I fairly romped through it - with only the occasional help of the lovely Wordsworth Classic footnotes - and enjoyed it very much. I am just about to go and do my post-novel-research now - which is when I wander about the internet reading about the author; the setting of the book, its cultural/historical significance and so on - but just before I do, I thought it would be interesting to record a few initial first impressions, that main one being that opinionated young people THROUGHOUT TIME are always a right royal pain in the arse. Young Bazarov, our budding Nihilist, could be any young irritating punk/hippy/scruffy politicised student from any period in history at all.
He's a man fresh out of uni; a man out of time; he's got some big ideas, long hair and he thinks everything is pointless. Absolutely everything - apart from the few things he likes doing: dissecting frogs, being a bit chippy, arguing the toss. Although, to be fair, he's no champagne nihilist (they drink quite a lot of champagne in the book), he sticks to his revolutionary guns even when the smoothly aristocratic Uncle Paul is pointing a real gun at him, in their remarkably civilised duel. *
The structure of the book is play-like - made up of three acts that see Bazarov and his friend Arkady spending time with Arkady's parents, then an interlude with the alluring wealthy widow Madame Odintsova, then a stay with Bazarov's parents. This means we get to examine our young Russian proto-revolutionaries in three different settings, and like most kids back from uni for the hols, they vacillate between enjoying being back in the bosom of the family and trying to prove to their parents how different and clever they are now. God, Mum. You just don't get it, do you? The parents respond in the traditional manner of parents: they disapprove, they worry, they try to understand, they feed their boys up.
My knowledge of Russian history is patchy - but I suspect Bazarov is a fore-runner in terms of his ideology and attitude, and that the social upheavals that came about a little later in Russia were, in part, based on similar beliefs to his. He's an outrider, a social maven - he's like a punk arriving in London in 1950. And, like all revolutionary early-adopters, he finds it hard to gather genuine followers (I think it's probably significant that the only character to want to 'carry on Bazarov's work' is Viktor Sitnikov - clearly a very stupid man, even in translation).
Also, and I know this doesn't mean much when we are talking about over-throwing society and brave new worlds, he really isn't the most likeable of people. He's often rude, dismissive, arrogant, arguing for the sake of arguing. There are times when he is infuriating - he advocates the destruction of pretty much everything, but has no idea of what should go in its place. But isn't that always the way with those revolutionary types? They'll storm your palace and then shuffle about not knowing what to do next, arguing among themselves, getting mud on your best carpets.
But on the other hand, there is a bravery about him, especially towards the end of the book. And I did feel for him when he falls for Madame Odintsova and then gets all annoyed with himself as he hadn't ever factored this thing called "love" into his nihilist equation, bless him.
* The duel is a very funny scene. There is a lot in the book that I found funny. But it's strange, when you read a book that is over a hundred years old, you do suffer a strange sort of 'humour anxiety' because you are aware that you may be laughing at things that weren't meant to be funny. They just appear funny to us, the people of the future. It's funny because it's different. Similarly, you worry that you might be missing some of Turgenev's best gags, because you just don't get the references. And then you feel bad. But not that bad, as I feel pretty sure Turgenev was a fairly sharp guy and the sections that I laugh at now are probably what he intended me to laugh at. I think he knew what he was doing.
Turgenev: A fairly sharp guy
In other Russian literature news, the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks Blair should read Dostoevsky.













