I was fascinated by Bazarov. In the beginning I took a very strong dislike to him. I really, really cannot stand the type. He is brash, he takes pleasure in dismissing things out of hand, without really backing that up with any sort of understanding. His only claim to authority is his lack of authority, and that really is ... bogus. I couldn't agree more with Pavel Petrovich's comment that

The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they've suddenly become nihilists.

I must say Bazarov in the beginning made me think fondly of Nietzsche, and I wholeheartedly understand his reaction to nihilism, all the more for having read Bazarov. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to see an influence there. The book fits to neatly in with Nietzsche's ideas for it to really be a coincidence. If there is not a direct influence, at least there is a very strong cultural current that links them. Quite apart from the "God is dead" comment, there is the definite tendency of the nihilists in the book to take themselves too seriously.

I spent almost half the book wanting him to drop dead. The absurd tenet that if something is not perfect it should be rejected outright... I have no words. His rejection of families, for example, when Pavel Petrovich suggests it is a good thing, on the basis that some of them do not function optimally. Gah. He reminds me of me when I was 14. And he is supposed to be a well educated man.

But Bazarov grows on me. I think it begins at the point where he realises, resists and then gives in to his feelings for Odintsova -- it shows at least that he is not all talk, and I admit I enjoyed seeing the experience change him subtly. He softens, in a way. Grows wise, perhaps? The sheer, horrible arrogance which led him to dismiss Pavel Petrovich wholesale disappears somewhat. He becomes less settled, which makes him more interesting and less annoying.

And then the visit to his parents. That was quite a revelation, and it fleshed him out enough for me to no longer react to him the way I did initially. He sheer antipathy I felt was replaced by ... some sort of understanding. Pity, perhaps. It is terribly tempting to treat him as a person at this point, and to psychoanalyse him. Seeing his parents (and his interaction with his parents), and knowing the back history of the family, makes all the clearer much of the earlier reactions (for example, the way he reacts so violently to his father's talk about General Kirsanov brought to mind Bazarov's insistence on painting Odintsova as nobility. He claims to have shed the restrictions of respect for social rank, but he is not beyond it -- he is reacting to it. He has just replaced blind respect with blind hostility, which is equally pointless. He does not consider himself their equal.

I am not sure what to make of his attempt at Fenechka. I suppose it is in part due to the strange attraction which natural women seem to have in this book. Perhaps we can discuss that in a separate thread.

At any rate: am I alone in thinking that Bazarov commits suicide? It seems obvious to me, but I don't know whether there is a consensus either way. He knows he will not do what he claims he could do -- he is losing steam, he is seeing things as empty, and the natural conclusion is suicide (again, another reason why I cannot help think that Nietzsche is influenced by this book) -- that way he can keep the potential.