Name: Oblomov
Rating: 4.057692307692307 (26 reviews)
ISBN: 9788804675853

Ivan Gonciarov

Oblomov

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov

roman in fir ṭeylen

Oblomoṿ

If you love dreadful reading this is for you.

geeked

Karpe Diez

Too bad the English translation doesn't reflect its stylistic beauty in its totality. I was fortunate enough to read about a 3rd of it in original but that was 25 years ago... and I no longer possess my skills in Russian.<br /><br />Oblomov found his own way to evading matter but not by spiritual ascension, but by letting his body completely decline into apathy. He avoids limitations of his daily life by immersion into imagination. It is almost like a voluntary submission to a "Matrix" type of existence but, in this case, due to a compulsive flight from action and decision-making.<br /><br />But why is this happening to Oblomov, one has to ask? Is it because seeking variety, cultivating relationships, and even maintaining structure takes up so much effort, of a physical and, equally discouraging to Oblomov, psychological nature? Or is it because the character is annoyed by societal constraints and ritualistic details to the point of getting fed up? Probably a bit of both. Oblomov's organic inaction is so overwhelming that the one chance to happiness, or risk of bankruptcy, or exclusion from his peers' circle - none can counteract it. 

Cams Campbell

Oblomov essay

What is Oblomovism and can it be cured?

74/80

An excellent piece of work. Stylishly written. Concisely and succinctly answered.

Antonio Marini

Ibragimova Renata

Ivan Goncharov

AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY HARDCOVER CLASSIC. Ivan Goncharov’s 1859 masterpiece—a magnificent farce about a gentleman who spends the better part of his life in bed—brilliantly employs humor to explore the absurdities and injustices of an outmoded social order. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a good-hearted nobleman whose majestic slothfulness renders him incapable of making decisions or taking the simplest of actions. Raised in idyllic comfort on his family’s country estate, he has become so lazy as an adult that he lets his affairs deteriorate and allows unscrupulous people to take advantage of his weakness and good nature. Living in a shabby apartment and tended by his indolent serf, Zahar, he relies on the efforts of his increasingly exasperated friend Stolz to protect him from himself. Falling in love briefly rouses Oblomov to exert himself in courting Olga, a young woman Stoltz introduces him to, but his astonishing lethargy eventually defeats even their romance. Wildly successful upon its publication, Oblomov was taken as a slyly subversive indictment of the uselessness and corruption of the nobility, but the character of Goncharov’s superfluous man is rendered in such vivid detail and epic richness that it transcends satire and achieves iconic status, earning a place among the masterworks of Russian literature. Translated by Natalie Duddington (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed).

Oblomov

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