This week, Eileen Battersbyre-reads Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.
A MIDDLE-AGED MAN scans the highway, anxiously waiting for the
return of his son from university. Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov is a
landowner whose estate consists of a couple of hundred serfs - "or
five thousand acres, as he expresses it now that he has divided up
his land and let it to the peasants and started a 'farm'." A broken
leg suffered on the very day he had received his commission
prevented Kirsanov, the son of a general, from pursuing a military
career - unlike his older brother. So he went to the university in
St Petersburg and fell in love with his landlord's daughter, much
to the fury of his
parents. His father, the general, died and was quickly
followed by his wife. Nikolai then married his love and they had a
son, Arkady.
Life was kind until Nikolai's wife died. As the years passed, he
in turn brought his son to St Petersburg and the same university he
had attended. Turgenev sets the scene with such ease and
deliberation, vital information is presented while the father waits
for the carriage. The arrival of Arkady also brings Bazarov, one of
the most fascinating characters in all literature. Blunt,
self-assured and questioning, he is thenew Russia. For Arkady he is
a hero, for Arkady's father he is a challenge. Any visitor would be
difficult when the father has delicate news for his son: Nikolai is
not only living with a former servant,
she has had his child.
Adding to the tension is the presence of Arkady's father's elder
brother, Pavel, the former officer whose life has been dominated by
a disastrous love for a married princess who not only toyed with
him, she died. Pavel is cool, cynical, elegantly embittered and
apparently making the best of life in the provinces
as he deals with his regrets. While his brother Nikolai is
attempting to be progressive in his own
ramshackle way, Pavel represents the old Russia and is well
aware of the threat presented by opinionated nihilists such as
Bazarov. The narrative is precise, atmospheric and sustained by
Turgenev's genius not only for characterisation, but for the
dynamics of relationships.
Social change is a major theme. Yet Turgenev, who was born in
1818, the year after Jane Austen's
death, is drawn to the distinctions between friendship,
affection, passion and sexual curiosity. Bazarov is interested in
science, dissects frogs and questions everything. He and Arkady set
off on a visit that eventually leads them to the home of a
glamorous, fascinatingly world-weary widow, Madame Odintsov, who is
now raising her younger sister Katya with a care more like that of
a mother than an elder sister. Arkady decides he is in love with
Madame Odintsov; Bazarov rather peevishly fears he may also have
succumbed, while the lady herself feels drawn to Bazarov's lack of
affectation.
The dialogue is remarkable, particularly the exchanges between
Bazarov and Madame Odintsov. Most touching of all is Bazarov's
visit to his parents who worship him and try so desperately hard
not to suffocate him, while the portrait of Bazarov's retired army
doctor father could have been a caricature yet instead inspired
Chekhov, for whom Turgenev was a major influence. Sophisticated and
engagingly honest,
Fathers and Sons, published in 1861, marks the emergence
of one of world literature's
enduring achievements, the Russian novel.
This is a weekly series in which Eileen Battersbyrevisits titles from the literary canon.