I'd never heard of this novel (published in 1859), or of its Russian author -- Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-91) -- until I came across it in Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. While sitting at the Sea Garden (where her summer job is to look after three little girls as they play on the beach and swim), Lenu is reading Oblomov...

I looked it up, and discovered it was available on Gutenberg. This version, translated into English by C.J. Hogarth, was published in 1915. Having read some analysis of the book, I think it is somewhat abridged (or maybe it's just one of those translations that leaves stuff out...). There is a newer translation, by Stephen Pearl, which Joseph Frank deems "snappily colloquial and readable"; maybe this will offer a good excuse to revisit the work one day.

I'm embarrassed to have never heard of it, given that it is apparently "accepted as one of the top 10 greatest Russian novels of the 19th century", and a pivotal sequence constitutes "one of the most famous dreams in literature".

The eponymous Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a gentle person, with a pleasant demeanour and a kind heart. But he takes a capacity for lethargy to truly monumental proportions... Lying in bed is "his normal condition"; his favourite attire is a "real Eastern dressing-gown" (described as "so roomy that Oblomov might have wrapped himself in it once or twice over"); and his surroundings give the "impression of all-prevailing carelessness and neglect". He has a servant, Zakhar, whom he plagues with idiotic requests, and who, in response, has adopted a position of doing as little as he can get away with.

When we meet him, Oblomov has received not only notice to quit his flat, but also a worrying letter from the overseer of his country estate, warning him of imminent crop failure. When he received the first such admonitory missive, three years ago, he started to plan some improvements for the administration of his property. Yet nothing has been put into action. Now, in response to the letter, he thinks up "a new and stricter course to be taken against laziness and vagrancy on the part of the peasantry". And then he loses himself in the design of a new house, an activity that gives way to a prolonged reverie, and after the exhaustion occasioned by yet another visitor, he goes back to sleep...

Oblomov is not unaware that his indolence has chained him to an incredibly restricted existence: "At the very start a secret enemy had laid a heavy hand upon him and diverted him from the road of human destiny. And now he seemed to be powerless to leave the swamps and wilds in favour of that road... Brain and volition alike had become paralysed, and, to all appearances, irrevocably." As Oblomov dreams, however, we begin to see the roots of his malaise.

His hereditary estate is called Oblomovka. It's a peaceful, wholly undramatic place. In his childhood, he was smothered with attention and protection, and kept in line by means of a mixture of constant supervision and scary stories. Every scrap of energy and initiative was drained from his small life. He's not the only one who lives in a state of torpor, however. After mornings that are "usefully and busily spent" -- at least by the servants -- come noon, and dinner, and then "the hour of post-prandial slumber". Then there's tea, and minor occupations. Then supper. Then bed. "'Another day is over, praise be to God!' said the inmates of Oblomovka... 'Well spent it has been, and God send that to-morrow be like it.'" Sounds like an eternal state of lockdown...


Russia, 1993. Possibly inappropriate images, as Oblomovka is a land where there is "nothing grand or wild or immense"...

Oblomov is educated at the school kept by "an old German named Stolz" (I'll spell it this way, rather than using the weird transliteration -- Schtoltz -- that occurs in my version). This is the only institution that "stood clear of the primordial mist of laziness, of simplicity of morals, of inertia, and of immobility for which Oblomovka was distinguished". Oblomov's family accordingly keep him away from school on the slightest pretext... No-one sees the need to think, after all: Habits and practices are handed down; problems are confronted with querulous pronouncements, procrastination, and bodging. There's a wonderful scene where a letter is received. Days pass before it is opened (because it might contain bad news). It turns out it's a request for a beer recipe. The reply is talked about a lot, and many preparations are made to construct it, but no-one ever gets round to actually writing it.

Stolz's son, Andrei, cheerful and practical to a fault, is the first to really attempt to free Oblomov from what the sufferer describes as "oblomovshchina" (the disease of Oblomovka), and galvanize him into action. But to no avail. (Frank, by the way, points out: "Open any Russian dictionary and you will find the word oblomovshchina, defined, in the first one that comes to hand, as 'carelessness, want of energy, laziness, negligence,' and specifying its origin in Goncharov's novel." Not a vocabulary item I was familiar with...)

The second person to undertake a rescue mission is Olga. Oblomov falls in love with her. And for a while he's out of the dressing-gown (someone spirits it away), and no longer sleeping all day. But he manages to talk himself out of it. He reasons that his withdrawal from the relationship will stop Olga making a mistake, as he cannot possibly be the type of man that a woman would fall in love with. There's a fear of commitment, and a crippling fear of action: "Why does she care for me so much? And why am I so fond of her? Would we had never met! It is all Stolz's fault. He shed love over us as he might have shed a disease. What sort of a life is this? Nothing but anxiety and emotion! How can it ever lead to peaceful happiness and rest?"

Olga realizes what is going on. She is still willing to marry him, but only if she can elicit from him the "bold and considered" response she requires. Eventually clear that this response will never be forthcoming, and so the marriage is off, she tells him: "I realized that I was loving in you only what I wished you to contain -- that it was only the future Oblomov of my dreams that was so dear to me." She asks him who has put a curse upon him. He again replies that it is the disease of Oblomovka... And he reverts to his previous state of apathy: "Ah, life, life!" he says: "It disturbs me -- it allows me no rest."

Olga marries Stolz, who soon gives up any hope of changing his friend, but stands by him, helping to administer his property, and get him out of trouble. Forced to relocate, Oblomov enters into a liaison with his landlady (whom he eventually marries). She provides for his every need, requires nothing of him, and even manages to restore to him the dreaded dressing-gown. Not surprisingly, his health is declining. Occasionally he reproaches himself "for having made of his life so little as he had done". And it's not long before he is dead: "Despite his wife's ceaseless and devoted care for every moment of his existence, the prolonged inertia, the unbroken stillness, the sluggish gliding from day to day had ended by quietly arresting the machine of life."



It's a strange book, but it's interesting on several levels.

The psychology is fascinating, for a start. Oblomov is nothing if not annoying. Yet, we all -- don't we? -- have days when we want to do things, yet can't stir up the energy to do them, and blame others.

Maria Kardaun also argues that Oblomov suffers from "a devouring mother complex", maintaining that "the dream of Oblomov depicts an idyllic mother-complex world -- idyllic, but stifling."

Nasrullah Mambrol points out that Goncharov's precocious use of a return-to-the-womb theme (well before Freud) and a stream-of-consciousness approach (well before Joyce or Proust) mean that "Goncharov has firmly established a place for himself within the genre of the modern psychological novel".

Also intriguing, and very believable, is the depression that besets Olga. As her happiness becomes greater, she finds that she broods more over the past. She tries to shake off this despondency, and throws herself into hectic activity. "Yet the bustle of society brought her small relief, and she would retire again into her corner -- there to rid her spirit of the unwonted sense of depression... Her main fear was lest she should fall ill of the disease, the apathetic malady, of Oblomovka... [She could] never discover what it was she yearned for, nor why, at times, she seemed to tire of her comfortable existence, to demand of it new and unfamiliar impressions."

Andrei Stolz replies quite perceptively: "You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken... Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who voluntarily goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge." And -- using an oft-quoted self-help technique -- Olga looks into the future, imagines the worst, and begins "to review and to estimate her ability to cope with it".



Socio-politically, it's also a very informative book. It's not long before the reader realizes that it's a monumental send-up of the society of its time. In the stream of visitors who call on the somnolent Oblomov at the beginning of the book, we have, inter alia, Volkov, whose official obligations "never require my actual presence, save twice a week"; Sudbinski, whose duties have lightened now that he is head of a department, but whose life is beset by officialese; Penkin, the "realist" writer, who -- most unusually -- is able to elicit the passionate criticism of Oblomov; and the doctor, who warns him that two or three more years of this mode of life will bring on a stroke, and prescribes all sorts of unrealistic courses of action: "You must do no thinking whatsoever... You must avoid emotion of every kind... You must lay aside all reading and writing... Walk eight hours out of every twenty-four..."

But these sketches pale into insignificance compared with the lucid portrayal of the universe of Oblomovka, and the oblomovshchina associated with it. In the same year that the novel was published, radical literary critic Nikolay Dobrolyubov wrote an essay entitled What Is Oblomovshchina? He identifies the characteristics of the Oblomov "type" in a number of Russian literary heroes, and sees oblomovshchina as the scourge that is holding back the country's progress. Goncharov, he says, who "was able to reveal our oblomovshchina to us", erred only by implying that this state of mind was on its way out. Regrettably not so, says Dobrolyubov: "There is a large portion of Oblomov within every one of us, and it is too early to write our obituary... Stolzes, men of an integral and active character that makes every idea a striving and translates it into deeds the moment it arises, do not yet exist in our society... [In any case] he is not the man who 'will be able to pronounce in a language intelligible to the Russian soul that mighty word: "forward!" [as urged by Gogol].' Perhaps Olga Ilyinskaya is more capable of doing this than Stolz, for she stands nearer to our new life... From her we may expect to hear the word that will consume oblomovshchina with fire and reduce it to ashes."



Others, meanwhile, see much more ambivalence in Goncharov's portrayal. Frank, for example, remarks: ""The radical Dobrolyubov was entirely right in viewing Oblomov’s character as an implied attack on the social milieu from which he came... But this milieu is portrayed with such loving detail, and the satire is so muted and even affectionate, that it has raised questions about the 'ambiguity' of Goncharov’s point of view... Vladimir Korolenko, a noted turn-of-the-century writer, acutely remarked that 'Goncharov, of course, mentally rejected Oblomovism, but deep inside he loved it with profound love beyond his control.'"

Mambrol agrees: "By lavishing endless pages on the harmful effects of Oblomovism and the virtues of Stolz, a Western-influenced business type, Goncharov seemed to strike a forceful blow at the roots of Russia’s economic and social evils... Stolz and Olga, who eventually marry, represent the best of traditional Russia fused with the best of imported progressive behavior... Even here, however, the author’s descriptive talents hover lovingly over the blubbery Oblomov -- over his dreams, his reflections, his blunders -- while Stolz comes across as artificial and wooden, the victim of uninspired portrayal... [Olga's] dissatisfactions, even with the faultless Stolz, echo the author’s own inability to believe fully in the spiritual benefits of a forward-moving Russia."

According to Kardaun, "Goncharov admits, in so many words, both that it was his intention to create in Stolz a convincing embodiment of modernity, and that he failed. We know from letters that Goncharov explicitly wanted to write a novel to depict the negative qualities of the feudal Oblomov way of life. Well, he didn't succeed. Against his own convictions the novel became not a condemnation, but a celebration of a lost world."

So... Lenin railed against Oblomov as a figure epitomizing all that stood in the way of Russian social change, and Gorbachev used Oblomov to describe those resisting perestroika, but "the book’s appeal exceeds the country and the culture of its origins. Oblomovshchina is a spiritual condition and a social problem that we all may recognize, whether it delights us or not."