Re: The novel is very interested in inter-generational issues.
Camilla Send a noteboard - 17/10/2010 11:59:37 PM
Bazarov is supposed to be immature and obnoxious because...well...he's a kid. Sure, the ages aren't maybe the same as today's "frustrated youth", but the whole concept of "teen angst" is pretty obvious.
Agreed.
There is an inter-generational conflict between children of the Thirties and children of the Fifties that mirrors the same conflict a century (and two decades) later. The older generation was an optimistic one that thought it could change things and had a sense of idealism, whereas the younger generation was disillusioned and discouraged (and often nihilist). The change that took place in Russia to disillusion people was the increasingly despotic reign of Nicholas I, which set Russia back immensely and ruined many of the quiet reforms of Catherine the Great and Alexander I. The Decembrists would die in Siberia, and people who spoke up on their behalf later (like Pushkin) were exiled and silenced, and censorship steadily increased.
Yes, I was quite fascinated by the continuous references to the Decembrists. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Whether it is a reference to the futility of revolt, or whether it is about the difference in revolt between the two generations: the older one has a focus and direction that the younger does not -- but still it all comes to nothing in the end. Or maybe it is both.
The reference to Pushkin is interesting. I noticed he is mentioned in the novel, and I took it as a foreshadowing of the duel. I am not sure whether that is relevant. It doesn't quite fit.
Pavel Petrovich likes to still think of himself as a "rebel", but he often looks a bit silly, much like a 1960s ex-hippie who is still trying to "fight the system, man". Bazarov's nihilism seems to stem as much from his feeling of powerlessness (there is no way to fight the system in reality) as it does from his youth and desire to reject the older generation's value system.
Pavel Petrovich may look silly, and it may be my anglophile sensibilities that cover for him, but I sympathise entirely with him. Even at his most dandified he is admirable.
I didn't see Bazarov's death as suicide. I saw it as him attempting to pretend to be a nihilist even though he no longer is to seem brave, when in fact he wants to live and love. It was a profoundly sad ending to the book, and I think I felt more sorry for Bazarov than for any Dostoevsky character who dies (maybe excepting Elena/Nelli from The Insulted and Humiliated), perhaps precisely BECAUSE I too hated him at the beginning.
I thought perhaps I might be going against the grain with that reading. I am not sure why I feel so sure about it. It seems that there is a dropping off of his surety, and there is the belief of his father that he will be a great man. And then there is Odintsova, and the knowledge that he cannot have her. It all somehow comes together.
I agree that I feel more for him than for any of Dostoevsky's characters. Their inevitable turn to god nauseates me. Bazarov in that way is refreshing in his horror.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
Russian Book Club: Fathers and Sons by Turgenev.
- 17/10/2010 01:39:16 AM
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Bazarov
- 17/10/2010 02:12:03 PM
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*NM*
The novel is very interested in inter-generational issues.
- 17/10/2010 05:28:29 PM
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Re: The novel is very interested in inter-generational issues.
- 17/10/2010 11:59:37 PM
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oh, and
- 17/10/2010 06:42:38 PM
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Re: oh, and
- 18/10/2010 12:09:10 AM
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Arkady
- 17/10/2010 02:15:54 PM
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Well, that makes sense
- 17/10/2010 05:12:09 PM
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Re: Well, that makes sense
- 18/10/2010 12:04:05 AM
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See, I liked Arkady
- 17/10/2010 06:08:57 PM
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Oh...Rebekah, I was going to mention that I saw your post only much later because I was very drunk.
- 17/10/2010 05:13:41 PM
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Good book.
- 17/10/2010 06:37:16 PM
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I loved it. Great book.
- 18/10/2010 10:49:27 PM
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I think it's very relevant. It's also unusually un-Russian.
- 18/10/2010 11:54:03 PM
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Yeah... the Russian nobility at the time seems to have been kind of un-Russian, really.
- 20/10/2010 04:03:34 PM
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It felt very Russian to me as well
- 20/10/2010 04:12:50 PM
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There was little of the usual ... histrionics that happen in Russian novels.
- 22/10/2010 07:02:12 PM
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I really wish I'd bought a properly annotated version.
- 22/10/2010 07:07:16 PM
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The answer to that is to just read a great book on Nineteenth Century Russian history.
- 22/10/2010 10:55:06 PM
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Not just Russian, though, there's a lot of mentions of other European history.
- 22/10/2010 11:19:28 PM
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Nikolai and Pavel - I love them.
- 22/10/2010 07:14:11 PM
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Perhaps it's Pavel's "The Chap"-ish nature that makes the novel seem less Russian to me.
- 22/10/2010 10:53:56 PM
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