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

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov

When Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of Russia's aristocracy, lacks the willpower and self-confidence to participate in the real world, he risks losing the love of his life.

Jesse Morley

Oblomov's lethargy contributed to a lack of momentum / purpose that made getting through the first 150 pages a slog. I have the industrious German-Russian Stolz to thank for rousing him from his aristocratic stupor. “Now or never!”

For a good portion of the novel the reader is drawn uneasily into Oblomov’s disillusioned vision of recreating the childhood bliss of Oblomovka, and indeed it seems that Stolz's ties to this idyllic childhood may have been the only thing granting him such a power over Oblomov.

Oblomov’s failure to transcend into a more modern or adult vision of the future, as nurtured by Olga (by kind of proxy for Stolz), and the passive way it which he handles it, should not come as a shock—particularly as he himself suggested that it was the only way. Yet somehow it still manages to evoke a frustration that carries through until the final cathartic epilogue-like chapters of the novel.

I found the themes of squandered privilege relatable, and was interested in Oblomov’s role in the greater social criticism of the twilight of the Russian aristocratic class of land-owners, serfdom, etc. It echoes the ‘end of an era’ feeling of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, in its reflection on the shift in priorities and education of the new generation, who no longer consider Pushkin one of Russia’s finest authors.


  What did he read about literature?’ asked Oblomov.
‘Well, he read that the best authors were Dmitriyev, Karam-zin, Batyushkov, and Zhukovsky.’
‘What about Pushkin?’
‘Never mentioned him. I, too, wondered why he wasn’t mentioned. Why, he was a genius!’ said Alexeyev, pronouncing the g in genius hard.

Stolz seems to represent a modernity that the Russians are not yet ready for. They criticise his German efficiency as “stingy or crafty”, seeing, as Oblomov does, hard work as beneath them. This view is even shared by, to an extent, the lower class. The less one works, the more cultured one is.

We see this new direction demonstrated in the late interaction with Zakhar, who complains that the removing one’s master’s boots is no longer a necessary duty—gentry are quite happy to do it for themselves. I find it interesting, then, that this modern sensibility does not carry over to class barriers. In spite of everything else, it is only Oblomov’s ties to the servant-class Agafia Pshenitsina that convince Stolz that the cause is a lost one. It seems a dark mark on an otherwise illuminating character, and not one that is given any expatiation.

The deceit of Taranteyev and Ivan Matveyevich (drove the narrative forward) and had an almost Twain-like feel. The book grew in my estimation as a progressed and I found the conclusion quite touching. 

★★★★


SELECTED QUOTES

"Dust-covered cobwebs were festooned round the pictures on the walls; instead of reflecting the objects in the room, the mirrors were more like tablets which might be used for writing memoranda on in the dust."

"He understood that acquisition was not a sin, but that it was the duty of every citizen to help to raise the general welfare by honest labour. That was why the greatest part of the pattern of life which he drew in his seclusion was devoted to a fresh plan for re-organization of the estate and dealing with the peasants in accordance with the needs of the times. The fundamental idea of the plan, its arrangement and its main parts had long been ready in his head; only the details, the estimates and the figures remained. He worked untiringly on the plan for several years, thinking it over continually as he was pacing his room or lying down or visiting friends; he kept adding to it or changing various items, recalling what he had thought of the day before and forgotten during the night; and sometimes a new, unexpected idea would flash like lightning through his mind and set it simmering – and the work would start all over again. He was not some petty executor of somebody else’s ready-made notions; he had himself created his own ideas and he was going to carry them out."

"After talking to her at one of their meetings, he would continue the conversation at home, so that when Zakhar happened to come in he said to him in the very soft and tender voice in which he had been mentally addressing Olga: ‘You’ve again forgotten to polish my boots, you bald-headed devil! Take care, or you’ll catch it good and proper one day!"

"Listen, Ilya, I tell you seriously, you must change your way of life if you don’t want to get dropsy or have a stroke. You can have no more hopes for a better future: if an angel like Olga could not carry you on her wings out of the bog in which you are stuck, I can do nothing. But to choose a small field of activity, put your small estate in order, settle the affairs of your peasants, build, plant – all this you can and must do…. I won’t leave you alone. Now it is not only your wishes I am carrying out, but also Olga’s will: she is anxious – do you hear? – that you should not die altogether, that you should not bury yourself alive, and I promised her to dig you out of your grave."

"Cunning was short-sighted: it saw well only what was happening under its nose, but not at a distance, and that was why it was often caught in the trap it had set for others."

"Oblomov listened, looking at him with anxious eyes. His friend seemed to have held out a mirror to him, and he was frightened when he recognized himself."

"How do you like that?’ Stolz interrupted. ‘He seems offended! I recommend him to you as a decent chap and he hastens to disillusion you.’"

"Why did she look so intently at me yesterday?’ Oblomov thought. ‘Andrey swears that he never mentioned my socks and shirt to her, but spoke of his friendship for me, of how we had grown up and gone to school together – about all the good things we had experienced together, and he also told her how unhappy I was, how everything that is fine in me perishes for lack of sympathy and activity, how feebly life flickers in me and how – – But what was there to smile at?’ Oblomov continued to muse. ‘If she had a heart it ought to have throbbed or bled with pity, but instead – oh well, what does it matter what she did! I’d better stop thinking about her! I’ll go and dine there to-day – and then I shall never cross the threshold of her house!"

"And whatever made me think that she loves me? She did not say so: it is just the satanic whispering of my vanity!"

"Cunning was like a small coin with which one could not buy a great deal. Just as a small coin could keep one going for an hour or two, so cunning might help to conceal or distort something or to deceive someone, but it was not sufficient to enable one to scan a far horizon or to survey a big event from beginning to end."

"Society! I suppose, Andrey, you are sending me into society on purpose so as to discourage me from going there. Life! A fine life! What is one to look for there? Intellectual interests? True feeling? Just see whether you can find the centre round which all this revolves; there is no such centre, there is nothing deep, nothing vital. All these society people are dead, they are all asleep, they are worse than I! What is their aim in life? They do not lie about, they scurry to and fro every day like flies, but to what purpose? You come into a drawing-room and you cannot help admiring the symmetrical way in which the visitors are seated – at the card tables! It is indeed an excellent purpose in life! A wonderful example for a mind looking for something exciting. Aren’t they all dead men? Aren’t they asleep all their life sitting there like that? Why am I more to blame because I lie about at home and do not infect the minds of others with my talk of aces and knaves?’
 ‘This is all old stuff,’ Stolz remarked. ‘It’s been said a thousand times before. You’ve nothing newer, have you?’"

"‘Oh dear,’ she thought, ‘if only I could be his sister! What happiness it would be to possess a permanent claim on a man like that, not only on his mind, but also on his heart, to enjoy his presence openly and legitimately, without having to pay for it by heavy sacrifices, disappointments, and confessions of one’s miserable past."
VOCAB

somnolent/somnambulism
panegyrics
sybarite
minatory
verdure
privations

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.

Oblomov

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