Is Turgenev is the most charming Russian writer of the nineteenth century? Some readers prefer Chekhov’s lyrical, well-turned stories; others are lost in Tolstoy’s brilliant, gigantic novels; and still others swear by Dostoevsky’s psychological comedies. But I return again and again to Turgenev’s deceptively simple novels: I love his exquisite descriptions of nature and his vivid characters who fall into unrequited love or are infatuated by political ideas and ideals.
Turgenev is a literary sociologist: he deftly depicts the generational clashes between the humanists of the 1840s and the nihilists and men of science of the 1860s. When he tried to strike a balance between them in his novel Fathers and Sons, he alienated both the radicals and conservatives. Rudin is less political, a portrait of an intellectual whose story is brilliantly framed in two different ways by the author. Rudin is a double of himself.
Russian literature bloomed in the nineteenth century. It began when Pushkin developed a Russian literary language and wrote his eloquent poetry and short stories in Russian. Russian aristocrats read mostly European literature: they spoke and read French often more fluently than Russian. But the Russian literary movement wildly embraced many genres, including realism and tales of the abusrd, in the chaotic, politically unstable nineteen century. Despite the censorship and frequent exile of writers (including Turgenev), the Russian writers often surpassed even my favorite English writers.
Turgenev’s work stands apart. His characters may at first seem simple, but underneath the surface they have fervent emotions and original ideas. I am especially fond of his first novel, Rudin, which revolves around a controversial intellectual who visits a country house and seems unlikely ever to leave.
The characters in Rudin tend to be securely upper-class: the first character we meet is Alexandra Pavlovna, a young, pretty widow, strolling past fields down a country road to visit a poor, sick woman. I long to walk on this scenic country road.
It was a quiet summer morning. The sun was already fairly high in a clear sky, but the fields still glistened with dew, from newly awakened hollows rose a fragrant freshness and in woodland, still damp and unrustling, there could be heard the sound of early birdsong. On the summit of a gentle hill, covered from top to bottom with newly blossomed rye, a small village could be seen…. A young woman walked, in a white muslin dress and round straw hat, carrying a parasol. A servant boy followed some distance behind her.
Alexandra Pavolvna is concerned about the symptoms of Matryona’s illness. She asks if she has been taking her medicine and suggests that she be moved to the hospital. The husband refuses. “No, she’s not one for hospital! She’ll die all the same.”
Alexandra Pavlovna is calm and practical, so busy with the hospital and her charity work that she doesn’t have much time to think of love. But on the way back, she meets her friend, the eccentric, well-educated landowner, Mikhaylo Mikhaylich Lezhnev , and we feel the chemistry between them. She is not obsessed with love: she is not like young Natalya down the road, who falls desperately in love with her mother’s guest, Rudin. Alexandra Pavlovna is contented living with her brother, Volyntsov, a retired captain who is in love with young Natalya.
When Rudin arrives at the country house of the society hostess, Darya Mikhaylovna, to deliver an article from a friend of hers who had been called away on business, he immediately dominates her salon. Rudin is a charismatic speaker who enchants his audience of women and the young with fluent speeches on philosophy and other subjects. Most of the men despise him.
Rudin is a type invented by Turgenev, the superfluous man of his story of the same name. The superfluous man may have talents or good looks or both, but he cannot feel or does not express emotions, and if, like Rudin, he does not have money, he lives off others.
Mikhaylo Mikhaylich, who knew Rudin at the university, tells Alexandra Pavlovna how much he dislikes him. Rudin mesmerizes his audience by charm and his speaking ability, but he is not the polymath everyone thinks he is. Nor is he a schemer like Tartuffe, says Mikhaylo Mikhaylich, because Rudin does not set out to be a parasite. And though he impresses everyone at first, he always falls out with his patrons or employers.
The women and the young enjoy Rudin’s talk. And young Natalya worships him, though he is much older, in his mid-thirties. And Rudin toys with the idea of marrying Natalya, because it is pleasant to be loved by a pretty girl. They are engaged for a day. Of course the engagement is a deal-breaker for Darya Mikhaylovna, who tacitly lets Rudin know he must leave.
And he is startled when Natalya derides him for not eloping with her. Rudin cannot imagine such a thing. He has no money; how could they live? Rudin is honest: he is not like Mr. Skimpole in Bleak House!
One feels sorry for Rudin as he stumbles down the road. Exasperating though he may be, we know how difficult it is for him to move from house to house. Years later, when Mikhaylo Mikhaylich runs into Rudin on a business trip. Rudin is haggard, a failure. And he tells the harrowing story of three jobs he has lost, even one where he succeeded Rudin has tried and failed in the workplace.
MIkhaylo Mikihaylich reframes the narrative for Rudin and tells him he is a hero who spoke out and had such high ideals that he could not work with people who were jealous or hostile. He went on to say how many people Rudin has inspired, particularly the young. And we, too, see Rudin in a different light because of the reframing. And in the end Rudin proves that he is not a superfluous man by a gesture that, ironically, is superfluous.
