6 h 40 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the comfort you love becomes the one thing you cannot escape?
In St Petersburg, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov lies in his dressing gown while letters, visitors and decisions wait. He is gentle, honest and full of dreams. He cannot bring himself to answer a letter, move house or manage his estate. In Ivan Goncharov’s novel, even getting out of bed becomes a struggle between the familiar room and the demanding world outside.
His old servant Zakhar grumbles and shares his stubborn habits. His tireless boyhood friend Andrei Stolz tries to draw him into an active life. Then Olga Ilyinskaya sees a man she believes love can awaken. As their romance grows, practical demands press closer, and Oblomov faces choices that nobody else can make for him.
What you’ll discover
- A morning that lingers Watch a stream of visitors reveal the ways of living Oblomov refuses to embrace.
- Comedy with a tender heart Meet a man whose kindness makes his endless delays both funny and painful.
- The dream of home Enter Oblomov’s childhood at Oblomovka and explore the comfort that shapes his habits.
- Love against old habits Follow Olga’s hope that the gentle man she loves can find the will to change.
- The meaning of Oblomovism Consider how a life of drift and comfort can slowly wear away a person’s will.
Who will love it
For readers who love humane comedy, rich detail and intimate character studies, and anyone who has put off something important. Oblomov explores comfort, indecision and the hope that love can inspire change.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A man who will not get up
- Visitors who each want something
- Zakhar, the letter and the move
- The dream of Oblomovka
- Stolz, the friend who pulls him out
- Olga, and the first spring of love
- Love meets the old habits
- What Oblomovism really means
- How Goncharov tells the story
Who’s who
- Ilya Ilyich OblomovA kind, dreamy landowner in St Petersburg who prefers his sofa to the world and fears every decision.
- ZakharOblomov's old, grumbling servant, who is as set in his ways as his master and fiercely loyal to him.
- Andrei StolzOblomov's boyhood friend, half German, practical and tireless, who keeps trying to pull him into a useful life.
- Olga IlyinskayaA clear-minded young woman who loves Oblomov and believes that she can wake the man she sees within him.
- Agafya PshenitsynaA quiet, kind widow who keeps house for Oblomov and offers him the comfort he remembers from home.
- TarantievA loud, sly acquaintance who bullies Oblomov and looks for ways to profit from his trust.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 6 h 40 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Oblomov
by Ivan Aleksandrovič Gončarov · 1859
A gentle landowner stays on his sofa while his estate declines, his friend urges action and a young woman offers love.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A man who will not get up
The novel opens in a rented apartment on Gorokhovaya Street in St Petersburg. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is lying in bed, as he does on most mornings and for much of every day. He is a landowner in his early thirties, with soft hands, a round pleasant face and a loose Eastern dressing gown that he loves like an old friend. He owns an estate called Oblomovka, with several hundred serfs, far from the capital.
Goncharov takes his time over the room. There is dust on the furniture, a cobweb on the ceiling and an old newspaper that has not been read for a year. A dinner plate with a bone on it sits where it was left last night. The mess is not the mess of a poor man. It is the mess of a man who has stopped caring about small tasks and has found that nothing terrible happens when he lets them go.
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What is Oblomov about?
Oblomov is about a good-natured Russian landowner who lies on his sofa and cannot face practical decisions. Friends, a servant and a young woman try to change him, and the book asks why willpower fades.
What does Oblomovism mean?
Oblomovism means a habit of apathy and daydreaming that keeps a person from acting. The critic Dobrolyubov used it to describe the idle gentry class, but it is now used for anyone who drifts and delays.
When was Oblomov written and is it a true story?
Oblomov was published in 1859, shortly before serfdom ended in Russia. It is a work of fiction, though it draws on Goncharov's knowledge of provincial estates and St Petersburg life.
The author
Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov
1812–1891 · Russian novelist
Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov was a Russian novelist and government official. He was born in Simbirsk in 1812 and died in Saint Petersburg in 1891. He lived and worked in Saint Petersburg. His novels include A Common Story (1847), Oblomov (1859), and The Precipice (1869).
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