Bazarov is no hero

He endears himself to me less and less with each page, particularly on page 151, where he says of his parents that they are, " ... so busy, they don't worry about their own insignificance." All this as he reclines about as a summer guest breaking from indifferently training as a doctor at his father's expense. A father with a distinguished Russian Army surgeon's record who tries to please his son by off-handed bragging about his modern I-Heart-Serf farming practices to no avail. And Bazarov is no baby Bolshevik although his fawning friend, Arkady, all the while thinking that perhaps caring about nothing means equally caring about everything, finally gets a clue as Bazarov reveals his true hostility toward all humanity, really in one simple line, in which he says he views integrity as a "feeling" which thoroughly blows Arkady away. It is left unsaid, but I assume integrity to be seen by a righteous person as a basic humanistic principle inherent to survival of communities. Arkady finally has it up to here when Bazarov calls the uncle referenced in earlier posts "an idiot" and Arkady accuses him of not knowing, "what a sense of justice is" and thereby being, "in no position to pass judgement on it." (155) I cannot forsee where this is leading in a positive direction (Hello, it's RussianLit) as our protaganist has no love for any type of man. I must assume that I am being introduced to nihilism only and not the birthing Bolshevism of Gorky. I should reconsider the name of this blogsite. It is obviously not a portal to anything but merely an amateur reader's ramblings! But bear with me and certainly help out when you can. I would like recommendations for pre-serf emancipation literature.

Amazon Test

This is a test to see if the Amazon link works.(15% kickback if you buy from this link). So go buy the book already, feed the starving veteran before I show up on your street corner with a cardboard sign and a dog wearing a bandana. It's Fathers and Sons by Turgenev. The first Turgenev I've read and has its ups and downs. (Scroll down to first post for initial discussion.) It definately drags on, esp. when the protaganist, Bazarov, aka "the nihilist," is in the room. He's quite a bore actually with no redeeming qualities revealed as of yet and some of his scenes parallel the endless snooty salon dialogues by trust fund posers in 19th century English literature. Hopefully, we'll get back soon to the father's despair over the current generation. I feel that's where the heart of the story lies in spite of Bazarov's starring role as the Baby Bolshevik. "All men are similar," he says, "the slight variations are of no importance." (102). Such insights from a time period building toward the Communist Revolution make it history in disguise.

Speaking of boys in baggy shorts ...

Well at least Blink 182 has a mirror in "I'm Not Sick but I'm Not Well,": "Been around the world and found that only stupid people were breeding; the cretins cloning and feeding, and I don't even own a t.v." I think Turgenev, if he didn't have to look at them (classic boy babies jumping around), might own the CD.

Generational Germinal

As I observe with disgust the modern metrosexual man or the bouncing boy bar babies in their baggy shorts and flip flops and wonder what kind of biological survival vacuum exists in the women who sleep with them, I find it somewhat comforting to confront the same types of concern for the species in random places in history, most recently in my readings set in 19th century Russia. A time of huge upheaval, what with the freeing of the serfs and all, the tea drinking steppe-sitters of the day contemplate with equal concern the direction of the society and in particular the unsatisfactory condition of the youth, the future, the seeds from the past. Turgenev in Fathers and Sons builds his case upon minor worries, soon escalating to a virulent outburst by the uncle, severely disturbed by the self-proclaimed "nihilist" brought home by his nephew. Pavel Petrovich, an aristocratic type of pre-modern times, rants: " ... In the old days young people had to study. If they did not want to be thought ignorant they had to work hard whether they liked it or not. But now they only need say, "Everything in the world is rubbish!" - and the trick's done. The young men are simply delighted. Whereas they were only sheep's heads before, now they have suddenly blossomed out as nihilists!" (Penguin, 1973, p. 70)