Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev is one of The 100 Greatest Books of All Time, and one of my Top 100, works that are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other novels and films, my best take is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.htm

 

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev is one of The 100 Greatest Books of All Time, and one of my Top 100, works that are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other novels and films, my best take is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.htm

 

 

10 out of 10

 

Fathers and Sons could be used as the model for the magnum opus, it is perfect, nec plus ultra, you could not ask for more, furthermore, it is equally exhilarating on a second reading – mine could be the third, this being an audiobook, it is in fact more than that, for I went back and forth, listening to chapters three or more times

 

For a while, Yevgeny Bazarov (there are a few ways to write his name, if we look on the internet) seemed to me the nemesis, the figure to dislike in the narrative, but with hindsight, and considering that now I have to take in the ending, he is also one who wants progress, breaking things is that mantra in Silicon Valley

Granted, the nerds of Silicon Valley, I mean the clever and also stupid fat cats, Musk, Zuckerberg et co, have all kneeled in front of the Orange Emperor, and thus I wish they break themselves – but let us move on, Bazarov is a nihilist, albeit later in the game, he may have a change of heart, when faced with serious problems

 

Our greatest mind, Andrei Plesu https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/11/toleranta-si-intolerabilulcriza-unui.html used to talk about the Russian questions, and sublime Turgenev touches on all of them here, from love to liberalism versus conservatism, changes to introduce in medicine and agriculture

Bazarov’s repudiation of everything is more than irritating, in his conflict with Pavel Kirsanov, the former says ‘he does not give a kopeck on Rafael’, which is outrageous and I said to myself ‘I am definitely on the side of baron Kirsanov’, and indeed, my preference is there still, age, education, views incline that way, except for him being Russian

 

Nevertheless, Bazarov is a complex figure, he would be part of a chef d’oeuvre as a simple, tedious personage, not in a leading role anyway, so he evolves, he meets Madame Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, a beautiful, intelligent, erudite aristocrat, and the exchange is marvelous, despite the fact that they belong to different classes

Penelope Lively explains in According To Mark that we are separated from others by what we have read or not, just as much as we are by class, status, and this is one case where Bazarov and Ana Odintsova are brought together by books, while they come from somewhat opposite realms, and there is another aspect here

 

Yevgeny Bazarov may have fallen in love, it is ‘fascination’ in any case, he tells the splendid woman that he loves her, perhaps he was mistaken, after all, he gets into trouble, because he is also attracted by Fenechka, the former servant who has been living with Nikolay Kirsanov, the father of his friend, Arkady, and the host

Arkady’s mother had died, and Nikolay Kirsanov has a son with his former servant, he has not married, concerned about what his son and brother would say, nonetheless, we may get another hindrance, for Bazarov keeps talking to Fenechka, seducing her, maybe, with his compliments, and imposing presence, pushing across the limit

 

Pavel Kirsanov had seen from the first moment that it will not work – ‘this unkempt creature’, he asks when he first saw their guest, friend and worse, mentor for his nephew – and he is watching over this peril, only to come across the guest, as he is kissing the lover of his brother, and the result is a climax in the narrative

Pavel Kirsanov challenges the future doctor to a duel, with pistols, and if necessary, he will hit the man with a cane, the guest thinks that if that were to happen, he would have strangled the older man – well, close to his fifties, back then, this was more of the seventies now – that notwithstanding, they go through the motions

Pavel Kirsanov is wounded, and Bazarov is out without a scratch, for the moment, there is so much to say about this masterpiece, that I will put in more on thoughts in the upcoming notes on the short stories of Ivan Turgenev, just as I have mused about it in the previous reviews, such as this one  https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/kassyan-of-fair-springs-by-ivan.html

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html 

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’