Modern Mythology

I finally finished reading “Fathers and Sons” after a few weeks of slowly progressing through this relatively small volume. It was a decent read, but not one that I found particularly memorable. Sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate the value that a book would have had at the time it was written relative to now. This one, for example, was written in 1862 and likely seemed revolutionary at the time. The ideas from its pages have been covered countless times since then, so it becomes difficult to appreciate it in the fresh sense that it would have originally had.

Why I read it: I’ve really enjoyed much of what I’ve read from the great Russian writers, whether it’s short stories from Anton Chekhov, “War and Peace” or “Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth” by Leo Tolstoy, or any of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works. Dostevsky, in fact, is my favourite author, and it was a reference he made in “The Idiot” to Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” that made me want to read it. When I find an author I enjoy, I like to read the things that I know influenced him/her. Dostevsky’s reference to Turgenev made it obvious that he was an important figure to him, and “Fathers and Sons” is Turgenev’s best-known work. The reference in “The Idiot” was to the “nihilist” character in “Fathers and Sons”, which also caught my attention. I like anything that has a philosophical leaning to it, and this made it sound as if Turgenev might have something interesting to say.

What the book is about: The book tells the story of two young friends, Bazarov and Arkady. Bazarov seems to be a natural leader, and his influence over the impressionable Arkady is obvious. Bazarov is the nihilist mentioned in “The Idiot”; he claims to believe in nothing. Figures of authority, religion, political institutions, traditions, etc are all without significance to him, and the novel is largely about the gap between his generation and the older characters in the novel. Arkady’s father and uncle represent the traditional values of the society, but they are struggling mightily with the changing Russion political climate as serfs are freed and traditional ways are changing.