Fathers and Children excerpt: Anna Sergeevna Odintsova

I found a few passages from books I’ve read this year that I did not include in any post. That is a shame in this case since it is a key passage in understanding Odintsova. I described her in this post as follows: “a wealthy widow (age 29). Self-disciplined and reserved, she thrives on order. Her independence has come at a cost, and her reserve masks her feelings not just to others but to herself as well.”

From Chapter 16:

The colors of the rainbow would sometimes dance before her eyes, but she was always relieved when they faded and had no regrets. Her imagination even exceeded the boundaries of what’s considered permissible according to the laws of conventional morality; but even then her blood flowed as quietly as ever in her charmingly graceful and tranquil body. Sometimes, upon emerging from a frequent bath, all warm and soft, she’d fall to musing about the insignificance of life, its sadness, travail, and evil… Her soul would be filled with unexpected boldness and seethe with noble aspiration; but a draught of wind would blow in from a half-open window and Anna Segreevna would retreat into herself, complain, and feel almost angry; the only thing she needed at that moment was for the nasty wind to stop blowing on her.

(Translation by Michael R. Katz—ellipsis in original)

Turgenev gives us a suggestive glimpse into Odintsova’s body and soul. Everything that happens between her and Bazarov echoes this passage. Even when considering things outside “the laws of conventional morality” she remains calm and composed. Most importantly, when something foreign invades her world, like the wind or Bazarov, she recoils from it and turns back inside herself. Just one of many lovely passages in he Fathers and Children and one I should have included in my posts.

Fathers and Children summary

Portrait of Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
By Vasily Perov (1872)
Picture source

Young Man to Middle-Aged Man: ‘You had content but no force.’
Middle-Aged Man to Young Man: ‘And you have force but no content.’

- (The original epigraph to Fathers and Children which was later omitted.)

From Henry James' 1903 article on Turganev:

Nothing that Turgenev had to say could be more interesting than his talk about his own work, his manner of writing. What I have heard him tell of these things was worthy of the beautiful results he produced; of the deep purpose, pervading them all, to show us life itself. The germ of a story, with him, was never an affair of plot--that was the last thing he thought of: it was the representation of certain persons. The first form in which a tale appeared to him was as the figure of an individual, or a combination of individuals, whom he wished to see in action, being sure that such people must do something very special and interesting. They stood before him definite, vivid, and he wished to know, and to show, as much as possible of their nature. The first thing was to make clear to himself what he did know, to begin with; and to this end, he wrote out a sort of biography of each of his characters, and everything that they had done and that had happened to them up to the opening of the story. He had their dossier, as the French say, and as the police has that of every conspicuous criminal. With this material in his hand he was able to proceed; the story all lay in the question, What shall I make them do? He always made them do things that showed them completely; but, as he said, the defect of his manner and the reproach that was made him was his want of "architecture"--in other words, of composition.

Posts on Fathers and Children

Online resources for Ivan Turgenev

Fathers and Children online resources

Fathers and Children discussion:

Chapters 1 – 10

Chapters 11 – 19

Chapters 20 – 28

It seems my posts on Fathers and Children are almost as long as the work itself. At the risk of making this even longer, I’m going to include another quote and link. The first is from Isaiah Berlin as he describes the reaction Turgenev received upon release of the novel (from Fathers and Children: Turgenev and the Liberal Predicament):

In the violent babel of voices aroused by the novel, at least five attitudes can be distinguished. There was the angry right wing which thought that Bazarov represented the apotheosis of the new nihilists, and sprang from Turgenev’s unworthy desire to flatter and be accepted by the young. There were those who congratulated him on successfully exposing barbarism and subversion. There were those who denounced him for this wicked travesty of the radicals, for providing reactionaries with ammunition and playing into the hands of the police; by them he was called renegade and traitor. Still others, like Dimitri Pisarev, proudly nailed Bazarov’s colors to their mast and expressed gratitude to Turgenev for his honesty and sympathy with all that was most living and fearless in the growing party of the future. Finally there were some who detected that the author himself was not wholly sure of what he wanted to do, that his attitude was genuinely ambivalent, that he was an artist and not a pamphleteer, that he told the truth as he saw it, without a clear partisan purpose.

This controversy continued in full strength after Turgenev’s death. It says something for the vitality of his creation that the debate did not die even in the following century, neither before nor after the Russian Revolution.

There is something to be said for ticking off all the right people. That there was a controversy and it continues demonstrates the triumph in creating a work with “real” characters instead of having a debate of ideas between caricatures.

Coincidentally, the post today by Patrick Kurp at Anecdotal Evidence on `Serenity, Dignity and Cool Radiance' has a quote from Zbigniew Herbert looking at the direct descendents of Bazarov. Along the way, Kurp quotes Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple, mentioned in the Turgenev online resources post) during a visit to the University of Liberia’s library during its civil war. Turgenev makes an unexpected appearance along with the bastard offspring of Bazarov.

Update: One additional quote from the work regarding Anna Sergeevna Odintsova

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 20 – 28

This final section covers from Arkady’s and Bazarov’s trip to visit Bazarov’s parents to the end of the book. The translation I’m reading is by Michael R. Katz so all quotes will come from his version, while the translation by Richard Hare can be found at Mootnotes.com.

Characters
Characters introduced in this section:

Vasily Ivanych Bazarov—Bazarov’s father. A former army doctor, he has retired to his manor. Educated but self-effacing when confronted with his newer methods and advances in medicine. Along with his wife they show a mixture of fear and devotion to their son.

Arina Vlasevna Bazarova—Bazarov’s mother. Turgenev describes her as a throwback to earlier times, “a genuine Russian noblewoman” that is “devout and emotional” as well as superstitious. “She loved and feared her son incredibly”. “Such women are no becoming much harder to find. God know whether that’s a good or a bad thing!” It’s interesting to compare her to Anna Odintsova, a ‘newer’ Russian woman.

Generational struggle
I’ve only highlighted a little of the generational struggle that Bazarov and Arkady declared, and the previous post showed Bazarov beginning to question his own beliefs after his rejection by Odintsova. ‘Struggle’ may be a misnomer since the resistance and rejection lies solely with the “children” part of the title. The fathers (and mother) portrayed all dote on their children to the point of idolatry. The thanks the parents get? “When you look from the side or from a distance at the empty life our “fathers” led, you think: what could be better?” Bazarov romanticizes the older generations “empty life” while living an empty life of his own. Bazarov is very dismissive of everything that has gone before, but one comparison stands out. His dad survived an outbreak of the plague. Bazarov can’t survive a single exposure to typhus.

The inward contradictions of Bazarov’s outlook pop up everywhere. He decries romanticism, yet participates in duel with Pavel. He could have caustically bowed out, yet he didn’t want to give Pavel that satisfaction (a very ‘romantic’ notion). Bazarov denies anything and everything that has come before him, yet he follows scientific methods developed over the centuries by others. Is it easier to deny the contributions of others if you fail to contribute anything yourself? Bazarov’s renunciations end up being more pinpoint complaints rather than the blanket denial he intends.

Like every generation before him that rejects wholesale all that has come before, wishing to remake the world in their own image, many of the things he is fighting for are destined for failure. Fortunately Arkady, when falling in love with Katya, sees beyond himself and tells her “I’m no longer searching for ideals where I did previously…”. On the other hand, Bazarov’s language continues to be incendiary, sounding eerily like revolutionary rhetoric that would come later:

“You aristocrats can never get any further than noble submission or noble indignation, and all that’s nonsense. You, for instance, you won’t fight—yet you think you’re a fine fellow—but we want to fight. What of it? The dust we raise will blind your eyes, our mud will splatter you, but you haven’t reached our level; you admire yourself unconsciously, take pleasure in abusing yourself; but we find all this boring—give us someone else! We’ve got to smash someone else!”

Bazarov
The more I saw Bazarov I became more impressed with the depth and complexity that Turgenev created. The author could have made the character as one-dimensional as critics during his time claimed, but there is a richness within Bazarov despite himself.

He obviously loves his parents, talking very positively about them to Arkady despite continually poking fun at them. “Bazarov tells Arkady that his parents “are occupied, and don’t worry in the least about their own insignificance; they don’t give a damn about it…While I…I feel only boredom and anger.” The boredom and anger can exist because of his own insignificance. His life up to this point has been only promise and potential. The anger also results from Odintsova’s rejection but there does seem to be some wistfulness (on his part) at his parents’ acceptance of their roles, something he is unable to do until he is on his deathbed.

Flirting with Fenechka is not an act to undermine Nikolai or show any disrespect, but rather Bazarov carrying on with his view of women in general: “If you like a woman,” he used to say, “try to gain your end…”. After having his heart toyed with and crushed so recently, resuming his flirtatious ways so quickly confirms his lack of sympathy for others. As with his parents, Bazarov seems to view others as existing to serve him despite his grandiose statements of serving mankind.

After Odintsova rejects him, Bazarov declares “That’s the only thing I’m proud of. I haven’t destroyed myself, and no woman’s going to destroy me.” Yet he allows that to happen in the end. He becomes a laughingstock to the peasants around him, losing one contrast he made with Pavel on who was better suited to talk with the common people. His death follows a meaningless act—a botched autopsy of a peasant that died from typhus. It does make for the wonderful Chapter 27, however. The look of horror in his eyes upon receiving extreme unction from the priest could be his reaction to the sacrament, as well as facing up to the emptiness of his beliefs.

Despite the façade and empty rhetoric, Bazarov is capable of magnanimous behavior. He behaves honorably in treating Pavel’s wound and ending the duel. He could have behaved even better by firing into the air. And he could have avoided the duel completely by not flirting with Fenechka. Fortunately something exists deep within that keeps him from being a simple caricature. On a side note, Bazarov appears to be a forerunner of several characters created by Dostoevsky. With his father’s statement that “It’s not appropriate to judge people like him by ordinary standards” it feels like the groundwork is laid for the later writer.

Structure, techniques, devices
Talking about structure, techniques and/or devices used in a work is well outside my comfort zone, but Fathers and Children benefits from Turgenev’s structure. The story builds and progresses as Arkady and Bazarov move across the countryside. Seeing these characters in different settings reveals more about each character, such as when Bazarov visits his parents. Turgenev pauses each time a new character is introduced and gives a brief biographical sketch. Yet some things that are vitally important in understanding a character—Pavel real view of Nikolai’s mistress Fenechka, for example—are withheld until the last moment.

The structure also provides symmetry with events. There are several instances of overhearing things in a garden, which reveals the opinions of the conversationalists of and to the listener. The eavesdropping device also complicates events at the end, whether Pavel seeing Bazarov kissing Fenechka or Bazarov revealing Arkady’s past love for Anna Odintsova. The unrequited loves of Pavel and Bazarov provide a comparison of how they handle, or rather fail to handle, the situation as Turgenev describes their condition as “the persistence of former passion in a man.” The figurative death of Pavel from his affair is followed by Bazarov’s literal death, romanticism meeting nihilism. There are many more symmetries, which makes the short novel feel much fuller.

Turgenev keeps to a minimum the time spent inside a character’s head. He develops the story more through description, conversation, action, and interaction. An example of the latter comes from Fenechka and her son Mitya instantly gravitating toward Bazarov despite his seeming brusque rhetoric. Many things are left ambiguous, such as Bazarov’s death. Was it (effectively) a suicide or simple negligence? Was there a difference in his case? Turgenev takes pains to distance himself from his characters: “Was the truth, the whole truth, contained in their words? They didn’t know, and the author knows even less.”

The final chapter allows Turgenev to tie up any loose ends and follow what happens to the surviving characters. By pairing up almost every character, I felt like I was reading the end of a Shakespeare comedy although the merriment is tempered by the sad spectacle of Bazarov’s parents. Their grief offsets all the festivities while Bazarov is forgotten by everyone else.

Pushkin sightings
One specific mention of Pushkin occurs in this section, which is funny since the poet would be called a romantic by Bazarov in a very dismissive manner:

[Bazarov]“Nature induces the silence of sleep,” Pushkin said.

“He said nothing of the sort,” Arkady replied.

“Well, even if he didn’t, he could’ve and should’ve, as a poet. By the way, he must’ve served in the military.”

“Pushkin was never a soldier.”

“Really? But on every page he writes, ‘To battle, to battle! For the honor of Russia!’”

What sort of nonsense are you fabricating?”

The very end of the novel alludes to one of Pushkin’s poems. The ending:

However passionate, sinful, rebellious the heart buried in this grave, the flowers growing on it look out as us serenely with their innocent eyes: they tell us not only of that eternal peace, that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and life everlasting…

Pushkin’s poem, translated by G.R.Ledger:

If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone's hour is already at hand.

When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers'.

If I caress a young child,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.

Each day, every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.

And where will fate send death to me?
In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?
Or will the neighbouring valley
Receive my chilled ashes?

And although to the senseless body
It is indifferent wherever it rots,
Yet close to my beloved countryside
I still would prefer to rest.

And let it be, beside the grave's vault
That young life forever will be playing,
And impartial, indifferent nature
Eternally be shining in beauty.

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 11 - 19

Picture source

Approximately the middle third of the book, this section covers Arkady’s and Bazarov’s trips to the town of *** and the Nikolskoe estate, ending as they are about to leave for Bazarov’s parents’ manor. The translation I’m reading is by Michael R. Katz so all quotes will come from his version.

Characters
Additional characters introduced in this section:

Victor Sitnikov—friend of Bazarov, going as far as to say he’s a disciple. Intellectual lightweight with no social graces.

Evdoksiya (Avdotya) Kukshina--married, but separated woman in the town of ***. At first it seems like she might be a female Bazarov, but the more you see of her the more you realize the basis for her name (see below) is fitting.

Anna Sergeevna Odintsova--a wealthy widow (age 29). Self-disciplined and reserved, she thrives on order. Her independence has come at a cost, and her reserve masks her feelings not just to others but to herself as well.

Katerina (Katya) Sergeevna Lokteva--Anna’s younger sister. Either 18 or 21 (Turganev gives both ages).

I found the following key or sources of names at the Wellesley College 19th Century Russian Literature course page (and attributed to Thomas P. Hodge). It is humorous to see how the names fit the characters. I’ve changed the site's spelling to match the translation I’m reading:

Arkady: Arcas, son of Zeus and King of Arcadia (which was named after him), a sparsely populated, mountainous region in Central Greece adopted by the poets as a symbol of the quiet, rustic life

Bazarov: (Russ.) bazar = bazaar; also, the noise and commotion attached to it. Also bazarit´/razbazarit´ = to waste one’s time, talent and energy on fruitless pursuits

Kirsanov: (? Russ.) kirasir or cuirassier = a prestigious category of officer in the Napoleonic period (reminiscent of Arkady’s grandfather, the old general)

Odintsova: (Russ.) odin = one, alone, solitary, lonely

Kukshina: (Russ.) kuksha = colloquial term for certain birds of the crow family

Sitnikov: (Russ.) sitnik = a loaf of bread made from sifted flour

Generational struggle
Nikolai laments the distance he feels between him and Arkady. Musing over the difference he thinks “(I)t also seems to me that they’re farther from the truth than we are; but at the same time, I feel they have something we lack, some advantage over us…Youth? No, it’s not only youth.” If true, based on what I have seen so far I would vote for conviction and ignorance. “Perhaps their advantage consists in the fact that there’re fewer traces of gentry mentality left in them than in us?” However, given the behavior of the boors the reader is about to meet, the gentry mentality may be good for something after all.

In this same passage Nikolai bemoans having vainly spent time trying to stay close to Arkady. Hinted at here is the common thread of parenthood of intimately learning about your child as they develop. What I rarely see, and Nikolai has shown no reflection on this so far, is the corollary I have found in fatherhood, namely that you will find out much more about yourself during the process.

Bazarov
While at Evdoksiya’s house, Bazarov bluntly asks “Are there any pretty women around here?”, a seemingly un-Bazarov-like thing to say. Yet it isn’t necessarily a contradiction, as Turgenev points out later. “Bazarov was a great lover of women and feminine beauty, but love in the ideal sense, or, as he expressed it, in the romantic sense, he called rubbish or unforgivable stupidity; he considered chivalrous feelings something akin to deformity or disease…”. For him, women were there to use, and if you didn’t accomplish your goal, move on to the next one. Yet those beliefs fall by the wayside in just a few short weeks.

Bazarov clearly falls under Anna’s spell, just as much or more than Arkady does initially. He tries to mask it with his usual detachment: “What a delectable body!” continued Bazarov. “Perfect for the dissecting table.” But as he falls further in love his anxiety increases, as does his agitation within himself and to others around him.

Some more on Bazarov’s philosophy: “I can tell you it isn’t worth the trouble to study separate individuals. All people resemble each other, in soul as well as body; each one of us has a brain, spleen, heart, and lungs, all made similarly. So-called moral qualities are also shared by everyone: small variations don’t mean a thing. A single human specimen’s sufficient to make judgments about all the rest.” He goes on to declare society’s dysfunction as the cause of an individual’s moral illness.

Some of the contradictions underlying Bazarov’s philosophy are explicitly mentioned in this section: “Bazarov complained, but it was precisely because ‘everything moved along rails’ that he and Arkady lived so comfortably in Odintsova’s house.” He is happy to enjoy the benefits provided by others or those that have gone before him even as he disparages them. Or, as the basis of his philosophy dictates, denies they have anything to offer him.

Bazarov has been an insufferable prick up to his rejection by Odintsova and it is precisely at that point that he could be a likeable character, depending on what he does next. The turmoil within him goes beyond the rejection—his nihilism cannot explain or account for the emotions he feels. Here is something that biology cannot fathom. He has had his legs cut out from underneath him for several reasons and his inability to stand has the potential to yield sympathy.

Arkady
Changes occur in Arkady in this section, although some are harder to perceive than others. He still follows Bazarov’s lead, rudely leaving Evdoksiya Kukshina’s house or Sitnikov’s carriage for example. His feelings to Katya develop slowly, but they are deeper than his infatuation with Odintsova. The infatuation, however, remains strong and drives a wedge between him and Bazarov as Odintsova clearly prefers the company of his friend. As he spends more time with Katya, he finds they have things in common—things that contradict the clinical coldness of his stated nihilism. “Katya adored nature, and Arkady loved it, though dared not admit it.” Having been Bazarov’s disciple, it will be interesting to see how the differences between them, both in having been infatuated with the same woman as well as Arkady yielding to his emotions about Katya (and apparently accepted), will play out.

Anna Odintsova
Anna’s interest in Bazarov initially begins as curiosity. As I mentioned earlier, her reserve seems to mask what she is truly feeling not just to others but to herself as well. Does she fall in love with Bazarov? It certainly seems that way and she definitely sends him the signals that she has.

While mentally torn as to what to do, she is unable to either make up her mind or act. Bazarov follows her lead, unable to act until she prods him to do so. In letting him know he has misunderstood her, she realizes she does not understand her own feelings, the strength of which also bothers her. There is an outward similarity of character between Anna and Bazarov in their coldness and aloofness but that resemblance masks deep differences. Bazarov is driven by a rigid philosophical purity while Anna chooses certainty and serenity. While both characters feel an emotional turmoil, Bazarov yields to his feelings while Anna attempts to squelch hers in order to return to certainty and safety. “Under the influence of various vague emotions, an awareness of life passing by, a desire for novelty, she’d forced herself to reach a certain point, to look beyond it—and there she glimpsed not even an abyss, but a void…or formless chaos.” Anna was a sympathetic character up to the point of her rejection of Bazarov, and could have been so even after it. Seeing that her idleness and curiosity are the only reasons for leading Bazarov on effectively closes the door on that consideration.

Music
Music plays a role in the novel when Katya plays Mozart’s Sonata-Fantasia in C Minor for Arkady. While the music moves Arkady, the mournful strains reflect his unrequited feelings toward Anna, it also causes him to notice Katya and gives him something to talk about with her. Music also helped set a scene in the previous section when Arkady’s father plays Schubert on the cello (and Bazarov, of course, mocks him).

Pushkin sightings
Echoes of Eugene Onegin are in the following exchange:

“What a splendid woman Anna Sergeevna is,” Eclaimed Arkady, when left alone later with his companion in the room reserved for them.

“Yes,” answered Bazarov, “that lady has a head on her shoulders. And she’s been around as well.”

“In what sense do you mean that, Evgeny Vasilich?”

“In a good sense, my dear boy, Arday Nikolaevich, in a good sense! I’m sure she also does a fine job managing her estate. But she’s not the splendid one—it’s her sister.”

The reasons differ from Onegin’s recommendation of the sister: Bazarov advocates Katya because she is young and malleable, unlike her older sister Anna. He may also want to lessen the competition for Anna (even though she clearly prefers Bazarov).

Quotes
Turgenev’s descriptions are fun to read and call forth additional images. Try not to think of the puckering word ‘lemon’ when reading about Anna’s aunt:

Anna Sergeevna’s auntie, the Princess Kh., a short slender woman with a face pinched like a fist and nasty, steady eyes under a gray wig, came in. Scarcely greeting the guests, she lowered herself into a large velvet-covered armchair, in which no one else had any right to sit. Katya placed a little bench under her feet; the old woman didn’t thank her and didn’t even glance up; she merely placed her hands underneath the yellow shawl covering almost her entire feeble body. The princess loved the color yellow: she was also wearing a cap with bright yellow ribbons.

At Nikolskoe, after Anna’s rejection of Bazarov comes a little comic relief:

The appearance of mediocrity is sometimes a useful thing in life: it soothes strings that have been stretched too taut and it sobers emotions that have become too self-confident or forgetful, suggesting their own close proximity to the mediocre. With Sitnikov’s arrival everything became somehow duller—and simpler; everyone even ate a heartier supper and toddled off to bed half an hour earlier than usual.

Fathers and Children discussion: Chapters 1 – 10

Turgenev's father
Picture source

The novel is relatively short, but there is so much to sort through that I’ll probably have three posts to discuss it. Online resources can be found in this post while the text can be found here. I am reading the translation by Michael R. Katz, so all quotes will come from his version.

Characters
For those unfamiliar with the story (and for those who get as easily turned around by Russian names as I do), brief sketches of the major characters, as have been developed so far, follow:

Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov—landlord with a privileged background (his father was a general during the war in 1812). Never quite living up to expectations, he married after his parents’ death. About ten years after son Arkady was born, his wife died. Consumed with grief, he seems to live his life through Arkady. Liberal in thought, he has freed his serfs and employs help.

Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov—Nikolai’s older brother. Growing up there was a strong contrast between the two, with Pavel the extraverted, athletic brother as compared to Nikolai’s passive introversion. A promising career in the army was cut short after disappointment in a love affair. Pavel retains aristocratic airs, even after moving into his brother’s estate in the country. Pavel is the more practical of the two brothers.

Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov—Nikolai’s son, who has just finished his undergraduate degree. He clearly loves his father even if he doesn’t always show it. Although he follows Bazarov and his ideas, the reader begins to see a struggle within Arkady for where his loyalties lie.

Fenechka—servant in Nikolai’s house. She and Nikolai are the parents of Mitya (about seven months old when the novel opens).

Evgeny Vasilev Bazarov—student who has graduated with Arkady, and will return for post-graduate studies in medicine. Conceited and arrogant when it comes to his beliefs, he also shows a playful side which endears children and servants to him.

Generational struggle and the cost of improvements
Bazarov notes of the previous generation that they are “these aging romantics”, which depending on how it is said can actually be an endearment or an annoyance. Given his comments on Nihilism (see below), he probably wasn’t complimenting them. More on the generational friction in the next posts.

Arkady muses on the drive home that the loss of the forest is not necessarily a good thing, even though it is part of the price of freeing the serfs. While reforms are regarded as essential, the volume and cost of what is needed to improve seems overwhelming. Arkady, mimicking Bazarov, demands that minor changes are not acceptable. Yet he has seen the cost inflicted just from one estate of doing the right thing and the reader can sense his hesitation already.

Influence of women
The role and power of women in the lives of the older male characters is set up to be repeated with the younger generation. Nikolai’s wife died and he was devastated—his hair quickly turned gray and he was inactive at his country estate for quite a while. Nikolai is so embarrassed by his relationship with Fenechka, who held a power over him early in the relationship, that he cannot even bring himself to discuss it with his son Arkady.

As mentioned above, Pavel had a promising career in the military but resigned to chase Princess R. Her rejection drove him crazy as he tried to track her down for ten years. After he learns of her death (or losing his past, as Turgenev puts it), he retires to his brother’s country estate.
Bazarov, on Pavel’s unhappiness: “Still I say that a man who stakes his whole life on a woman’s love and, when that one card gets beaten, turns sour and sinks to the point where he’s incapable of doing anything at all, then that person is no longer a man, not even a male of the species.” And Bazarov further judges him when commenting “(I)t’s all that lack of discipline, shallowness!” While harsh and unforgiving, it is in keeping with Bazarov’s arrogance and (seeming) cold strength. Love is dismissed as “all romanticism, nonsense, rubbish, artifice.”

Nihilism
Much is made of Nihilism and Bazarov being a Nihilist. However the meaning s given by the characters are different than what is usually assumed by the terms today. It is interesting to note that Bazarov never defines it himself, but Arkady’s initial definition comes close to one aspect of Bazarov’s intent: “A nihilist is a person who doesn’t bow down before authorities, doesn’t accept even one principle on faith, no matter how much respect surrounds that principle.” The response this gets from the older gentlemen ranges from bemusement (Nikolai) to skepticism (Pavel). Pavel archly replies, on seeing Bazarov’s bag of frogs for experiments, “He doesn’t believe in principles, but he believes in frogs.”

Bazarov notes that “A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet.” He utterly rejects the possibility of knowing anything…that everything must be razed and relearned. “First we need to study the alphabet and only later learn how to read books; we haven’t even begun with our ABCs.” While he claims not to believe in anything, he certainly has a lot of presumptions about Pavel and that type of “provincial aristocrats”, one hint that he may not be all he claims.

Bazarov
Bazarov automatically dismisses the countryside, snidely commenting that it is a pity there is no one to charm in it. Regarding children, he notes, “I have a way with them.” And he truly seems to, in addition to (most of) the help. Reactions to Bazarov vary: Fenechka felt comfortable with him, Pavel comes to despise him while Nikolai is concerned about his influence on Arkady. There are hints early on that Bazarov doesn’t exactly live up to his own standard. One example occurs soon after meeting Fenechka when he asks for her patronymic. If precedents aren’t important, why does this concern him?

In addition to the generational struggle, Bazarov highlights a class struggle as well. When Pavel denounces Bazarov as not being Russian, Bazarov proudly, and probably correctly, notes that he can talk with the peasants easier and freer than the older man can. However that doesn’t mean he holds the peasants in high esteem. Or any other Russian, for that matter. “What difference does that make? [That he, Bazarov, has a low opinion of the Russians] The only good point about a Russian is that he has a very low opinion of himself. What’s important is that two times two makes four; all the rest’s nonsense.”

Pushkin
In talking about First Love I meant to mention that Turgenev used an innovative way to work Pushkin into the story and here he does the same thing early in the book. Nikolai begins quoting Eugene Onegin, only to be interrupted by Bazarov asking for a match. Later, the young men discuss having seen Nikolai reading Pushkin, with Bazarov dismissing the poet’s work as rubbish. There seems to be no place for an old ‘romantic’ writer or reader in their world.

Structure
I’m putting this here as a placeholder and reminder for me to focus on the structure in a later post.

And with that, I’ll finish my cobbling together this post and add a couple of quotes. Because of the controversy that Turgenev created with this novel, read the following with an eye toward which side of the argument you think he aligns himself:

Pavel Petrovich wrung his hands. “After that I don’t understand you. You insult the Russian people. I don’t see how it’s possible to reject principles and rules! On what basis can you act?”

“I’ve already told you, Uncle, we don’t accept any authorities,” Arkady intervened.

“We act on the basis of what we recognize as useful,” Bazarov replied. “Nowadays the most useful thing of all is rejection—we reject.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“What? Not only art and poetry…but even…it’s too awful to say…”

“Everything,” Bazarov repeated with indescribable composure.
…
…
…
[Pavel] “Then what are you doing?”

[Bazarov] “I’ll tell you what we’re doing. Previously, in recent times, we acknowledged that our civil servants take bribes, that we lack roads, commerce, true justice…”

“Well, yes, so, you’re denouncers—that’s what it seems to be called. I agree with many of your denunciations, but…”

“Then we realized that talking, simply talking all the time about our open sores isn’t worth the trouble, that it leads only to being vulgar and doctrinaire; we saw that even our intelligent men, our so-called progressives and denouncers, served no purpose at all, that we were preoccupied with a lot of nonsense, arguing over some form of art, unconscious creativity, parliamentarianism, legal profession, and the devil knows what else, while it was really a question of our daily bread, when we were being oppressed by the most primitive superstitions, when all our joint stock companies were collapsing merely as a result of honest men, while the emancipation, about which the government was so concerned, will hardly do any good because our peasants are happy to steal from themselves, as long as they can get stinking drunk in the tavern.”

“Yes,” Pavel Petrovich said, interrupting him, “I see: you’ve become convinced of all this and now have decided not to do anything serious about it.”

“We’ve decided not to do anything serious about it,” Bazarov repeated grimly. He was suddenly annoyed with himself for having been so expansive with this gentleman.

“And merely curse everything?”

“And curse everything.”

“And this is called nihilism?”

“And this is called nihilism,” Bazarov repeated again, this time with particular rudeness.

Pavel Petrovich wrinkled his face slightly. “So that’s how it is!” he said in a strangely serene voice. “Nihilism is supposed to relieve all our ills, and you, you’re our saviors and heroes. But then why do you abuse others, even those very denouncers? Aren’t you doing a lot of talking, too, just like all the rest?”

“We’re guilty of many sins, but not that one,” Bazarov said through his teeth.

“Well, then? Are you taking action or what? Are you preparing to take action?”

Bazarov made no reply. Pavel Petrovich gave a little shudder, but then gained control of himself. “Hmmm! To act, destroy…,” he continued. “But how can one destroy without even knowing why?”

“We destroy because we’re a force,” Arkady observed.

Pavel Petrovich looked at his nephew and smiled. [Note: in the original version, Pavel Petrovich replies to Arkady, “A fine thing, force—without any content.”]

“Yes, a force—one that doesn’t need to account for itself,” Arkady said and sat up straighter.
…
…
…
“I’ll be prepared to agree with you later,” he [Bazarov] said standing up, “when you present me with a single institution of contemporary life, either in the family or in the social sphere, that doesn’t deserve absolute and merciless rejection.”

Fathers and Children online resources

First edition in English,
Translated by Eugene Schuyler. New York: Leypoldt and Holt, 1867.
Picture source

Note: I am moving this post from July 23rd to here so it is closer to the discussion posts.

I feel I should spend a moment on the title, which has been a problem since the first English translation. The Russian title is Ottsy i deti, literally translated as “Fathers and Children”. Eugene Schuyler provided the first English translation, published in 1867. Schuyler’s translation was published in England as Fathers and Children while the American title was Fathers and Sons. I’m reading the translation by Michael R. Katz, so I’ll be consistent with his choice of titles in my posts. Some of the links below will have the 'Sons' title…. While not losing any sleep over the differences, I did want to point out the confusion and differences.



The text can be found at Mootnotes.com, translation by Richard Hare


An audio version at LibriVox

Some online resources for Turgenev can be found in this post

The Wikipedia entry on the novel

Here are a few articles or sites that I found interesting that are outside the normal study guide format:

The Novels of Turgenev: Symbols and Emblems, by Richard Peace, Professor Emeritus, University of Bristol

Context on the novel by Dr. Bruce T. Holl, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

Supplemental material to help understand the book, prepared by Prof. Catherine Kulesov (retired), and provided by Dr. Gary R. Jahn for his classes at the University of Minnesota.


Daniel Hocutt’s graduate seminar paper (at the University of Richmond)“Tracing Byron's Influence on the creation and development of the nihilist Bazarov in Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons” is available online.
There is a lot available on Turgenev and the political turbulence of the day. Here are two sections:
Bazarov as nihilist?
Forces of Negation
That Byron fellow sure seems to have had some influence on Russian writers (among others).

A paper by Jan Paul Mincarelli on why Bazarov had to die for proper function in the novel

In compiling these lists of resources, I often run across new blogs that make me want to dig into their archives and explore some more. Such is the reaction I got in reading Murr the cat’s take on this novel at The Lectern.

If anyone has a link for the song “Turgenev Women” by Centr (or Tsentr), let me know. This link is dead (and not just pining for the fjords).