Futility [Paperback]

No, this is not The Wreck of the Titan, this is the brilliant tragicomedy of Russian life that has inspired so much laughter, tears, and admiration since it was first published in the 1920's. As the subject is the comic hopelessness of love and success, I'm sure the author is very amused (posthumously)to find it mistaken for a book about a shipwreck in all of these reviews. But if you end up here, by mistake or not, do read this book, because it is horribly funny and poignant and true.

One of my greatest enjoyments in reading is the discovery of idiosyncratic books which have escaped public awareness, but manifest elements of genius; often quirky and flawed. This is the pleasure of the treasure-hunter at having stumbled across something precious among so much that is common and derivative. I would definitely include Gerhardie's book "Futility" in this personal grouping, along with such disparate authors as Robert Aickman who wrote wildly different horror, and David Lindsay who penned the one-of-a-kind "Voyage To Arcturus". The only thing these authors have in common is that they are different from anything else I've read. Gerhardie's novel seems at first to be an amusing farce which belies the bleak connotation of the title. A young Englishman born and educated in pre-revolutionary Russia is gradually initiated into the absurd complexities of a very extended Russian family with whom he becomes acquainted. The patriarch and provider has cascaded his obligations into astronomical proportions by having successively declared his love for three different women. One remains his legal wife, one is an ex-mistress, the other his current mistress. Each of these relationships has brought into Nikolai Vasilievich's domain numerous relatives who continue to look to him for their livelihood. The young Englishman,called Andrei Andreiech, while trying to establish a romantic relationship with one of the attractive daughters becomes involved, sometimes to a degree he regrets, in these complicated affairs. For the most part,though, he maintains a sympathetic but detached observation of the progress of this situation, which actually adds up to no progress at all. The desires, illusions, delusions, expectations and eccentricities of the many players in this drama all seem to add up to nothing but a perpetual waiting for something to happen, or futility. There is a frequent airing out of emotional states reminiscent of Doestoevski's novels but without his oppressive morbidity. So it seems you can label this as an amusing social satire. Then a rather deeper tone makes itself felt. The story enters the period of the revolution. The families remain absorbed in their own local tempest even while the world they knew is being dismantled by outside events. The stupidity and blundering of the leaders and the bloodthirsty rampaging of the mobs drag on and on until there is no longer any possibility of humane solutions. A more universal futility encompasses the localized futility of the family. The narrator maintains his detached-observer attitude, almost to the point of glibness, in the face of such monstrous events. But now, surprisingly, we see our young Englishman begin to occasionally make astute comments about the war, the various personalities he comes in contact with, and life in general. What might have been construed as glibness is really, it seems, a determination to maintain his objectivity in the face of the unbridled irrationality rampant in the world. Ironically, he himself is caught up in an irrationality of which he is well aware, and that is his vain pursuit of the capricious daughter, Nina. There is a definite story in this work . It is told plainly enough to be easily understood in a literal fashion. This was the great charm of the book for me. Without any allegory, symbolism or pretentious post-modern trappings, it seemed to me a penetrating look at humanity with its mixture of the tragic, the comic, and the mundane; always waiting for "real life" to begin, while "real life" is continually passing and sliding away behind us. The characters are amusing in their quirkiness, but I think the real point is that their quirkiness serves to exemplify the extremes of human nature. Perhaps this work contains some structural or stylistic flaws, but I have to give it 5 stars based on my personal engagement with it.

This novel is part farce, part whimsical, part comedic and, in part, profound but not terribly profound such that it impresses one as some kind of overlooked national treasure, no. An Englishman born of Russian parents (like the author) visits Russia and encounters three sisters, one of whom he slowly falls in love with, and encounters their father as well as the sisters' mother, step-mother, and a whole host of odd relatives and acquaintances.

There isn't much of a plot. The development of the story is episodic and occasional and at about 150 pages in, while the story continues now in Siberia, the reader soon feels utterly adrift in a morass of trivial details that lead nowhere, except that sometimes even moments in a Siberian winter there can be some comedy, however dreary.

In part, the story wanting to be told is that life is plotless and no philosophy can ever give its shoddy aspects any substantial meaning, particularly so long as we have the Bolsheviks always surrounding us and trying to steal our property and our money. This "moral" is all done at an often breathless comedic speed but not consistently so, which, in part, is also part of the "moral," I suppose.

The author writes well, has a good painter's talent for description, and the story, as a whole, has form and structure, although it could have withstood something culling to make it stronger than it is. Insofar as the author's awareness of how international political events are created, dealt with and decided, this reader found him scathingly if absolutely on target and correct. Who has the strength and a plan to destroy Bolshevism and Bolsheviks?f No one in the novel. Without such a solution, the novel seems to say, we all wait to live and spend our lives waiting to live -- as best we can (for those who survive). Ha-ha.