Loved it from start to finish. The story of a man who despite being well-educated, well-liked, fairly rich and not having to work to earn any money, is incapable of making any decisions or doing anything and spends most of his time in bed. His mind was busy when he was at university but all of the knowledge he acquired became useless in the real world and he couldn’t apply any of it, he was just left with the awareness that he there was so much to learn, and that he had the capacity to do so-an awareness that is not very useful if you are lazy and prone to becoming paralysed by such a task. He knows that the less he does and the more he allows himself to ‘rest’ and ‘think’, the worse he feels but he still does it anyway. There is nothing more disheartening than relating to the thoughts of a someone who is meant to be a satire of the Russian intelligentsia and is ultimately described as lazy and superfluous. Despite his character flaws his life doesn’t stop. He is repeatedly told he needs a change of environment, to read, to love, to busy himself, and when he does these things he can’t imagine who he used to live in the way he did but he always ultimately goes back to his Oblomovism. The idea of having to stand still until your affairs are in order and you’ve figured out how to live, until you become crippled in an existential crisis doesn’t sound very funny, but somehow it is.

I loved how when the different characters fell in love, their life didn’t stop. It wasn’t all consuming or toxic but always acted as a beautiful way to delve into their character flaws and philosophical viewpoints in such a natural way. For example, characters not thinking they are good enough to be loved, characters realising that the initial excitement from love couldn’t transform them into a better person, unintentional self-sabotage and simply becoming bored of each other.

One of my new favourites.

“My life began by flickering out. It may sound strange but it is so. From the very first moment I became conscious of myself, I felt that I was already flickering out…Either I have not understood this sort of life or it is utterly worthless; but I did not know of a better one. No one showed it to me.”