A Book Review
“Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Turgenev
A Russian classic worth reading.
Don’t be put off by the fact that this book is a ‘Russian classic’. Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons is truly worth a read. Plus, it isn’t a thousand pages of depression, like some other Russian classics I could mention (which are also still well worth reading).
The book, not surprisingly given the title, is concerned with the generation gap, but it is also concerned with Russian society at that time, embracing the modern world, disillusionment, the power of emotion, family dynamics, and change - both individual and national. The book was written just after the emancipation of the serfs and is set just before this major event.
The story follows two recently graduated students, Yevgeny Bazarov, and his friend, Arkady Kirsanov, as they travel around meeting various characters. Bazarov and Kirsanov are both ‘nihilists’, and while their beliefs are pretty tame by today's standards, their desire for change, dislike of the ‘system’, and rejection of emotion and embrace of science were revolutionary and shocking in their day. Mind you, so was a woman showing her knees — so it’s all relative.
The characters they visit are almost archetypes of the various strata and political viewpoints of society at the time. It is…
