What is to Be Done? [Paperback]

Nikolai Chernyshevsky (Author), Michael R. Katz (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nikolai Chernyshevsky's great novel, originally published in 1863, transformed Russian views of the peasantry in much the same way that Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin changed American perceptions of slavery. In its pages, a group of idealistic Russian intellectuals go back to the land, easing the lot of the peasants with scientific methods of farming and liberating the serfs from hardship. The intellectuals' socialist vision offers the promise of a world that subsequent events did not bear out, and it is fascinating to consider in the light of historical reality. Fyodor Dostoyevsky gave Chernyshevsky's tale, full of sermonizing and idealism, a darkly pessimistic twist in his masterpiece The Possessed.

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 449 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (January 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801495474
• ISBN-13: 978-0801495472
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Russian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not artistically great, but strangely compelling, August 31, 2000

By 

"mikeu3" - See all my reviews

This review is from: What is to Be Done? (Paperback)

"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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cannot be ignored, August 1, 2008

By 

Sunjay Chandiramani "Sunjay" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What is to Be Done? (Paperback)

Any serious student/lover of nineteenth century Russian literature must be aware that despite the dearth of artistic merit "What is to be Done?" possesses, it nevertheless is absolutely vital for a greater understanding of the ideas of the period. Without proper knowledge of Chernyshevsky's work, it is almost impossible to fully appreciate the nuances of other, more artistically gifted writers, of the time, such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Goncharov. As such, while the reviews here criticising the style of the novel are well valid, they nevertheless must admit its overwhelming influence on the other writers of the period, and that alone must make the serious reader "plough" through the pages of this book.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Historically important book, May 29, 2004

By 

meadowreader (Sandia Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What is to Be Done? (Paperback)

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.