Oblomov (Penguin Classics)

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The novel can be read as a parable of Russia in terminal pre-revolutionary decay. Or it can be read as high comedy (which is how Spike Milligan travestied it in his long-running 1960s stage version). Or one can read Oblomov as a profound allegory of the human condition. "Oblomov? C'est moi." But by the end of the third week, Spike forgot his lines, shouted for a prompt and began to ad-lib furiously. Spike pushed all boundaries in the play just like he gave birth to a new brand of comedy. No one was immune from his irreverence for conventions, not even royalty.

Oblomov (1964 play) - Silver Sirens Oblomov (1964 play) - Silver Sirens

Liukkonen, Petri. "Ivan Goncharov". Books and Writers. Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014. This misperception attests Goncharov’s balancing skill. Alexander is lured from his peaceful, idyllic estate, lovingly presented in the fragrance of its lilacs, berries, bushes, and forests, by visions of cosmopolitan dazzle. Once he is taken in hand by a “new man,” his coldly efficient, philistine uncle, Peter, one disappointmentsucceeds another. Like an early Oblomov, Alexander adjusts only superficially, never able to integrate his rustic values with St. Petersburg’s diverse phenomena. Like a young Goncharov, Alexander blunders from one unsuccessful love affair to another. His literary endeavors, characterized by overblown sentimental clichés, are equally fruitless. Despite all efforts by Peter, he turns into a rather ridiculous figure, an out-of-place relic in the bustling city. Goncharov’s ambiguous attitude, however, gives enough scope to elicit a measure of pity from the reader, to mark the young man’s discomforts and his inability to cope.

Freeborn, Richard. 2001. The Classic Russian Novel. In The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature, ed. Neil Cornwell, 101–110. London: Routledge. By presenting this type in his rather ordinary surroundings and endeavors, stripped of the Romantic aura with which Alexander Pushkin’s classical and Mikhail Lermontov’s Romantic verse had imbued him, Goncharov gained renown as a critical realist. While all three of his novels remain popular classics in his homeland, only Oblomov has found a wide readership and critical acclaim abroad. Emphasis on that work has caused modern Western scholars to value Goncharov as highly for his artful psychological portraits of stunted adults adrift in a changing world as for his sociological contribution. Meanwhile, in the play, Oblomov's friends hoped to entice him out of his melancholy through the power of love.

Oblomov by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov | Project Gutenberg Oblomov by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov | Project Gutenberg

It played to sell out-audiences for three years and only finished because Spike announced he had had enough, from his bed of course. they all froze. The mistress’s countenance even changed a little. All eyes were aimed at and all noses pointed toward the letter…. “Stop, don’t break the seal, Ilya Ivanich,” his wife insisted tearfully. “Who knows what kind of letter is in there? It might be something terrible, some disaster.”

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Diment, Galya. “The Two Faces of Ivan Goncharov: Autobiography and Duality in Obyknovennaia Istorija.” Slavic and East European Journal 32 (Fall, 1988). Moser, Charles (30 April 1992). The Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Cambridge University Press. p.228. ISBN 9780521425674 . Retrieved 25 September 2018.

Oblomov Son of Oblomov

Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich (27 September 2018). "The precipice". London, Hodder and Stoughton – via Internet Archive.

However, Elaine Blair argues in "The Short Happy Life of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov" that Oblomov is "not merely lazy." She simply says, "our hero favors very short-term pleasures over long-term ones," "he is self-conscious in a way that no farcical character or Rabelaisian grotesque would be," and "to Oblomov, to be absorbed in any task is to lose something of oneself; a person can maintain his full dignity only in repose." [9] Two people try their best to save Oblomov. First Stolz, the half-German entrepreneur, as lean as an English racehorse where Oblomov is fat and flabby, uses reason and intellectual appeal to convince Oblomov to change. Then Olga, already adapted to a modern intelligentsia but preserving a deep love for Russia’s cultural past, lures him with promises of selfless love. Sexually aroused, Oblomov briefly responds to her, but when he finds that Olga also demands intellectual arousal, constant mental awareness, he takes flight. The equally dull-witted widow offers both maternal and mistress services without the necessity of mental effort. Louria, Yvette, and Morton I. Seiden. 1969. Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov: The Anti-Faust as Christian Hero. Canadian Slavic Studies 3 (1, Spring): 39–68. You walk into a room and you can’t admire enough how symmetrically seated the guests are, how calmly and thoughtfully they’re sitting—over cards. There’s no getting around it, it’s a glorious purpose in life!

Short Happy Life of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov | Elaine Blair The Short Happy Life of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov | Elaine Blair

Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 169. No one can say Oblomov is a divided man, he is as perfectly integrated as a blancmange’. Pritchett, ‘The Great Absentee’, 237. In "Son of Oblomov" on the London stage years ago, Spike Milligan and Bill Owen were a few minutes into the opening dialogue when Spike noticed some late-comers being shown to their seats. Nikolai Dobrolyubov, in his 1859 article "What is Oblomovism?", [8] described the word as an integral part of Russian avos'. Stolz suggests that Oblomov's death was the result of "Oblomovism". [5] As he sleeps, a dream reveals Oblomov's upbringing in Oblomovka. He is never required to work or perform household duties, and his parents constantly pull him from school for vacations and trips or for trivial reasons. In contrast, his friend Andrey Stoltz, born to a German father and a Russian mother, is raised in a strict, disciplined environment, and he is dedicated and hard-working.

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For more on ‘superfluous man’, see Robie Macauley, ‘The Superfluous Man’, Partisan Review 19, no. 2 (1952): 169–82; Frank Friedeberg Seeley, ‘The Heyday of Superfluous Man in Russia’, Slavonic and East European Review 31, no. 76 (December 1952): 92–112; Ellen Chances, ‘The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature’, in Cornwell, ed., The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature, 111–22. Barbara sighed, put her head in her hands and said: "I just felt he was completely unique. He could be harsh but also had great generosity of spirit. Almost immediately upon its release in 1859, Oblomov became the subject of much discussion and literary criticism, due in large part to Dobrolyubov's essay "What is Oblomovism?". Today it is still seen as a classic of 19th century Russian literature, and a quintessential Russian novel. [11] In 1834, Goncharov graduated from the University and returned home to enter the chancellery of Simbirsk governor A. M. Zagryazhsky. A year later, he moved to Saint Petersburg and started working as a translator at the Finance Ministry's Foreign commerce department. Here, in the Russian capital, he became friends with the Maykov family and tutored both Apollon Maykov and Valerian Maykov in the Latin language and in Russian literature. [6] He became a member of the elitist literary circle based in the Maykovs' house and attended by writers like Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Dmitry Grigorovich. The Maykovs' almanac Snowdrop featured many of Goncharov's poems, but he soon stopped dabbling in poetry altogether. Some of those early verses were later incorporated into the novel A Common Story as Aduev's writings, a sure sign that the author had stopped taking them seriously. [6] [7] Literary career [ edit ] Portrait of Goncharov by Kirill Gorbunov, 1847 Spike had accused the man of sabotaging the play. They refused to look at each other on stage and eventually the man left. If he didn't like you, that was that."