I'll be donating my copy of Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov at the first opportunity but not without looking for another edition, just to skim. The novel is so disappointing I can't help thinking it must have been badly translated and severely abridged. Which is to say it fails Bolaño's test for a classic.
Classic? I don't see how it could have sneaked past modified as a minor classic. It's crude, fatally so, crude by nearly every single measure. Before reading it, I'd picked up somewhere that it was supposed to be funny. A novel about an absurdly lazy man (or an insanely lazy man, as I muttered a few times at the outset, with a hopeful laugh) certainly invites comedy. But this, one of the only qualities that might convince the reader the book is better than it really is, mostly dissipates after the first section, with about 75% of the story to go, disqualifying it as a comic novel. And even here there are intermittent signs of trouble to come: two chapters that end with the ringing of a doorbell, characters who aren't so much people as masks representing different perspectives, who rather conveniently arrive on the same day, one after another after another.
With an abrupt leap, from bedroom to social history, section two is a prolix critique of the village the titular character was born and raised in. It's rife with sweeping generalizations and finally devolves into a petty list of grievances against the country folk (including the offense of saving money). In section three, a woman suddenly appears in Oblomov's life to inspire him to get out of bed, establishing the primary conflict for the rest of the book between the possibilities and uncertainties of love and the easy comforts of lying about, alone, thinking no thoughts at all.
On the long list of bad writing advice, one of the worst and most commonly uttered entries is: "show, don't tell." Countless books, true classics, are built on telling. ...Thus it falls apart with a nudge. But the central relationships of Oblomov provide the kind of material that allows the questionable line to continue spreading. The romance deepens mostly because it is bluntly, artlessly insisted upon. Characters simply announce that Oblomov is a charming, promising young man and a pure soul. One could, in mounting boredom and annoyance, reasonably demand to be "shown" proof of such claims, in scene and dialogue. But one could just as easily demand improved telling in the form of a more nuanced and detailed story in third-person summary.
Oblomov is didactic, and Oblomov is quite obviously supposed to be a Symbol of the Times, saying of his affliction things such as: "Am I alone in this, however? Look around you. The name of the tribe to which I belong is legion" (159). Come on. What's the difference between the Disease of Oblomovka, as it is coined here to ease him along into becoming shorthand, like Dorian Gray, and the ancient sin of sloth? It's as though no one has ever heard of it. In any case, somewhere within these pages there's a worthwhile message. The best line, a bit of advice, as it happens, is sternly worded by Oblomov's loyal friend Schtoltz. It's simple: Arm yourself with resolution and patiently, but firmly, pursue your way. The problem is that the novel is too inadequate a vehicle for the consequences of not heeding it.
If that weren't enough, the book concludes on one of my most hated notes, the narrator informing the audience of his intention to write the book we've been reading the whole time. That's right: A lazy ending.
