Sunday, November 4, 2001		Books

Who is to Blame? A Novel
by Alexander Herzen and translated from Russian by Michael R. Katz. Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London Pages 293. $ 41.

THE fact that a classic gets reprinted several times implies three things. One, it has an enduring interest for readers separated in time. Two, there are enough readers willing to reconsider its relevance to their own ages and concerns. Three, the work displays a singular craftsmanship not matched by any other book.

In the case of the classics of Russian literature, all three criteria apply. Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Pushkin are refreshingly original every time we re-read them. Their grasp of the realties of human nature is so thorough that, barring Shakespeare, Goethe and the Greek tragedians, not many writers can measure up to their achievements. In his book, ‘Tolstoy or Dostoevsky’, George Steiner, the most astute literary critic today, characterised Russian literature as the deepest wellspring of intuitions into human strengths and vulnerabilities.

There is a tendency among classic Russian writers to engage in the defense of the essential human individuality against the encroachments of science and the resulting materialistic reduction of personality. The eschatological projection of fictional characters into ultimate realms of existence is traceable to a desperate struggle waged in the name of a religiously mandated self and the role of self in society. The classic Russian novel has grappled with this dilemma in all its complexities.

Curiously the issues handled have been in response to the questions raised in the West. In many respects it might be correct to say that the defence of individualism was itself stimulated by western thinkers. There were fundamental ideas about the sacredness of the human individual that inspired the peculiar emotional-ethical poignancy of the literary responses of classical writers. This encouraged the secularisation process in the predominantly religious sensibility characteristic of Russia as a whole.

As most commentators on the 1830-1840s have argued, many Russian writers chose to place particular emphasis on man’s victimisation by social forces over which we have no control. It is often suggested that characters such as Gogol’s Akikii Akikavich and Dostoevsky’s Devushkin are primarily victims of their circumstances and evoke pity and laughter in equal measure.

They are usually termed "superfluous men" and show a curious disregard for acting out of a clearly defined volition. The other characters cited in this regard are Laveratsky, Samgin and Rudin in Turganev, Oblomov in Goncharov, Pechorin in Lermontov and all the mean types in Dostoevsky. The closest parallel to these men in western literature is Bartleby in Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" or, in the 20th century, the Invisible Man in Ralph Ellison’s novel.

The chief protagonist of Alexander Herezen’s 1847 novel does not completely fit the description of "superfluous man", although he has been called one. For Dobroliubov, a trenchant critic of the type in the 1840s, the superfluous man represented the very of Russia". In spite of exhibiting the victim trait, Herzen’s protagonist stands apart not merely as a victim of circumstances, but as their indictment. The very title of the novel makes the relationship of the individual and society problematical.

The dominant motif in Herzen’s thought is the image of man as a heroic being. He never outgrew his fascination for Robin Hood. Indeed he turned the dreamy helplessness of the superfluous man into a philosophical concern. The author who knew his Byron, Pushkin, Schiller and many other writers and philosophers, would have remained dissatisfied with the negativism of the superfluous man philosophy. Readings in western thought brought to maturity the concept of a moral prerogative that he kept examining in both his memoirs and the present novel.

Let me say here that "Who is to Blame" is not a novel of the stature of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky’s fiction. It does not resonate in the same way as "A Nest of the Gentry", "The Overcoat" or "First Love" do. Yet it is a minor classic in its own right and belongs to that genre of fiction commonly called "novel of ideas" of which there were many in 19th century Russia as well as in other countries, particularly England

It is a product both of Herzen’s close affinity with the western liberal thought of his time, and of the growing ferment in 19th century Russia that brought on fierce debates about individual, society, politics and religion — a continuing ferment since Peter the Great embarked on westernising the backward Russian society. It belongs to the same class as Chernysheskyy’s "What is to be Done". A good contemporary parallel in England would be Thomas Love Peacock’s "Gryll Grange" and Godwin’s "Caleb Williams". Not timeless works these, but of sufficient intellectual stamina to compel attention.

What distinguishes this novel from a hard-boiled thesis novel (spawned in large quantities by Communist and Catholic writers, notably Louis Aragon and Francois Mauriac in France,) is the fact that its title is a giveaway. It raises fundamental questions such as what makes talented people idle dreamers and sniffling romanticists, but does not answer it. Who is to blame for these types is a constant refrain throughout this novel. Like Bazarov in Turganev’s "Fathers and Sons", Herzen’s protagonist Vladimir Beltov is caught between alternatives and is unable to choose. More on this later.

The interest of this novel is not in its plot, but in Herzen’s character presentation. He uses a number of different prose traditions to present his major and minor characters. Beltov, as mentioned earlier, is derived from the romantic tradition. The teacher Krutsifersky belongs to the school of writing popular in European writing of the 18th century and typified by Gogol’s down-and out people. His wife Lyuobonka is "the new woman" who yields to her desires (Flaubert’s Emma Bovary is a prototye here). Her father Abram Abramovich Negrov and stepmother Glarifina Lvovnova step out of the comic-satiric genre reminiscent of Fielding and Gogol. Herzen’s novel encapsulates all these traditions into a story of love, desire, escape and eventual betrayal.

Herzen’s concern for the poor and the insulted drives him to ask the question: who is to blame for their plight? But he does not stop here. He goes on extending the question to include every character in the novel. The scope of the title includes all the characters and their specific predicaments. The novel examines their fates individually, not collectively as an avowedly didactic work would. Hence its refusal to provide clear cut answers. Hence also the constant muted refrain of the blame motif.

In the case of Lyubonka, Herzen brings out the new issue of women’s role in a feudal society based on hierarchical rights. In her case the appropriation of blame has to be balanced by her attempts to get out of the vicious grip of her father. But at the same time there is also her helplessness in regard to Beltov. Her peculiar circumstances, her illegitimacy and her peasant background and the fact of her relegation to an inferior position in her father’s household—make her vulnerable to suffering of the kind found in sentimental fiction.

That she is not a mere victim is brought out by the fact that her stepmother herself is a product of illegitimacy and straitened circumstances. Herzen, however, is too caustic in her depiction to allow for sympathy. Madam Negrov is a caricatured version of Emma Bovary, fed as she is on the airy romances of the period. Her charged emotions produce the kind of daydreaming that invites Herzen’s bitter satire. We do not see such a condemnation of Lyobunka’s helplessness.

The barren environment of her country upbringing, far from hindering her growth, contributes to the development of her inner reserves. These qualities enable her not only to make a happy home for Krutsifersky, but also encourages in her a strain of modest intellectual questioning—a trait conspicuously absent in other characters in the novel. Perhaps it is this strain (implied rather than stated explicitly) that becomes her strength in realising the limitations of her relationship with Krutsifersky. The presence of this trait is clearly seen in conversations with Beltov and in the garden walk scene in Part II.

Lyubonka lives up to the conventional belief that men are a means of escape for women. In her case Krutsifersy is yet another form of bondage. Even after gravitating towards Beltov in rebound from her husband’s limited capacity for self-awareness, she regards the latter as yet another escape. Her punishment (or is it?) is to succumb to consumption that Susan Sontag, in her "Disease as Metaphor", considers the archetypal symbol of romantic longing. Does it, however, mitigate her blame?

In Krutsifersky’s case there is a clear hint that he is to blame because he let himself become "girlish". He sees the entry of Beltov into his "happy family bliss" (which also includes the pragmatic Dr.Krupov) as threatening. His response: drunkenness and prayer. His effeminacy is attributed to an improvident father, a weak mother and extreme poverty. Marriage to Lyubonka partly restores his lost self-hood. That he never recovers it at all is Herzen’s stricture on his unmanly presence in the novel. But is he to blame? Partly, for he never lives beyond the survival instinct. Lassitude is his "punishment".

In Vladimir Beltov Herzen has created an inert intellectual type. In spite of his education with the Swiss Joseph, in spite of his reading and travels (something denied to Krutsifersky), Beltov not only fails to win local elections, but also to find a purpose in life. His mother’s ambitions for her son remain frustrated and she is left at the end wondering why he leaves the town of N after inflicting suffering on Lyubonka and himself.

Even so, it would be incorrect to dismiss Beltov as a superfluous man. What is important for us to remember is that the superfluous man stands apart from the crowd by virtue of his superior qualities. In the background of romantic despair to which the superfluous man is subject, his stature is diminished. But such is not the case with Beltov.

Unlike Goncharov’s Oblomov, Beltov is in full command of his intellectual powers. Unlike Turgenev’s Samgin or Gogol’s Chichikov, he has not allowed his intellectual accomplishments to be smothered by his "surrender" to passion. His is an independent conflict arising from his conscience—a force he does not let slip. Unlike the numbing despair of Goethe’s Werther, Beltov’s is fully willed.

In creating Beltov, Herzen’s irony shifts to more pliant characters such as Krutsifersky and Glafrina Lvovna. Krutsifersky, rendered soggy by his reading and absurd letter writing, fortifies Beltov’s idealism, though the latter is also not beyond reproach.

At one point the narrator says, "Beltov confronted realty…and cowardly backed down before it". This places Beltov among those whose will to do something useful is thwarted by an inner flaw of character and not by external forces. Beltov and Lyubonka’s faults are the results of their lack of volition, their inability to convert their potential idealism into purposeful relationship. Herzen, Isaiah Berlin reminds us, is too accomplished a writer to make Beltov a boilerplate romantic totally at the mercy of his despair.

This new reprint of "Who is to Blame" captures the tantalising drama of desire and its forfeits played out amidst unsettling times.