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Oblomov
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Oblomov - Week 2 - Part 1, Chapters 8 - 11
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I am still in the long description of Oblomov's childhood and I'm wondering how a "fidgety", active child became this indolent man.
**Later** I see how the dreamy life of the estate and the stories about a magic land with no work influenced the boy. And he realized his parents didn't really do any work.
I think there are so many hilarious but also seriously true passages. For instance a whole string of suggestions with the solution to bad health ( - and does it not seem like something people say today?):
Go abroad, Change your job, Go to Germany for water, Go to Switzerland for grapes, to Egypt for warm air, Engage in light conversation, Don’t exert yourself, No meat, Sea air...
The story about the letter arriving in Oblomovka is superb! It makes me think about the people who are addicted to the messages on their phones today. The whole household focusing on that one letter is just lovely. And how they leave it.
I adore the description of what the people of Oblomovka think is important and how tranquile their state of zen is. Their life evolves around preparing dinner, watching insects and savouring the moments, while people in the city think about politics, marrying into the right families and taking advantage of eachother. Oblomovka is simple living, something that modern people try to seek back to.
Goncharov describes it as exaggerated and ridiculous - but I read it as the truth.
He is writing about society in 1860. But it is the same today! Many people today are contemplating on how to leave the digital world and retreat into wilderness.
Concious office workers today can be frustrated the same way as in our book. There is still a whole web of pseudo-work that entagles people and causes stress: registration, documentation and long manuals with screenshots.
Charlotte wrote: "...Concious office workers today can be frustrated the same way as in our book. There is still a whole web of pseudo-work that entagles people and causes stress: registration, documentation and long manuals with screenshots..."I wish you weren't right, Charlotte..
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The incident with the letter, asking for a recipe for beer, was funny.
Charlotte wrote: "..Goncharov describes it as exaggerated and ridiculous - but I read it as the truth."It's interesting how often we get glimpses of truth only through a refined dream or grotesquely written novel... Maybe because real life genuinely recorded/photographed would have too much junk captured to discern any truth in it?
Cphe wrote: "It's all in the Oblomov family genes."The genes explanation is not unreasonable, if even tragic one.
In any other circumstances people with such genes would die out fast. But in Oblomovka they kept this 'leave-me-alone' life style for many generations. Nothing disturbed them - the genes survived. For Ilyusha, circumstance changed, life changed, and now he has to face the music. The only hope left is: Please do not leave offspring, man!
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Of course, the Oblomovs' indolent country bliss was made possible by the peasants (just as when people imagine the languidness of plantations in the American South a bit before this time - before the Civil War - it was because enslaved people were doing all the work). And Oblomov's St. Petersburg lifestyle is possible because of the labor of peasants, who apparently are having an extremely rough time on Oblomovka, considering that some have run away. City people who decide to "get back to nature" nowadays are usually in for a rude awakening unless they're already wealthy enough to pay people to do the intense physical work that farming requires.
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Oblomov is at fault for neglecting his duties, but he doesn't know any other way of life since he was ruined by his upbringing.
I see the “Dream” chapter really as a dream, a idealized world where everyone is happy and nobody has to contribute to the welfare of all of them. The harsh reality looked quite different for most Russians living in these villages, slaving away to make their masters richer. Here it is mostly song and dance, people rest, they actually “look” for work. That’s what Oblomov wants it to be, but it certainly was not like that at all. There was a reason why the Russian society fell apart and a revolution could happen.
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Good point, it's a bit like the Regency romances (such as Bridgertons) where all the servants are contented and nobody is ever sick or starving. I enjoy those but I don't take them as historically accurate.
Yes, and as a child he wouldn't care for or understand "economics".What was memorable to him and left indelible marks in his brain was: The world is deceiving and dangerous, don't go there, stay away from that; and if something is satisfactory working - don't try to fix it, because you don't know how much trouble your fix will pour on your head; if you feel fine here, don't even think to want to be anywhere else. In a word, anything unfamiliar is MORE LIKELY to bring dread, trouble, disaster than anything good. And one does not seek the good from the good. We lived alright without letters for so long, and now (we must've angered God) we got one. First, we have to open it somehow - trouble already, not to mention paper cuts. Then we have to read it.. And then what? Well, we may get disturbed. Do we want to be disturbed? Isn't it easier to pretend we never got the letter, muzhik lost it or his baba used it as kindling..
A modern neuroscientist would tell us how much irreversible pathways within neuron structures of young Oblomov's brain all that created.
I am still waiting for something else in the book. So far, all this is kind of.. trivial.. I'm thinking, Oblomov must have some good qualities... qualities that are incompatible with the new life style.. When Oblomovs are gone, will we lose something humanly important forever? We'll see.. let's read on..
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I didn't get sad when I was reading. I got lazy and it aggravated me. I wanted to Gibbs slap him and tell him to get dress and get something done... something, anything.
Bigollo wrote: "I'm thinking, Oblomov must have some good qualities... qualities that are incompatible with the new life style.. ..."I too have faith in our protagonist. The more people point at him (and label him) as slothful, the more I get protective of him and think there is more to come... (hope there is :))
Behind his refusal to go out and party with the right crowd there must be something brooding in his mind.
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I kind of did too. Hoping something happens to get him out of bed soon. Oblomov is likeable in his way, but, you know...
I started late on this but, maybe because I'm rushing the reading to catch up, I'm finding this a real slog. My mind wanders and I'm just reading words and missing some things. It almost make me wish I had chosen the Hogarth translation. Almost, but not quite. However, I did think the dream was more of a selective and subjective recollection with many truths and was a technique to help the reader see how our hero became what he is. By presenting it in a dream, not only can Goncharov make it subjective, but he also gives himself the opportunity to vary from the dream's details if he later chooses to do so.
This week's reading starts off with more of the same, Oblovmov lounging about and "thinking" of plans for reorganizing his estate and "of a new and sterner measure against laziness." This is not the first time Oblovmov has made mention of someone else's laziness. What do you make of this? Is he hyperaware of his own laziness so much so he sees it so easily in others? Or do you think he is oblivious to his own laziness?
Oblomov and Zakhar have a pretty nasty row with each other after Zakhar states, "I thought, sir, that other people are no better than us, and if they move, why can we?" To which Oblomov becomes highly insulted being compared to "other people," so much so that he berates Zakhar and calls him names. What do you think causes such a fierce reaction in Oblomov? Does he really think he is better than everyone else? He really puts the screws to Zakhar, calling him venomous and causing him to cry. What do you think about this relationship, as we've seen it so far?
When Oblomov dismisses Zakhar and decides to take a nap he has a revelation. The author says, "It was one of the most clear-sighted and courageous moments of Oblomov's life. Oh how dreadful he felt when there arose in his mind a clear and vivid idea of human destiny and the purpose of a man's life, and when he compared this purpose with his own life, and when various vital problems wakened one after another in his mind... He felt sad and sorry at the thought of his own lack of education, at the arrested development of his spiritual powers, at the feeling of heaviness which interfered with everything he planned to do; and was overcome by envy of those whose lives were rich and full..." That is a pretty heavy train of thought. Do you think we're going to see some changes in Oblomov going forward?
Chapter nine is entitled "Oblomov's Dream." In reading this I questioned whether this was actually a dream or more so a recollection of Oblomov's childhood which would help the reader understand the character better. How do you perceive this chapter?