United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The most interesting character in the book, apart from the hero, is Jurii, who might easily have been a protagonist in one of Turgenev's tragedies. He is the typical Russian, the highly educated young man with a diseased will. He is characterised by that indecision which has been the bane of so many Russians.
Gorki has violently protested against the irresolute Slav, and Artsybashev has given us in Jurii the Russian as he is and in Sanin the Russian as he ought to be. But a disease obstinately remains a disease until it is cured, and it cannot be cured by hope or by protest. *Published at Yale University by the "Yale Courant."
Artsybashev, in his terrible novel, "Sanin," has given an admirable analysis of this great Russian type in the character of Jurii, who finally commits suicide simply because he cannot find a working theory of life. Writers so different as Tolstoi and Gorki have given plenty of good examples.
He treats his mother's shocked amazement with brutal scorn; he ridicules Lyda's shame at being enceinte; he seduces Karsavina, at the very time when she is in love with Jurii, and reasons with cold patience against her subsequent remorse. It is clear that Artsybashev believes that for some time to come women will not accept the gospel of uncompromising egoism.
Word Of The Day