he does not die in a duel, but succumbs to an infectious disease, and his ideas die with him. Arkady marries Katya and presumably establishes a real Russian family. Order prevails, nihilists fade away. Traditional women carry on the culture. A lovely prediction that did not come true. Instead, Turgenev did not realize, the Bazarovs would prevail. Alexander II was murdered by revolutionary anarchists, and his grandson Nicholas II saw him die and was terrified the rest of his life, distrusting the Russians he ruled. Turgenev was a keen observer and knew the destructive force of nihilism, but he overestimated the strength of the ruling system and overestimated its ability to reform with time from within. Life in Russia would have been much more rational if Turgenev's vision of reform from within had prevailed. But it is all so lovingly described, the countryside, the manners of the peasants and landowners, such a lovely portrait of a lost world on the brink.... show less