Sunday Morning! “Rudin” by Ivan Turgenev

‘You want to know what I am thinking of you? Very well. I am thinking: Here’s a man- with his capabilities what might’nt he have achieved, what earthly riches might he not have possessed now, had he wished! -but I find him starving with no place to live…’

‘I rouse your compassion,’ murmured Rudin in a hollow voice.

‘No, you’re wrong. You rouse my respect.’

When I was young, I spent most of my thoughts on falling in love. That and old works of literature. Life seemed to be a great adventure; the world too big to take in by anything but gulps. I was full of passionate intensity and very few concrete ideas. Now, I am at least halfway through the ride and have… well, one book to show for it, and at least a dozen half-finished manuscripts, a failed marriage, an aborted academic career, desultory job experiences, a few defunct bands- Oy! Enough about me!

Ivan Turgenev

As Ivan Turgenev’s first novel, Rudin, begins, a young man arrives at an isolated Russian estate in a provincial village and quickly makes an impression. He is tall, personable, highly educated, and eloquent. Particularly eloquent- we’re told repeatedly about the effect he has on people with speech that brings out their highest ideals, making them clear and vivid. For this fellow, Rudin, is a type: the young idealist whose thoughts are unconstrained by the prejudices of the past, or by the cold materialism of the present. He is not an uncommon type in Russia of the 1840s. He wants the world to be freer in order to make room for his dreams.

He soon runs afoul of a dyspeptic intellectual, wonderfully named Pigasov, who is also a type, albeit one more familiar to our era: clever and intent on being right in all discussions, his self-educated intelligence has not made him happy- much the contrary. I sometimes think it’s fortunate that such intellectuals don’t have antlers, or they’d be forever knocking each other out in academic conferences. Looking down from a height, Pigasov seemingly disdains everyone, but especially women. This doesn’t stop him from frequenting the female landowner Darya Mikhaylovna, however; to be fair, there was no Twitter at this time.

Naturally, Pigasov challenges Rudin to a debate and is quickly defeated, although it’s a bit of an unfair fight. Turgenev loves Rudin, as do all the other characters, particularly the landowner’s young daughter Natalya, who is taken for dim by the people around her, but is really rather quiet with deep and serious feelings. I remember in grad school being fascinated by how smart people wear their brains, so to speak. Here, we have three types: the combative scourge, the introverted and profound, and the high-flying enthusiast. No points for guessing which two characters will fall in love.

Rudin is the type of brilliant thinker who would wind up teaching at a rural college; not that far removed from William Stoner, come to think of it. His mind seems to take in the full landscape from above, while also preventing him from ever landing anywhere. He’s a bit of a useless, “superfluous man,” a type that was very common in Russian cultural life and hence literature by the 1840s. They have a high amount of education, but it doesn’t really help them very much, possibly because they overthink everything and fail to act. They have high potential, but never quite strike the match. It’s a type I know somewhat personally. Some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever encountered worked in shoe stores or warehouses. The superfluous man can’t even be counted on to get, or keep, a job.

Rudin by Dmitry Kardovsky

And as I get older, I have found something fascinating: most unhappy people know exactly what they have to do in order to be happy. They will come to you for advice, claim they are stymied beyond belief, and then it’s clear within a few minutes the action they need to take- just quit their job, write that novel, move to the city, tell her how they feel, etc. You tell them this and they say “I know. I know. I just needed to hear someone say it. Now, I can do it!” And then… they don’t do it. I have friends who have told me about their loveless marriage or their unfulfilling job for years. I honestly never though I’d be a janitor in a small town for eight years, or spend so many of the early ones drinking. The difficulty is you know what it’s like to be unhappy; doing something else would have unforeseen consequences, and that’s really scary.

So, it’s not entirely a surprise when events take a turn: Rudin declares his undying love for Natalya; her mother opposes the union; the girl meets with Rudin hoping they will run off together; he tells her they must “submit” to her mother’s wishes. He chokes in the clutch, in other words.

By this point, the reader might be inclined to slap Rudin upside the head; at least, this reader was. He fails at the critical moment, accepts the “impossibility” of the situation, leaves the village, and- as we are told in a tacked-on epilogue- goes on to take up a number of grandiose projects, only to abandon them in failure. What a schmuck!

But, again, he’s a type for a reason. We’ve all of us known the brilliant enthusiast who seems to burn at a higher flame than the rest of us, and who could have easily conquered the world, if only they would have gotten out of their own way. The tragedy is an exceedingly few members of our species ever really believe in themselves. Most of us never jump in the water when it’s time to, and instead spend our lives inching up to the edge and dipping in a toe to confirm it was too cold. In the end, Rudin was better than most because he inspired a handful of listeners along the way. As one character notes: “he never let you grow settled in your ways, he turned the very foundation of things upside down, he set light to you.”

But, he was never quite great. And he could’ve been. What a schmuck!

So, what are YOU reading, watching, pondering, playing, creating, or upending this weekend?