Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a remarkable character. In the first chapters of Ivan Goncharov’s famous 1859 novel, the young man from the Russian upper middle-class is bound to his bedroom, not to be bothered by the outside world. Social activities undertaken by his peers tire him; insofar Oblomov lifts a finger, it is to quarrel with his servant Zakhar. There is little to worry about money: as the descendant of a family of landed gentry, Oblomov is entitled to the revenues of Oblomovka, a region named after his family. The income is decreasing, which troubles Oblomov, but he constrains his action to complaints about the peasants. Altogether Oblomov is not an apathetic person however. His interactions with his great love Olga and his old friend Andrey Stoltz show that he does care and can take care. If only he were not so naive and nervous.

Much has been written about Oblomov, not least about the term that was coined by Goncharov himself: ‘oblomovism’. The term is associated with laziness or lethargy, with the state of decay of Russian aristocracy and with the transition from child- to adulthood. There is truth in all these, but they seem too absolute. If Oblomov is predominantly lazy or lethargic, what to say about his upturns? If he symbolises the decline of the aristocracy – who are indeed depicted as blasé – how to construe the turn of events? And if Goncharov wrote a coming-of-age novel, why use such an atypical link? It occurred to me that Oblomov is above all a man without a purpose, inept of meeting social expectations or achieving the goals that match his status, unfit of imagining and pursuing alternative goals and unable of recognising what actually is important.

Oblomov has a lot of comical elements. I did however find some parts too tedious and some of the characters too caricatural. I assume many readers will have enjoyed Oblomov’s love for Olga, but I had to read these chapters diagonally.