clever description of the change that has taken place of late years in
the thoughts and feelings of the educated classes of Russian society
One of the most interesting chapters in "Liza"--one which may
be skipped by readers who care for nothing but incident in a
story--describes a conversation which takes place between the hero
and one of his old college friends. The sketch of the disinterested
student, who has retained in mature life all the enthusiasm of his
college days, is excellent, and is drawn in a very kindly spirit.
But in "Fathers and Children" an exaggeration of this character is
introduced, serving as a somewhat scare-crow-like embodiment of the
excessively hard thoughts and very irreverent speculations in which
the younger thinkers of the new school indulge. This character is
developed in the story into dimensions which must be styled inordinate
if considered from a purely artistic point of view; but the story
ought not to be so regarded. Unfortunately for its proper appreciation
among us, it cannot be judged aright, except by readers who possess a
thorough knowledge of what was going on in Russia a few years ago, and
who take a keen and lively interest in the subjects which were then
being discussed there. To all others, many of its chapters will
seem too unintelligible and wearisome, both linked together into
interesting unity by the slender thread of its story, beautiful as
many of its isolated passages are. The same objection may be made
to "Smoke." Great spaces in that work are devoted to caricatures of
certain persons and opinions of note in Russia, but utterly unknown
in England--pictures which either delight or irritate the author's
countrymen, according to the tendency of their social and political
speculations, but which are as meaningless to the untutored English
eye as a collection of "H.B."'s drawings would be to a Russian who had
never studied English politics. Consequently neither of these stories
is likely ever to be fully appreciated among us[A].