Fathers and Sons (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

I love a good Russian saga but haven't got the hours in my life to read `War and Peace' every week. Thankfully `Fathers and Sons' offers a great, if some what neglected, classic in a couple of hundred pages. My copy of Ivan Turgenev's classic is a new translation by Richard Freeborn and some of the slang has been translated into modern idiom. I found this a little grating at first, but soon got into the swing of the characters using words like `dad'. I understand the translator's choice as this really is a book about the youth culture of its time. The two main characters Arkady and Bazarov are young men returning from study to their parents. It is a clash of worlds. Bazarov the nihilist or `new man' stirs up trouble where ever he goes. A man who declares Romanticism to be dead and then promptly falls in love! I wish Nihilism would come back as a valid philosophy. Oh, to be able to say `what's the point' and not to feel bad about it. Arkady has been in his friend's shadow but gradually he frees himself, finding love and compassion along the way.

There is tragedy and love in this brilliant story of the conflict between generations. Both father and son find a happiness and acceptance in marriage, while Bazarov and his neglected family will never find such peace. There is even something about daughters in this book, in fact one of the strongest characters is a woman, Anna, only Turgenev never quite gets inside her mind as he does with Bazarov and Arkady. `Fathers and Sons' offers an insight into Russian society of the Nineteenth Century but it also reflects the timeless troubles and joys of fathers and sons everywhere.

If one visits George Sand's home at Nohant, in the Berry region of France, one will find a dining room table set, with place names of the famous people who visited her house, including Flaubert and Chopin. Another place name reads: Ivan Turgenev. "Father and Sons" is Turgenev's most famous novel, an authentic and realistic account of upper class 19th Century Russian provincial life. Although he considered himself a progressive, his works were praised by the "old Believers," and criticized by his fellow liberals. He eventually abandoned the land he knew so well, and sought solace in Germany and France.

This novel is set in the early 1860's. The Napoleonic invasion is a receding collective memory; the serfs are about to be formally freed, at about the same time as the slaves would be freed in the United States. The dominant theme is reflected in the title: it is a transition from one generation to the next. Barzarov and Arcady are friends who have recently graduated from university, and are returning to their parent's estates in the countryside. Barzarov is the dominant one, assured in his world view as a "Nihilist," a fancy word for the inarticulate grunts of many a high school senior: the world is a rotten place, everything must be torn down, and then we can start over, but I don't have a clue as to what I would replace it with. Both sets of parents deeply love their children, and are accommodating to their views. It is Arcady's uncle, Peter, that objects, on a personal as well as on a philosophical basis, to the young "upstart," Barzarov.

An equally important theme is love. Turgenev provides a realistic portrait of what would be, to a modern reader, the rather amazing courtship rituals of upper-class Russian provincials. This would often involve visiting respective homes for extended periods of time, with concerns about dinner and entertainment, and long strolls in the garden. Madame Anna Odintzov, a young widow at 29, has her own estate. Barzarov, like many a man, wonders if she is "hot," a term that might reverberate even today. Anna also has a younger sister Katya, who plays the piano, and plays also into the free-floating testosterones. Love is both requited and unrequited.

Missing from the novel, certainly in terms of characterization, are the serfs. They serve only as background, with their most notable feature seeming to be the question of if they doff their hats when their "betters," the landed gentry pass. Thus, although Turgenev's world view appears to be tolerant and liberal, even to the advocacy of marrying outside the gentry's class (!), his principal progressive concerns appear to be better estate management, importing German scientific ideas and interspersing French phrases in the dialogue.

Like most good novelists whose work reflects their personal experiences, it is interesting to note that the duel scene must have been inspired by the fact that Tolstoy once challenged him to a one. Yes, Tolstoy the pacifist. And although Turgenev never married, he did have a daughter by a woman "outside his class," a serf, Pauline Verdot. Turgenev also has some observations that still have much validity: "Just look at what I am doing: just because there's room in the valise here am I stuffing it with hay: it's the same with our life's valise: we pack it full of anything that comes to hand, just to avoid leaving an empty space."

In a one word association game, if you'd response "ponderous" to the phrase "Russian novel," then try "Father and Sons." Lively, direct, and it covers a lot of ground in some 200 pages. 5-stars.

(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on February 11, 2011)

This book has so much to say about humans, change, parents and children, radicals and moderates that I think the world would be a much better place if more people read and talked about it.