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.

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)