Fathers and Sons (FS) apparently pleased no one on in Russia on publication, and if not precisely ‘shocked’ the muchadumbre, then surely ruffled feathers and rubbed salt in fresh wounds: that, in any event, is the general promise in the blurb on the back cover of the book. Goody. I like a scandal better than the next person, for sure. So I tore into it with gusto.Alas, though. There is no scandal to be had here. I mean, not even remotely: not even a whiff of it. The big brouhaha seems to evolve around the character of Bazarov, a self proclaimed nihilist, who does naught else but pontificate grandly throughout: rejects everything on principle (or perhaps as a principle) (as being outmoded, unscientific and stupid), but has no new platform to offer. As he puts it, ‘first lets destroy everything, raze it to the ground, and we’ll worry about re-building later’. Having said that, there is no razing to be done here either: FS is really very peaceful: the plot line is singularly simple (in fact, if it were any simpler, there’d be NO plot line). Two rather lazy graduates, Arcady and Bazarov, travel from one paternal home to another, back and forth, stopping off on the way at Nicholshoe, the estate of two sisters (Katya and Anna Odinskaya, who become the love interests respectively) which conveniently lies exactly on the ‘flight path’, thus ensuring a straightline trajectory back and forth, the main point of which is not to bother the reader too much with the intricacies of plot. Just for the sake of completeness, although this is a character driven novel, there isn’t an overabundance of those either. Arcady and Bazarov are conveniently ‘only’ children (a rather contrived coincidence at a time when there were just no stoppers on procreation). This of course is a ploy to create an chamber ensemble where philosophical ideas can flow purely and purposefully without dilution from multiple voices. So, having set up this simple mis-en-scene, Turgenev sets on to the nitty gritty then.Bazarov isn’t going to shock anyone today. In fact, his raison d’etre is practically the building blocks of our modern ‘yoof’: rebels without a cause. Bazarov (who did have a cause) has, in fact, been reincarnated in that iconic trope of our times, the ‘Kevin’. This might very well be a Britishism, but everyone will know what I mean. But why was Bazarov so shocking back then? Clearly, I can’t let this go. I mean, Bazarov shocked a whole nation in 1861, what kind of apathetic reader can let this slide by without further investigation if they don’t know why? Deep internet trawls reveal a background of a humiliated intelligentsia on the back of the loss of the Crimean War, aware Russia has been left behind in the European technological, ideological and ‘business development’ stakes, and deeply split on how to fix this. The Slavophiles, whose Bakunin style popular concept of negation and denouncement of Alexander II reforms (including the emancipation of serfs in 1861) vs. The Westernisers, (Turgenev amongst them), who, although operating without a clear and consistent political doctrine, support all things western in their search for progression. The former view Bazarov as an insulting caricature of their cause, and the latter view him as a dirty rotten nihilistic scoundrel. Meanwhile, the West view him as the first proper literary nihilist and take to Turgenev like a house on fire.Bazarov of course is only a half baked nihilist. He throws over his ideology at the alter of Madame Odinskaya’s feet, asks his mother for superstitious style old world blessings and engages in a positively Romantic style duel with Arkady’s uncle. Academics are having a field day, as we speak, at tracing the Byronic influences on his character.The Slovophile vs. Westerniser match off is fascinating. This isn’t merely a semantic stand-off, a few after dinner soundbites being bandied about over brandy and a cigar. Now that I know about it, I can spot the elephant in the room practically in every chapter. At one point, Arkady and Bazarov praise Anna for her excellent use of Russian. This is a passing sentence, and its easy to just gloss over it, but ..really....exactly what language, I wonder, should Anna Odinskaya, a Russian aristocrat, born, raised and living in Russia, be speaking, if not Russian? Well, apparently, French. Knock me over with a feather, but those Russian aristocrats, from Catherine the Great’s time (circa 1799) to late nineteenth century got so big for their britches they started parleying in French from cradle to grave and couldn’t even speak their own language!! Of all, I say, all the high falutin’, sycophantic, preposterous things you could do, if this just doesn’t take the cake. (Well, I know the English did it too, but a full 1000 years earlier. After William of Normandy conquered and unified England in 1066, the court spoke French for the next 300 years. But, thats because the Normans were French to begin with!). My point is, in a situation like this, a Slavophile vs Westerniser disagreement might just take on slightly larger proportions than just a semantic joust. One thing neither side disagreed on was the need to free the serfs. (Which partially happened in 1861). Russian serfs, from what I can gather, were little better off than slaves. They were, in fact slaves. Tied to the estate, forbidden to marry outside the estate, or move out of the estate, propelled into wars by their ‘masters’, toiling, unpaid, all day long.....yup, definitely slaves. This agreement to free the serfs, though should not be taken as a carte blanche acknowledgement of an intrinsic serf worth: on the contrary, both sides are united in a blanket wave of derision and general despising of the peasants. FS is littered with condescending and derogatory remarks about the serfs, who are invariably being flogged for being fools, drunkards and thieves. Having said that, they are also an integral part of country living, in the way Mamie rules the roost at Tara in Gone with the Wind.Midway through the novel Turgenev does a very naughty love quadrangle turn and twist worthy of a Shakesperean aficionado. Everybody falls in love with everyone else before they shakily settle into the ultimate equilibrium. The Bazarov/Anna Odinskaya link is easily recognisable although none the less sad for it: two cynics who are too jaded for each other.So then, thats for background. How does Turgenev do, with all of this? I got to shout it loud and clear from the mountaintop now: he delivers! I bawled like a baby twice in this reading, and thats saying something: I can’t remember the last time I had a teary eye. It was Bazarov ‘wot done it both times: first when he left his parents after only a three day soujourn, and in the end.....(you know what I mean). So this novel was shocking, in the end: I was shocked at how easily it moved me. I even had a moment of self doubt: was I going soft in the head? Well, much to my relief, I gather Turgenev elicits similar responses from many a reader, and in particular his contemporaries. Apparently Flaubert was astounded by him, George Sand looked up to him, James was influenced by him and only, apparently Meredith matches his pathos in terms of the ‘dying scene’ in terms of contemporaries. I haven’t read any Meredith whatsoever. Its looking like Egoist and the Ordeal of Richard Feverel might be next.
"Half an hour later Nikolay Petrovich went into the garden, to his favourite arbour. His thoughts were gloomy. For the first time he recognized how far he and his son had grown apart. He foresaw that with every day the distance between them would become greater and greater. So there had been no point in his having spent whole days during those winters in St Petersburg poring over the most recent publications; no point in his listening carefully to the conversations of the young; no point in his pleasure at getting a word in during their heated discussions. 'My brother says we are right,' he thought, 'and setting all vanity aside, I do myself think they are further from the truth than we are, but at the same time I feel they have something which we don't, some advantage over us ... Youth? No, not just youth. Doesn't their advantage lie in their being less marked by class than we are?'Nikolay Petrovich sunk his head and rubbed his face with his hand.'But to reject poetry?' he thought again. 'Not to have a feeling for art, for nature ...?'And he looked around him as if trying to understand how it was possible not to have a feeling for nature. Evening was now coming on. The sun had gone behind a small aspen wood which lay a quarter of a mile from his garden and cast its seemingly unending shadow over the motionless fields. A peasant was trotting on his white horse down a narrow, dark track which ran by the wood; although he was riding in shade, his whole figure was clearly visible down to a patch on his shoulder; his horse's legs moved with a brisk regularity that was pleasing to the eye. For their part the sun's rays went into the wood and, penetrating the undergrowth, bathed the trunks of the aspens in such a warm light that they looked like the trunks of fir trees; their foliage went almost dark blue while above them rose the azure sky tinged pink by the sunset. Swallows were flying high; the wind had dropped; lingering bees lazily, sleepily buzzed on the lilac blooms; a column of moths danced above a single protruding branch. 'My God, how beautiful it is!' thought Nikolay Petrovich, and some favourite lines of poetry were about to spring to his lips when he remembered Arkady and Stoff und Kraft and fell silent. He continued to sit there and continued to indulge in the pleasurable, melancholy sport of solitary reverie. He liked to dream - living in the country had developed that propensity in him. It was not so long ago that he was dreaming like this while waiting for his son at the inn, but since then a change had happened, relationships that weren't quite clear had now been defined ... so very clearly!"
What do You think about Fathers And Sons (2005)?
This is a novel that should probably be read by everybody (fathers, sons, mothers, daughters) at 18 years and again at 50 years. I'm somewhere in between, but it still enchanted me. 'Fathers and Sons' themes are universal, but also very relevant to Russia in the 1860s (post Emancipation Reform of 1861). IT is about the struggles between generations. It is is a novel about beauty, love, relationships, power, social etiquitte, etc. The duality of the generations in 'Fathers and Sons' allowed Turgenev to explore the thesis/antithesis of the human condition. Turgenev shows us the gulf separating the polar shores of humanity, but also the expansive beauty of the seas in between.___________________- Robert Farwell / Edward Jones library / Mesa, AZ 2014
—Darwin8u
I REALLLLLY, really, really, really liked this. I fell in love with Yevgeny Vasil'evich Bazarov – yeah, the nihilist. I am not one to favor nihilism; it is the wrong philosophy to have in life. But you know how it is - the way you love your children. You love them regardless of their silly ideas, regardless of what they do, regardless of the mean things they may say to you. You still love them with all your heart. You would do anything to save them. Well, I fell in love with Yevgeny in that way. If an author can make me fall in love with one of the characters to that extent, his writing is doing something right. This book is about parent/ child relationships. It is about 20-30 year-olds and how they have all the answers to weighty questions. Yes, the setting is very different from today, but parents still feel as parents did back in the 1860s, even in Russia back when the serfs had recently been emancipated. Yup, way back then. And still 20-30 year-olds still believe they have all the answers.The narration by Anthony Heald was fine. There is a similarity between Dostoyevsky's and Turgenev's ability to create on paper real live people. Good book. Very, very good book! It does take a while to really get to know the people, but if you are anything like me you will care for them at the end.
—Chrissie
تقوم هذه الرواية على المقارنة في الظاهر على عالمين فالمدن فيما تمثله من حضارة وتقدم يركز الكاتب على شخصيتين وما يمثلانه من مبدا الرفض عموما وهما بازاروف واركادي والارياف وما تمثله من خرافات واساطير ومختلف المشاعر الانسانية مع التركيز على العادات الارستقراطية وتمثلاه بقية الشخصيات صراع بين ماهو علمي وما هو اخلاق ومشاعر مبدا الرفض عند الابناء يقوم على العدمية فلا افكار بديلة لما هو سائد في مقابله الاباء يعتبرون كل هذا لموروث بحسنه و سيئه ميزة الهوية الروسية عموما فالكاتب عموما يسخر من الاثنين فالابناء يمثلون كل ما هو مادي في مقابلهم الاباء يتمسكون بهذه العادات البالية فالكاتب يوضح انه لابد من مزواجة بين المادي و المعنوي فالحب حينما دق باب الابناء غير حياتهم واحينما اعتمد على العلوم تغيرت حياة الاباء نحوالافضل تذكرني هذه الرواية برواية مونتسكو الاديب الفرنسي رسائل فارسية في اسلوب النقدي لمجتمع الفرنسي
—Anis Sniha
