Fathers & Sons

Copies of Turgenev's "Fathers & Sons" have lurked on the bookshelves growing up. Koestler's Darkness at Noon, Mann's Magic Mountain, Doestoevsky's Brothers Karamatsov. Serious Russian or German tomes. I thought Fathers & Sons would be a heavy, but uncharacteristically, it delivered a little less than anticipated. It is good, but no rival to the others. Or is it that I am reading it with an older reader's eyes? Impossible to tell. Turgenev is a compelling story teller and his comments have the universality of great writing. Old ideas being replaced by newer, younger ones; political fads such as nihilism butting up against sentimental and romantic ones. The politics of old Russian society with its serfs and owners which will collide head on with what will turn out to be the Revolution of 1917. Science debunks tradition; a locked social structure opens up to allow matches which were formerly inappropriate; honor dueling comes to an end. I had guessed it would be more about the conflict between the fathers and sons, in the way The Brothers Karamatsov tackles the subject, but it is nothing as intense. In a way, the translation ought better to be "The Father & Sons Karamatsov" and Turgenev's "Brotherly Love," instead. About the same time Turgenev was writing in Russia, over in Concord, Massachusetts Henry Thoreau was writing "old deeds for old; new deeds for new" and warning those unable to keep up with change to get out of its way.