Generation Gaps

I just reread Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. It's been about 10 years and a whole lot of growing up in the interim, so I was pleased to discover that many of my initial insights still seemed sound: parents and children will always struggle to simultaneously bridge and widen the gap between them; it's tragic when people are so wrapped up with negation that they deny themselves the joy of ever embracing anything; you can enjoy both a simple, sweet love story and a passionate one.

But knowing Russian history and literature enriched the story in so many ways. Reform and revolution were really starting to take hold in younger generations, and the reform had to choose between Europhilism and Slavophilism - learning from the (to be freed) serfs or teaching them, elitism or back-to-the-soil-ism. So after generations of a relatively static caste system, there was about to be room for limited social mobility, and plenty of anxiety about how that would look. The novel was published in 1862 and set in 1859 or '60, and make no mistake - this was a seminal moment in Russian history and book is firmly grounded in it. It is not an explanation of primitive Russian through the ages.

However, what makes it work for a Western audience is that the relationship between fathers and sons (i.e. parents and children) is a universal one, even in harmonious times. And certainly, the generation gaps between Boomers and their parents, and Xers and Boomers are part of the contemporary American consciousness - so we are predisposed to identify with the story of an older generation battling to maintain its hold on society while its children begin their inevitable march to dominance.

I like Turgenev quite a bit. His descriptions and characterizations are vivid, and his attention to detail - finding wonder in the smallest events - lovely. A wonderful introduction to mid-19th century Russia, a place of turmoil and boredom, impoverishment and beauty.