Tom Hodgkinson

Tolstoy’s favourite novel is a guide to being idle

A review of Oblomov, by Ivan Goncharov, translated by Stephen Pearl. But like many apparent idlers, Oblomov isn’t really lazy – he just spends a lot of time in bed

A still from 'A Few Days in the Life of I, I, Oblomov', based on the novel Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov Photo: Getty 
issue 18 October 2014

Oblomov, first published in 1859, is the charming tale of a lazy but lovable aristocrat in 19th-century Russia. The novel’s eponymous hero cannot see the point of doing anything at all, and spends his time lying in bed or wandering around his St Petersburg flat in his beloved oriental dressing gown, bickering about the dusting with his manservant.

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