President Oblomov

The title character of Ivan Goncharov’s 1859 classic Oblomov may be literature’s most indecisive man. We meet the young Russian nobleman lying in bed in the late morning; it takes two chapters for him to get out of bed—and collapse onto an armchair. He spends most of his life lying down, though he has much to do. His estate is in disarray, he faces eviction from his apartment, his friends come calling hoping to bring him to town or on a trip abroad, he needs to find a wife. And Oblomov has many ideas for putting his life in order—he daydreams of the house he’ll build on his estate, of the wife he’ll meet, of travelling with his friends. Yet first he must get up, wash, trade his dressing-gown for proper clothes. And there are endless interruptions—Oblomov may hardly move, but he is constantly planning to move, telling his servant what to do to prepare things for his move, thinking up what he’ll do once he’s moving, before he loses his handkerchief or his train of thought and must start anew. And so he’s been planning to fix up his estate for years without doing anything. He’s promised friends he’ll accompany them, but never has. A book he’s reading lies open to the same page for a month. He remains on his back, in his dressing-gown, into the afternoon. And of course he sees none of this as his fault—the interruptions, the incompetence of his servant, the visitors, all intervene to keep him from acting.