Oblomov

by Marian Schwartz (Afterword), IvanGoncharov (Author), Ivan Goncharov (Author), Mikhail Shishkin (Afterword), Marian Schwartz (Translator), Mikhail Shishkin (Afterword)

• New

  Hardcover
  2008

  $19.10

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $15.39

  Set at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when idleness was still looked upon by Russia's serf-owning rural gentry as a plausible and worthy goal, Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov follows the travails of an unlikely hero, a young aristocrat incapable of making a decision. Indolent, inattentive, incurious, given to daydreaming and procrastination, Oblomov clearly predates the ideal of the industrious modern man, yet he is impossible not to admire through Goncharov's masterful prose. Translator Marian Schwartz breathes new life into this Russian masterpiece in this, the first translation from the generally recognized definitive edition of the original, as well the first to attempt to replicate in English Goncharov's wry humor and all-embracing humanity. Replete with ingenious social satire and cutting criticism of nineteenth-century Russian society, this edition of Oblomov will introduce new readers to the novel that Leo Tolstoy praised as a truly great work, the likes of which one has not seen for a long, long time.

• New

  paperback
  

  $14.96

  Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a member of Russia's dying aristocracy a man so lazy that he has given up his job in the Civil Service, neglected his books, insulted his friends and found himself in debt. Too apathetic to do anything about his problems, he lives in a grubby, crumbling apartment, waited on by Zakhar, his equally idle servant. Terrified by the bustle and activity necessary to participate in the real world, Oblomov manages to avoid work, postpone change and finally risks losing the love of his life. Written with sympathetic humour and compassion, Oblomov made Goncharov famous throughout Russia on its publication in 1859, as readers saw in this story of a man whose defining characteristic is indolence, the portrait of an entire class in decline.