Fathers and Sons

Hello, friends!

When last I wrote, I was writing from the estate of Nikolai Gogol, poet, and author of The Nose and Dead Souls.  He and I had many wonderful, albeit odd, conversations regarding his works.  It would seem, however, that the death of Pushkin still weighs heavily on my friend, for his spirit has sunk even lower than it usually sits.  He has taken up the counsel of a holy fool, except to me his teachings seem a bit extreme.  Gogol has even begun to question his work, and has even begun to deprive himself of worldly pleasures.  There's nothing wrong with the occasional drink in my book, so I thought it wise for me to make myself welcome elsewhere.

Ivan Turgenev, and yes,
he always looks this stern.

During my travels, I had the good fortune to stumble upon a recently published novel by Ivan Turgenev.  I had not been much acquainted with Turgenev's work before this point, but the book came highly recommended in the thick books I had read while staying with Gogol.  This particular novel, entitled Fathers and Sons, has been an interesting contrast for me, coming directly from Gogol's newfound ascetic belief system to this treatise on belief in general.

What's more, as I was finishing the book on the train, two men took the seats across from me and began to comment on novel.  They had such interesting views, I thought to sit and just absorb their discussion, though they soon pulled me in to settle disputes between them.  In return for their thoughts, I agreed to buy drinks, and what followed was a lively discussion.

An Original Copy of Fathers and Sons

The first, Viktor, talked much about how he thought the main point of the novel was "The conflict between the generations," (Lowe, 1982) detailing how the main plot of the book followed Arkady Kirsanov and his friend, Yevgeny Bazarov as they come home from Univeristy, and the challenges that arise between them and Arkady's father, Nikolai Kirsanov and his traditional values.  Viktor pointed out that there seems to be some pairing that occurs at the start of the novel, with those of each generation and social level being introduced together at the start of the novel to frame the conflict, (Lowe, 1982).  The image then came to me of two armies, one old, one young approaching each other across a battlefield of concept.

However, at that point, Aleksei pointed out that the pairings seemed shallow to him.  Those pairings, based on ideals, don't really create the conflict.  Rather, Aleksei said, "The conflicts in the novel are the result of differences or similarities in temperament" (Lowe, 1982).   To illustrate this, he outlined the characteristics of Pavel, Aleksei's uncle, and Bazarov as men who are expressionless amongst their elders, except in bursts of radical thinking.  He even suggested that their characters follow similar arcs throughout the novel.  Both Pavel and Bazarov were radicals of their respective generations, Bazarov as a Nihilist and Pavel as a Liberal.

A fictional portrait of Bazarov

The conversation at this point took an unexpected turn as Viktor began to back down from his original arguments, but then came forward with altogether new ideas, exploring the concepts of regeneration and degeneration as displayed by the cast of Turgenev's book.  For train of thought, he compared Nikolai Kirsanov with Bazarov.  Of Nikolai, he said, "Nikolai's capacity for memory enables him to sense life's continuities. . .Because of his memory, Nikolai understands the emotions and attitudes not only of his own generation, but of his son's" (Atteberry, 1988).  On the other hand, of Bazarov, he said, "[His] dispair stems, in part, from an absence of memory," referring to Bazarov's hopeless goodbye to Odintsov, his brief love.  I had not even considered such a comparison prior to this conversation, though it did strike a thought that had been with me since I had finished the book.

Having only recently left the home of Gogol, I could not help but feel the opposition between his current way of thinking and that of Bazarov.  Turgenev referred to Bazarov as a Nihilist, a term I had not heard before.  However, I think that almost everyone has met one.  They are, as one of my train-mates put it, "...Neither familiar with, nor interested in learning the 'old' abstract and philosophical chitchat. . . Who Believes in utility, science, and the ability to impose arithmetical calculation on all social problems," (Dubnov, 2015).  In short, they do not believe in anything they cannot examine or control with their senses.  This firm disbelief is so different from the repentant soul of someone like Gogol.  At first it may seem admirable, but for Bazarov, it became his doom.  I begin to admire these Nihilists for all they could accomplish, and yet worry at what price they may have to pay.



Sources:
Atteberry, Phillip D. “Regenerative and Degenerative Forces in Turgenev's ‘Fathers and Sons.’” South Central Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1988, pp. 48–60., www.jstor.org/stable/3189433.

Dubnov, Arie M. "‘Those New Men of the Sixties’: Nihilism in the Liberal Imagination." ["Rethinking History"]. Rethinking History, vol. 19, no. 1, Mar. 2015, pp. 18-40. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=99979692&site=eds-live.

Lowe, David A. "Doubling in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons." Essays in Literature, vol. 9, no. 2, Fall  1982, pp. 240-250. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=prf&AN=24389297&site=eds-live.