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of the opinion that the writing of a lampoon, a "squib," is unworthy
of
it. ...
The critics, generally speaking, have not got quite the right idea
of what is taking place in the mind of an author or of what exactly
his
joys and sorrows,
his
aims, successess and failures are. They do
not, for instance, even suspect the pleasure which Gogol mentions and
which consists of castigating oneself and one's faults in the imaginary
characters one depicts; they are quite sure that
all
an author does is
to "develop his ideas"; they refuse to believe that to reproduce truth
and the reality of life correctly and powerfully is the greatest hap–
piness for an author, even if this truth does not coincide with his
own sympathies. Let me illustrate my meaning by a small example. I
am an inveterate and incorrigible Westerner. I have never concealed
it and I am not concealing it now. And yet in spite of that it has
given me great pleasure to show up in the person of Panshin (in
A
Nobleman's Home)
all the common and vulgar sides of the West–
erners; I made the Slavophil Lavretsky "crush him utterly." Why
did I do it, I who consider the Slavophil doctrine false and futile?
Because
in the given case life, according to my ideas, happened to
be like that,
and what I wanted above all was to be sincere and
truthful. In depicting Bazarov's personality, I excluded everything
artistic from the range of his sympathies, I made him express him–
self in harsh and unceremonious tones, not out of an absurd desire
to insult the younger generation (!!!), but simply as a result of my
observations of my acquaintance, Dr. D., and people like him. "Life
happened to be
like that,"
my experience told me once more, per–
haps mistakenly, but, I repeat, not dishonestly. There was no need
for me to be too clever about it; I just had, to depict his character
like that.
My personal predilections had nothing to do with it. But
1 expect many of my readers will be surprised if I tell them that
with the exception of Bazarov's views on art, I share almost all his
convictions. And I am assured that I am on the side of the "Fathers"
-I,
who in the person of Pavel Kirsanov have even "sinned" against
artistic truth and gone too far, to the point of caricaturing his faults
and making him look ridiculous!
The cause of all the misunderstandings, the whole, so to speak
"trouble," arose from the fact that the Bazarov type created by me
has not yet had time to go through the gradual phases through which
