A Vital Question: Or What Is To Be Done? (1886)

Nikolai Chernyshevsky was a genius in his own right. If you are going to read this book for its `novella' qualities - don't. But if you are looking to explore the explosion of social thought in the late nineteenth century Russia, then "What needs to be done?" is perhaps the best work on the revolutionary changes in society at the time. Vera Pavlovna (the main character) stands for everything Russia was going through at the time and everything it aspired to be. It is said that Lenin called his own "What is to be done" after Chernyshevsky's work.

This has been called "the worst novel ever written", but it's far from that. Older translations might be partly responsible for that reputation; this new translation is very readable. An excellent introduction is provided, as well as helpful footnotes throughout. The book is blatantly didactic, art in the service of ideas, and you have to be awfully good to make literature that way -- Chernychevsky freely admits that he's not that good. But his plot is actually pretty clever, and the book goes rather quickly. If you want to understand what Dostoevsky's Underground Man was railing about, read this first. The didactic sections are interesting for what they say about the hopes of the 1860s radicals, hopes that we can easily recognize today as fantasies. (Vera's 4th dream is particularly poignant.) Hindsight is a wonderful thing for feeling superior and dealing out the 'told-you-so's'. But the naive faith and doomed optimism of the author is extremely touching. Only 35, he wrote this book from prison, and he could have had no confidence that it would ever see the light of day; yet there is no hint of despair anywhere in it. He was subsequently destroyed by Siberia, and nothing turned out the way he had hoped.The radicals of his day were not wrong to seek fundamental change in the oppressive and autocratic system under which they lived. They were not alone in being enthralled by the ideas of Robert Owen, and their goal of seeking earthly salvation through reason and the reform of institutions does not make them clowns and fools. Their moral critique of Russian society was valid; their solutions turned out not to be. Not being omniscient, they did not foresee the ways that the flaws in their ideas would be seized upon, utilized, and magnified by men who were power-mad and malevolent, and what Russia's future would thereby turn out to be. They were far from alone in that, also. To flog idealists like Chernyshevksy with the horrors that were perpetrated by others a half-century or more later, is very easy to do. It is also unfair, mean-spirited, and foolish.

"What is to be done?" is the novel in which noted leftist critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky outlined his vision of a future of economic cooperation and women's rights. Though it is remembered more for its political message than its literary merit, a few words about its plot seem in order. We meet the main character, Vera Pavlovna, as she is about to be betrothed to a man who, though there's nothing especially terrible about him, she does not at all love. She meets the enlightened Dmitri Lopukhov and they fall in love, so, much to her parents' chagrin, they run off together and get married. After a few years of marriage, the odd behavior of Dmitri's close friend Alexander Kirsanov reveals to Dmitri that Alexander loves Vera, and Dmitri correctly suspects that the feeling is mutual, and that although Vera cares for Dmitri very much and appreciates all he has done for her, her passion for him was a youthful indiscretion. Ever sympathetic to his wife's interests, Dmitri contrives to get out of the lovers' way, and Vera and Alexander are happily married for pretty much all of the second half of the novel. Meanwhile, Vera has founded a highly successful sewing union, and Chernyshevsky uses this to preach the value of worker ownership of businesses and also to illustrate women's potential for industry outside the home. Chernyshevsky admits at a number of points in the work that he wasn't born to be a novelist, and it shows--especially annoying were his inability to stay in the same verb tense and his periodic silly asides to "the sapient reader." Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how gripping I found the work; I was ever anxious to find out what was going to happen to the characters next (partly because their rather unorthodox views on marriage and other matters, especially given the time period, were bound to keep me guessing), and that made the fairly long novel go by a bit more enjoyably than I expected. Some of Chernyshevsky's views, and especially his prophecies for the future, seem a bit naive nowadays (though in my edition, translated in 1886, the translators gleefully note that Chernyshevsky predicted the invention of the electric light), but given when he was writing (1863), it's easier to see how he might fall into some of the traps that he did, and in fact the novel offers a very interesting look at Russian socialist thought in its relatively early years. All in all, though the novel's not great, it's better than it's generally given credit for, and if you're interested in the history of leftist thought or Russian literature, it's a worthwhile read.

Probably no other single novel or writing has had enough influence on the history of Russia, or for that matter, the modern world. While Marx provided the means and ideas, Chernyshevsky kindled the strongest spark towards the revolution of the peasant masses towards gender and class equality. This work, along with Chernyshevsky's others, was held in the highest esteem in the Soviet Union, shelved along with the philosophies of Marx and Engels and Lenin. "What is to be done" swept through the liberal student bodies of the Russian universities in the late 19-century, and it was the rereading of Chernyshevsky's novel at Lenin's scholastic exile in Kokushkino that inspired the young man to forge his life's course as a revolutionary. The historical importance alone needs to be understood and appreciated.Aesthetically, "What is to be done" leaves behind a dry taste in one's mouth; yes, the book is tedious. But at the same time, you can feel the author's energy and fervor at espousing what he really feels is the best course for Russian life, which had been left improved a little, reformed a little, but not wholly bettered since the time of Ivan the Terrible. This is functional art at its best, and it's no question why Chernyshevsky, with his views on art and science given in "The Contemporary," is believed to be the forerunner to Socialist Realism.Any Russian lit readers should welcome the forerunner to countless Doestoevsky and Tolstoy parodies and reactions, as well as Turgenev's intended "perfect" revolutionary, Bazarov.

The teacher of a Russian/English literature course I once took assigned us only a single chapter of Chernyshevsky, because he could not in good conscience make us read what he described as "a rather tiresome book". Mainly because I had not yet discovered how to remove lecturers' photocopies from the library, I got hold of a copy of the book and I read it in two days. Chernyshevsky is not at all hard going. I later discovered that one person in twenty ended up reading and liking the book. I hope it's not just the most counter-suggestible person among the twenty.I can, however, see what the lecturer meant. The book is fiction but the author makes no secret of the fact that it's also propaganda. I can forgive this because (a) the author makes no secret of the fact, and (b) it's largely propaganda in a worthy cause: sexual and social equality. Also, Chernyshevsky is no fool. He doesn't waste his time with blather of the "women are people too" kind, but offers genuine analysis of why society is the way it is. Given when he's writing, I'm impressed. There's a little too much utopian sentiment at the end, but less than you would think... Note this: the central character stages his own death in order to allow his best friend to legally marry his wife when he discovers she's more in love with the friend than with him; he gets the consent of both parties first and the three remain friends. People of the late twentieth century who found themselves in nineteenth-century Russia they might easily behave just the same way. It must have seemed bizaare at the time: but actually, Chernyshevsky knew what he was talking about.Think of some of the extended essays of George Orwell, or of the more plotless novels of H.G. Wells. Chernyshevsky is at any rate closer to the mark than the latter; although not, of course, as rich in ideas as the former.