Marriage plans

When Lopukhov and Vera happily talk of their future married life, she wants to model it on his friendship with Kirsanov, a fellow med student with whom he shares rooms.

No shared room and bed for them.

But fellow students sharing rooms expect not to be together forever, nor even for very long.

They expect to move on with life, start a career, and generally they expect to get married.

And when they marry they will almost certainly expect to have children, many intending, expecting, or hoping to raise them together with their spouses.

It's far more than a temporary arrangement between friends.

And often involves a shared room and bed. 

Oh, and not a word about sex.

Perhaps there isn't to be any?

L has spent much time explaining to her materialism and a rather mushy psychological egoism, which she accepts.

But despite what he tells himself it appears his love for her is selfless and his marriage to her involves considerable sacrifice.

Her love for and marriage to him are quite genuinely selfish, however.

A plot summary l have seen says she will want to dump him for Kirsanov, and L will kill himself to clear her way.

She and K will then live happily ever after.

The book is said to have been an inspiration, as responsible for the Russian Revolution as Uncle Tom's Cabin for our Civil War.

Go figure.

Literary taxonomy

There is such a thing as didactic poetry.

And there are such things as pedantic novels.

Anyway, this one.

Presumptuous and patronizing to the reader and to his characters in authorial intrusions.

What is to be Done?

Update.

Rattling on about psychological egoism.

Jejune, insipid, fatuous, arrogant, and dogmatic.

Like something from Plautus.

Chapter One, section 3.

Very amusing, almost laugh out loud.

Don't know if that's intended.

Veroshka's outburst to Julie in section 6 is admirable; Julie's reply is comic.

The family clash in 7 over the proposed marriage to Misha would bring down the house, put on the stage.

Can Chernyshevsky really have intended this to be funny?

Again, the entire first paragraph of section 8 about the maids seems like a scene from Moliere.

Is this book generally thought of as comedy?

The authorial intrusion in section 7 was rather preachy, as was his preface that was also cheeky.

But the intrusion in 9, when he berates his heroine for naivete as she refuses Misha, would have cheered Fielding.

As would the end of chapter one, where the author advises his readers how he will - or rather how he won't - resolve his characters' predicament.

Reading What is to be Done?

Despotism

It is hilarious that the imperial Russian authorities allowed Chernyshevsky to write What is to be Done? while in prison, passed it along to his publisher, and allowed publication.

Pretty far from the Russia of the Reds.

The book is regarded as a major feminist work, though in it the author expresses views of women comparable to those that earned Schopenhauer and Nietzsche reputations for sexism.

Reading What is to be Done?

Tough call

Which is worse, being ruled by a sociopathic egoist or an idealist equally without scruple or remorse?

The Congo ruled by King Leopold or Cambodia ruled by the Khmer Rouge?

Reading Chernyshevsky, What is to Be Done?

Of course, in his theories of human motivation and moral duty he combined both egoism and utilitarianism, like Bentham and Mill before him.

Unlike Sidgwick, who saw egoism and utilitarianism as competing ideals of rational conduct.