"superfluous man " (Russian : Lishny Chelovek) : a character type whose frequent recurrence in
    19th-century Russian literature is sufficiently striking to make him a national archetype. He is
    usually an aristocrat, intelligent, well-educated, and informed by idealism and goodwill but
    incapable, for reasons as complex as Hamlet's, of engaging in effective action.
        -Encyclopaedia Britannica

In his great autobiography, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, Albert Jay Nock meant that he was superfluous because his ideas, particularly his belief in freedom, had become so outmoded at the time he was writing--the 1940s.  But the original superfluous men were Russian nobles, who led utterly meaningless lives of leisure, while peasants worked their land, servants took care of them, and autocratic government mostly ignored them.  They were felt to be superfluous because they had so little to do and made so little contribution to Russian culture.  For the most part though, they were treated, in literature anyway, as kind of tragic heroes, as Russian Hamlets.

Thus, in Ivan Turgenev's novella, The Diary of a Superfluous Man, the young protagonist, Tchulkaturin, humiliates himself in a romantic entanglement and a resulting duel, all the while conveying the sense that there's nothing else really left for him to do with himself.  Turgenev's portrayal of this hopeless character combines tragicomedy with social criticism, but it is certainly more sympathetic than not.

As always, Turgenev is the most accessible of Russian authors; the Constance Garnett translation is very readable; and it is blessedly short.  Even if you're, understandably, intimidated by Russian novelists, you'll enjoy it.

(Reviewed:26-Sep-01)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

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