Fathers and Sons is, by all accounts, Ivan Turgenev’s masterpiece – by which I mean, it is at a guess the only one of the author’s works which the reasonably well-read will likely still be acquainted with, at least by name. It is a fine novel, not so fine that the reader is impelled to search out the rest of Turgenev’s portfolio, even if the publisher has helpfully provided a list in the introduction, but still itself worth re-reading, or so I guess after my first passage through. Each scene is pleasing when not marvelous; Turgenev – fortunately, given his topic – had an eye for intergenerational interaction in both its pathos and humor; and the story flows smoothly and on the whole with an eye to giving pleasure to the reader.
Turgenev’s characters are painted in bold strokes which are reminiscent of his slightly older contemporary Dickens. His ostensible genre is the gentrified romance, and the book could have been written almost any time in the late 18th or the 19th century, and the plot set anywhere in Europe, with a gentry – perhaps even in New England or elsewhere. There is, in short, very little distinctly Russian about the novel – with the caveat that in the translation I read, the translator, Bernard Guerney, openly claims to have attempted to create the effect of timelessness. In that effort I think he failed comprehensively, but what unintentionally universifying effects he may be responsible for I am not in a position to judge.
I say “ostensible” because Turgenev throughout plays games with the rules of the genre. Fathers and Sons has about the same relation to romantic comedy as Candide has to an adventure story – in fact, a couple passing references make me think Turgenev had Candide in mind. After this, there be spoilers.
Our one hero does get his conventional wedded bliss, with the expected preliminary confusions about the object of his adoration and so forth as the rules decree. But what simply cannot be gotten around is that the other protagonist dies – and not even for any good reason but through his own recklessness and another’s carelessness – and this, just after it was starting to look like he also had settled down comfortably. Turgenev’s style and gift is such that this, while a literary surprise, is hardly a shock – it is such an obvious thing to have happened to such a character having been through such and such previous events. But it rather hangs over the rest of the conventional side of the conclusion like a pall.
I am at this point compelled to say that I flipped quickly through the various notes by the author, included at the front of the edition I read, about this work which he considered that most critics misunderstood. Turgenev claimed – whether in original intent or on reflection it is hard to say – that Basarov (who dies) is a lone protagonist; that the character was based on a man he had once met; and that that man was placed in the context of a conventional novel by the author’s whim to suggest the essential fruitlessness of the then-current mode of would-be-revolutionary Russian fashion, which Turgenev dubbed “nihilism” although we would probably consider it anarchism, only with manners.
If so, Turgenev hardly succeeded in his object. The other hero is equally present, equally a protagonist, and just as interesting. And his point is muted by his style and context. In fact, one could read Fathers and Sons quite comfortably as carrying out the traditional “morals” of the genre: the affectionate man gets a happy marriage; the “nihilist” gets nothing; the hard-minded woman gets a “successful” marriage (in the epilogue); the devout couple is left with their faith; and so on.
On the other hand, in certain aspects the novel is practically postmodern, in that it invites multiple perspectives and controversy about its meaning. You could easily read into the work a criticism of religion: the devout couple is left not just with their faith but (theirs is the son who dies) nothing but their faith – does Turgenev suggest it is a false faith? You could read it as a criticism of intellectuals: the happiest characters are those who settle down to mind their love and their own business. You could even, with perhaps a little stretch, read a religious moral into it: we are all Basarov, at risk of being struck down by chance, fate, or Providence at any moment, and is there any hope then except faith and prayer?
It is, whatever the author intended, a vividly-told, thought-provoking story, and I expect to return to it several times with enjoyment in the future.
Romance of Victory 