Of Fathers and Sons (Отцы и Дети) of Ivan Turgenev there are lots of issues, as always happens with the classics. The first, the original dates back to 1862, and has appeared in the journal "The Russian Messenger ". The last, at least in Italian, was released recently, has published Feltrinelli, and the translation of an Italian writer, Paolo Nori, who also wrote the introduction. Here is the beginning: "Whenever, in these years, I have heard of nihilism, and it happened often, he constantly speaks the pope, I was reminded of this novel Turgenev and especially the protagonist, Bazarov and frogs, and when for example I saw the Coen brothers' film The Big Lebowski, where there was a group of nihilists, all dressed in black leather, which continually repeated, "We do not believe in anything, we do not want anything, we know nothing, "he was reminded that Bazarov was not the case, he believed in frogs, and do not pretend to kidnap their wives of wealthy film producers, like the nihilists of the Coen brothers, if I remember correctly, but studied and cared for people and always knew how to talk with the peasants.
It seemed, in the twenty years that have passed since the first time I read Fathers and sons, that nihilism, as Turgenev had introduced him to Western public opinion, had been in its modern variant is completely misrepresented , and it seemed to me that those three things, Bazarov, nihilism and frogs, were the meaning of the novel, and that the correct interpretation of nihilism, the role of Bazarov, and his work with frogs, the same sense of Fathers and children.
Now that I reread it after twenty years, it seems that things are not like that. "The rest can be read at the site of Paolo Nori.
Saturday, June 5 at 11, reading group on Fathers and sons in the Hall of frescoes of the DSM, by Colautti 28, 00152 Rome
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