Pascal Bruckner: “Screen, slippers and sofa, the universal ideal of contemporary man”

LE FIGARO.

- Your book opens with a portrait of Oblomov, the hero of Goncharov's novel… How is this character from Russian literature emblematic of our time?

Pascal BRICKNER.

-

Oblomov is a little squire near Saint-Petersburg who suffers from a strange disease: he lives in bed.

Getting up, doing his mail, going out, seeing friends and, even worse, seeing a woman costs him a lot.

He can't bring himself to do it: after the slightest effort, he has to lie down and sleep.

Through this character which has become a classic in Russia, Goncharov highlighted a characteristic trait of Russians and which irritated Lenin: passivity.

I read

during the confinement and I had the feeling that this novel described our situation: like him, man or woman, after a moment of revolt against the sanitary rules, we slipped into this quasi vegetative life with a some complacency.

Many of us have become like those sighing prisoners...

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