Thursday, January 1, 2015

Not unlike Arkady: reading Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons"

Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev (Oxford World's Classics), translated by Richard Freeborn

Unfortunately, it's been a few weeks since I finished this great and moving novel. But the characters are still alive in my head. Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, the insecure young graduate (of course, most graduates are insecure) and his doting father, Nikolai Petrovich. Nikolai's aristocratic, pretentious brother, Pavel. The most alive, of course, is Evgeny Vasiliev Bazarov, the rebellious nihilist who says he wants to sweep away all the old junk of Russian life and and replace it with...what exactly? He says at one point that it's not for him to say what should replace it all. But it's all got to go!

Bazarov is chrismatic and brilliant (he's a doctor, and we're led to believe he's an excellent up-to-date doctor), and Arkady is under his spell. I was struck by the modernity of his character. He's not somebody you find in Tolstoy's novels. Little warmth. Little compassion. Unimpressed by emotion. His own objectives and projects are what count. He won't allow even his parents (who desperately want their brilliant only son near them) to interfere, and he treats them as if they were frustrating impediments. I'm glad that Arkady eventually summons the courage to put some distance between himself and  Basarov, but sad about Basarov's tragic end. Strange, how much I came to like him. Not unlike Arkady.