Oblomov

Sorry to say I'm getting a little frustrated with Oblomov (Ivan Goncharov) as how much can we take of a protagonist who is entirely listless and narrow minded? He makes a point of noting that he doesn't read he has no apparent social awareness no love life or sex life he's indifferent at best to the friends who call on him he is obsessed with the two problems before him - the need to find a new apartment and the declining revenues from the estate that supports him at the expense of others we might add and for every issue that comes up his first instinct is to blame his servant. Toward the end of book one Goncharov gives us some of the back story on Oblomov (and on servant zakhar as well) and we begin to feel some pity for both - victims of a way of life that assumed one class of people should benefit at the expense of others, a way that's changing and leaving Oblomov abandoned in his dark and dusty rooms. Yes we see esp in his long dream chapter, which is really more of an extended memory of his childhood, that his early years were a paradisal time that is now lost to him, and we see that he has never been happy or fulfilled in life, and we pity him to an extent - he is no doubt clinically depressed and well as seriously OCD - but this isn't pity such as we feel for a tragic hero - hamlet or young werther, say- because he takes no action he is the passive recipient of our sympathy or interest. Yes Oblomov is an extended character study and the character represents his time and his class - but it's also a slog and not sure I will know more by page 500 than I know now by page 150 or so.

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