Ivan Aleksandrovitsj Gontsjarov is een Russische romanschrijver wiens werk cruciaal is voor het begrijpen van de 19e-eeuwse Russische literatuur. Zijn schrijfstijl richt zich vaak op diepgaande psychologische karakterportretten en kritiek op maatschappelijke normen. Gontsjarov brengt meesterlijk het innerlijke leven van zijn protagonisten in beeld, waarbij hij thema's als stagnatie, moreel verval en de zoektocht naar betekenis in een veranderende samenleving verkent. Zijn stilistische precisie en zijn vermogen om de essentie van de Russische ziel te vatten, maken hem tot een belangrijk figuur in het literaire realisme.
Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a member of Russia's dying aristocracy a man so lazy that he has given up his job in the Civil Service, neglected his books, insulted his friends and found himself in debt. Too apathetic to do anything about his problems, he lives in a grubby, crumbling apartment, waited on by Zakhar, his equally idle servant.
First translation into English of an extraordinary document that lays bare the jealousies felt but rarely expressed by writers, and an eternal monument to literary paranoia.
First translation into English and further proof of the eclectic narrative skills of the celebrated author of Oblomov.
"One summer in the village of Grachi, in the household of Anna Pavlovna Aduyevaya, a landowner of modest means, all it members, from the mistress herself down to Barbos, the watch dog, had risen with the dawn. The only exception was Aleksandr Fyodorich, Anna Pavlovna's son who, as befits a twenty-year-old, was sleeping the sleep of the just." Filled with dreams of pursuing a career as a poet, the young Alexander Aduev moves from the country to St Petersburg, where he takes up lodgings next to his uncle Pyotr, a shrewd and world-weary businessman. As his ideals are challenged by disappointment in the fields of love, friendship and poetical ambition, Alexander must decide whether to return to the homely values he has left behind or adapt to the ruthless rules and morals of city life. Told in the author's trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story -- Goncharov's first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years -- is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.