Russian Literature LXV (2009) IV www.elsevier.

com/locate/ruslit

FROM TURGENEV TO BITOV: SUPERFLUOUS MEN AND POSTMODERN SELVES

ANNA SCHUR

Abstract The paper reframes the discussion of the superfluous man tradition by relying on the vocabulary and insights of postmodern discourse of the self. It argues that along with such commonly discussed attributes as ineffectiveness, alienation, and heightened self-reflexivity, the superfluous men in Turgenevs Diary of a Superfluous Man, Dostoevskiis Notes from the Underground, and Bitovs Pushkin House suffer from a (proto)-postmodern malaise whose manifestation is the dissolution of the autonomous, essential self that exists independently of language. Furthermore, the paper suggests that somewhat paradoxically, the awareness of this malaise and the anguish associated with it become not more but less intense with the advent of the postmodern era. Of the three characters I consider, Leva Odoevtsev, the protagonist of Bitovs postmodern novel, seems to be the least aware of his condition and the least paralyzed by it. Keywords: Bitov; Dostoevskii; Pushkin; Turgenev Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment born and dying 1 With the blest tone that made me! (Lord Byron)

0304-3479/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ruslit.2009.07.007

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While a man is truly living, he has no sensation of his own life; like a sound, it becomes clear to him only a short time later. (Ivan Turgenev)

In a 1987 essay on the superfluous man in Russian literature, David Patterson has lamented the scarcity of approaches to this tradition in literary scholarship. 3 From the nineteenth century onwards, the discussion of the superfluous man had emphasized such features of this character as his alienation, heightened self-reflexivity, ineffectiveness, passivity, and non-conformity and had been accounting for them from socio-historical and psychological standpoints. 4 While surely illuminating, these examinations, Patterson argued, could further profit from fresh perspectives. In his own essay, he set out to change the terms of discussion and to consider the superfluous man not from the standpoint of these familiar approaches but through the prism of this characters discourse. Focusing on such prominent nineteenth-century examples of the superfluous type as Pukins Onegin in Eugene Onegin, Lermontovs Pe orin in A Hero of Our Time, Dostoevskijs Goljadkin in The Double, and Turgenevs ulkaturin in Diary of a Superfluous Man, Patterson concluded that these characters single distinguishing feature is the monological nature of their discourse. He then went on to see this characteristic as the main cause underlying these characters other commonly noted qualities. One might wish that Patterson had offered a more cogent explanation of how his use of the term monological differs, as it clearly does, from the related Bakhtinian term, which just as clearly inspired it. Or that he had been somewhat clearer as to what begets what the discourse engenders the superfluous mans proverbial features or these features determine the quality of the superfluous mans discourse. Or that he outlined more sharply his understanding of such diverse but to him apparently interrelated phenomena as, say, self-love, lack of freedom, paralysis, and monologism. And yet, despite these disappointments, I am sympathetic to Pattersons project. Indeed, in the following pages, I, too, attempt to reframe the discussion of the superfluous man by calling attention to the way this character relates to language. Unlike Patterson, however, I am not looking to characterize the superfluous mans discourse but to highlight the discursive nature of his very self. In the account I offer, the superfluous mans condition appears not as a result of a particular use of language. Rather, it figures as symptom of what some strands of postmodern critical theory diagnosed as the selfs de-

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realization the dissolution of the autonomous, essential self that exists independently and outside of language. Unlike Patterson, who focuses exclusively on the nineteenth-century characters, my sample of the superfluous men includes, in addition to Turgenevs ulkaturin and Dostoevskijs Underground Man, their twentiethcentury descendant the protagonist of Andrej Bitovs Pushkin House Leva Odoevcev. Concerned with the questions of cultural memory, Bitovs novel establishes numerous and purposefully transparent connections to the Russian literary past. Among these connections we find Levas ties to the tradition of the superfluous man. The title of the novels second part A Hero of Our Time playfully establishes him as heir to Lermontovs Pe orin. His tendency towards day-dreaming, excessive self-reflexivity, and illusions of grandeur alternating with savage fits of self-doubt remind one of the Underground Man. Furthermore, like his nineteenth-century predecessors, Leva stands for a historically typical representative of the Russian intelligentsia (Baker 2000: 206) and possesses some talents for which there is no outlet in his time and place (Nakhimovsky 1988: 203). Levas particular brand of typicality also links him to the superfluous type. In the words of one critic, it is Levas egocentric immaturity that bears the stamp of collective, cultural significance (Baker 2000: 206). But while all of these qualities establish Leva as a successor to the gallery of nineteenth-century superfluous men, there is also a feature that, retrospectively, he brings out in them. This feature is his propensity towards what Mark Lipovetsky calls the simulation of reality, a mode of existence in which reality becomes replaced by current conceptions of it and which Lipovetsky finds typical not only of Leva but of Soviet society more broadly (1999: 43-44). Related, as Lipovetsky explains, to Baudrillards notion of simulacra whose production similarly replaces reality with self-sufficient semiotic systems that have no correspondence to the real world, simulation of reality affects multiple levels of experience penetrating as deeply as individual consciousness and causing it to lead a simulative existence (11). Significantly, the questions of simulation and originality are central to the novel in a different sense as well. Critics like Alice Stone Nakhimovsky have taken rather seriously the authors declaration of his lack of internal independence. Nakhimovsky has argued, for instance, that Pushkin House is the kind of novel that exists only in relation to the nineteenth-century literary canon and that it is intentionally unable to stand up by itself (1988: 198). To Nakhimovsky, Bitovs reveling in the texts tongue-in-cheek derivative status represents one of the novels central themes. It also encodes the authors understanding of his own time and its relationship to the past. This past, including its intellectual and creative vitality, cannot be repeated (or even properly comprehended) amidst the rather tawdry Soviet reality of the 1960s. Echoing Lipovetskys rhetoric of simulation, Nakhimovsky character-

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izes the novels perception of its era as a time when [e]verything is secondary; everything is derived; everything is stolen (202). Given that this is how the novel senses its own historical time, it is not surprising that its central character, who is said to represent something essential about this era, should embody the idea of a derivative and de-realized self. What seems more important, however, is that Levas joining the ranks of superfluous men highlights a similar feature in his predecessors. Far from being restricted to Bitovs character, an analogous dissolution of the self in discursive simulations can also be detected in his nineteenth-century progenitors. In fact, I will argue that somewhat paradoxically, the awareness of this disintegration and the anguish associated with it become not more but less intense with the advent of the postmodern era. Of the three characters I consider, Leva Odoevcev, the protagonist of Bitovs postmodern novel, seems to be the least aware of his condition and the least paralyzed by it. When in the epigraph above, Manfred, a classic Byronic character and a Western relation of the Russian superfluous man, longs to become a living voice, he may be seen as falling into what Jacques Derrida perceives as a familiar trap. In light of Derridas thought, Manfreds statement can be viewed as an unrealizable longing to ensure a perfect correspondence between the self and its expression, or what Derrida calls an absolute proximity of voice and being (Derrida 1976: 11). For Manfred, who is tormented by feelings of guilt and self-loathing (he feels responsible for the death of his sister with whom he had an incestuous relationship), the amalgamation of meaning and sound suggested by the idea of the bodiless, living voice contains a promise of self-oblivion that he is desperately seeking. What Manfred seems to value the most about this union of the self and its expression is that it ensures the contemporaneousness of their existence. Born and dying/ with the blest tone that made it, the sound into which Manfred wishes his self to transform would be extinguished simultaneously with its source. The image that he conjures up erases the gap that separates an instance of the selfs expression from the moment of its reflection upon that instance, evoking the idea of a unitary and unmediated self that Manfred has lost any hope of finding. What interests me in this detour into Byron is a somewhat unexpected but telling resemblance between the larger-than-life Manfred and the stuttering and pitiable ulkaturin, the protagonist of Turgenevs 1850 short novel Diary of a Superfluous Man. Despite the obvious dissimilarities, ulkaturin is like Manfred not only because he suffers from excessive selfreflexivity and intense feelings of self-loathing, but also because he chooses a strikingly similar imagery to describe the kind of a unitary self for which he longs. While a man is truly living, ulkaturin writes in his diary, he has no sensation of his own life; like a sound, it becomes clear to him only a short

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time later. For ulkaturin, as for Manfred, the idea of sound in progress offers a metaphor for a harmonious existence of the self that they both associate with self-oblivion ( ulkaturin, for instance, compares a happy man to a fly in a sunshine; Turgenev 1999: 28-29; 1963: 5, 192). 5 Conversely, the notion of the terminated sound that becomes available for analysis upon its termination is implicitly compared to the self that is aware of its division into the self as a subject and the self as an object. For postmodern critics like Derrida, the kind of a whole, impermeable self for which Manfred and ulkaturin are yearning is a fiction. Viewing the self as a function of language, Derrida does not believe that it can ever achieve a full, unmediated, and stable presence (Derrida 1982: 15). Constituted through our use of language, our selves can never be stabilized due to the languages own instability. 6 Nor can they avoid being entangled in the same complications as any other object that we attempt to grasp. According to Derrida, even at moments of highest self-proximity, such as interior monologue, the self cannot escape the hiatus a gap vaguely sensed both by Manfred and ulkaturin that splits it up into the hearer and the listener. ulkaturins experience serves as a striking illustration to this idea. Mortified by hearing himself speak, ulkaturin is continuously aware of a painful non-coincidence with himself. Bearing out Derridas challenge to the old-standing tradition that associates voice with truth and authenticity, ulkaturin emphatically rejects the idea that (spoken) language has ever helped him to achieve higher accuracy in expressing his intended meaning. In fact, convinced beforehand that his thoughts will come out all wrong, he has gone through life both terrified of speaking and ashamed of his condition, finding it strange that other people can speak so simply, so freely (Turgenev 1999: 22; 1963: 5, 188). With ulkaturin, language is not an obedient vehicle of thought but an obstinate and unmanageable medium that tends to belie rather than convey meaning. He is tormented by an awareness that between [his] thoughts and [his] feelings and the expression of those thoughts and feelings there has always been some senseless, incomprehensible, and insurmountable obstacle:
[...] 5, 186) , . (Turgenev 1999: 20; 1963:

The difficulty, however, is not merely that ulkaturin feels that language fails him in his intentions. According to him, the problem runs much deeper. Whenever ulkaturin makes an attempt to break down the barrier separating his thoughts and feelings from the form he is able to give them, he feels that this imperfect form has a powerful effect on his very self. Not

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only does he appear phony and artificial, but actually [becomes] so (1999: 20; 1963: 5, 186). The very articulations of ulkaturins internal self constitute him as a fraud in his own eyes. ulkaturins sense of himself as a double-dealer could be related to his awareness of the thoroughly conventional nature of his language and behavior. He senses his inability to find fresher and more authentic ways of expressing himself and feels uncomfortable falling back on verbal formulas or even rules of decorum. In short, he is vaguely tormented by the intuition that neither his language nor behavior is properly his. For instance, this is how he describes his first meeting with Liza:
, , ), , 5, 191)
7

, , ,

. (Turgenev 1999: 26-27; 1963:

Needless to say, I kept to what is proper under such circumstances, first bowing my head while at the same time buckling and straightening my knees (as if someone had hit the back of my legs from behind); as everyone knows, this serves as an indication of excellent breeding, grace, and charm. Then I smiled, raised my hand, and cautiously but gently waved it in the air a couple of times.

The level of detail in ulkaturins account has the effect of slowing down and defamiliarizing a series of familiar social gestures. But the slow motion aspect of this description does not merely communicate the full anguish of ulkaturins self-consciousness; it also reveals how alien the script of this simple ritual is to him, how much it is not his own. The same sense of not owning applies even more intensely to language. Repeatedly, ulkaturin acknowledges the borrowed, imitative and spent character of his expressions and variously signals his awareness of their overused nature. For instance, he italicizes and takes in quotation marks the phrase joys of mutual life of which he dreams, to create an ironic distance both from the phrase and from someone who would use it in earnest. He frequently glosses his assertions to highlight the formulaic nature of his language and annotates his images to indicate his awareness of their thoroughly hackneyed status. Here are some examples. ulkaturin reflecting on the impending proposal to Liza:

From Turgenev to Bitov: Superfluous Men and Postmodern Selves

, , , ,

567

. (Turgenev 1999: 70; 1963: 5, 226)

I actually imagined that I was presenting an unparalleled example of generosity, as the literature anthologies put it, and that she would give her consent out of sheer amazement. (italics added)

ulkaturins reflections on the state of being of a content individual: [H]e is in a state of bliss, as poorly educated poets would say (italics added; [O]n blaenstvuet, kak govorjat durno vospitannye po ty; Turgenev 1999: 28; 1963: 5, 192). ulkaturin on the disastrous conclusion of his courtship:
, ,

, (Turgenev 1999: 29; 1963: 5, 193)

My memory becomes inexorably faithful and clear only from the moment when the blows of fate began to rain down upon me, to put it as those same badly educated writers might. (italics added)

Apart from pointing to ulkaturins reliance on verbal formulas, these passages also call attention to his painful awareness of their inadequacy. While of course we can simply attribute ulkaturins reliance on stale clichs to his inarticulateness, it is curious that he should be so acutely conscious and ashamed of his expressions derivative nature. One could argue that this peculiar sensitivity to the unoriginal character of his language can be viewed in terms of an intuitive awareness of what postmodern theorists see as the unavoidably second-hand, repeatable character of all verbal signs.8 In a similar vein, ulkaturins other linguistic shortcomings, such as his failure to communicate the intended meaning and his overall sense of being defeated by language, may also transcend his personal deficiencies, pointing, instead, to what postmodern theory frequently views as the subjects lack of control over language on the one hand, and to the related impossibility of stabilizing the subjects identity through language on the other. Seen in this light, ulkaturins view of himself as a dissembler and a fraud, which invariably accompanies his attempts to express his thoughts and emotions, figures not as manifestation of his unique predicament but rather as a heightened sensitivity to what, in fact, constitutes the condition of all: the inescapability of verbal forms that precede and shape our utterances, thoughts, and self-understanding.

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And yet, while ulkaturins intuitions about the relationship between the self and language resonate with some postmodern insights, there is also an important difference. While for Derrida, for example, the self can never exist independently of language, ulkaturin seems to believe that, in the end, it is precisely the kind of unmediated entity whose existence Derrida denies. His very frustration at not being able to achieve a direct access to it reveals his belief in the selfs pre-linguistic, essential nature. For example, in the passage explaining his dread of articulating his feelings and thoughts, ulkaturin describes himself as a superfluous man who is locked up inside himself (s zamo kom vnutri; 1999: 22; 1963: 5, 188). And it is probably into this locked up self that he, by his own admission, hastens to withdraw (ujti v sebja) whenever he perceives the signs of simulation and duplicity that invariably accompany his attempts to express himself (1999: 20; 1963: 5, 186). In this sense, ulkaturin differs from another superfluous man, the narrator of Dostoevskijs Notes from the Underground. Unlike ulkaturin, who believes in the existence of the unitary, impermeable, if inaccessible, self even as he is crushed by the anxiety that in attempting to lay it bare he is bound to corrupt, distort or belie it, the Underground Man is tormented by the awareness of his selfs attenuated nature. Lacking, as he believes, any definitive qualities, he claims that he would have welcomed even laziness as a positive trait of which [he himself] could be certain. For the designation of a lazy fellow implies a positive definition for which he longs. It means, the Underground Man continues, that there is something that can be said about me. A lazy fellow. Why, thats a rank and title, thats a career (Dostoevskij 1991: 20-21; 1972: 5, 109). 9 In the absence of such definite characteristics, the Underground Man continuously doubts the authenticity of his responses, attitudes and even emotions, including the most private ones. Remembering his years in the government service, for instance, the Underground Man recalls how intensely he loathed his office mates. At the same time, he also recollects that his bouts of misanthropy invariably alternated with the periods of rapprochement and fraternizing with the same people he professed to despise. Years later, he still struggles to explain these turnabouts, wondering whether his fastidiousness [brezglivost] has ever been a genuine response of his own. Who knows, perhaps it [brezglivost] never existed, but was put on, borrowed from books. I still havent resolved this question (1991: 47; 1972: 5, 125-126). The reference to books is symptomatic. In the Underground Mans account, the term bookish and the idea of borrowing from books encode a larger and strikingly proto-postmodern problem of imitated discourses and simulated identities. In fact, all of the Underground Mans obsessive attempts to furnish more flattering self-images rely on his pilfering of discourses that he finds suitable for the occasion. On the day following the

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disastrous dinner party, for instance, the Underground Man silences the memories of excruciating shame first by painting to his colleague Anton Antonovi the picture of himself as a man-about-town merrily carousing with some old and powerful friends, and then by writing Simonov a letter whose presumable elegance and lightness are intended to communicate the impression of the author as a self-respecting gentleman (1991: 103; 1972: 5, 164). Both the oral account and the letter are peppered with the sentences that the Underground Man takes in quotation marks, indicating his awareness that he is imitating, as it were, someone elses discourse.10 Significantly, both in his interactions with Anton Antonovi and in his writing of the letter to Simonov, the Underground Man betrays some amazement at his own loquacity and poise. In his encounter with Anton Antonovi , for example, he is baffled by the ease with which he assumes the role of a man-about-town, something he does unexpectedly to himself, simply as a result of being emboldened by the surprising ease with which he secures a loan. As he concludes his thoroughly revised account of the previous days events, he comments on it as if it were spoken not by him but by somebody else: But somehow it was alright; the whole thing was delivered with great ease, familiarity and smugness (I ved ni ego; proiznosilos vse to o en legko, razvjazno i samodovolno; 1991: 102; 1972: 5, 164). 11 A similar sense of surprise and detachment is also detectable in the Underground Mans remark about his letter to Simonov. Pleased with the alleged refinement of the letter, the Underground Man presents himself not so much as the author but rather as a vehicle of its urbane and polished style which suddenly found expression through [his] pen (1991: 103; 1972: 5, 164). Even more poignantly, the fateful impromptu speech at Zverkovs farewell party is described by the Underground Man as something that got uttered mechanically, as if in spite of himself, plunging him in horror at the sound of the words he did not mean to say (1991: 75; 1972: 5, 145). While the Underground Man tacitly acknowledges that on some crucial occasions in his life language speaks through him rather than being spoken by him, he does not feel defeated by it. Unlike ulkaturin who cringes at hearing himself speak and resents his impotence to articulate his genuine, tucked away self, the Underground Man often revels in his ability to simulate various discourses and embraces the identities that these simulations yield. For example, twenty years later, he still nurses the memory of the truly gentlemanly, good-natured, open tone of his letter to Simonov because in his estimation, this tone proves him to be an educated and cultured person of our times (1991: 102-103; 1972: 5, 164-165). And yet, while in contrast to ulkaturin the Underground Man does not seem to imply the reality of a durable self that exists prior to and outside of language, he does resemble Turgenevs character in that he never mistakes his simulations for the real thing. Conscious of the absence of any positive definition, he is never-

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theless aware that the selves he does conjure up are never authentic. Even when he gets carried away by his grandiose daydreams, part of him remains soberly alert to their imitative, second-hand nature. By the Underground Mans own admission, these daydreams derive almost exclusively from literature, largely of a Romantic bent. The hodgepodge of extravagant and intoxicating roles that he assigns himself in his reveries are all ready-made and quite stolen [silno ukradeny] from poets and novelists (1991: 58; 1972: 5, 133). 12 As he adapts to his purposes a potpourri of familiar characters (Manfred among them) and plot lines from Byron, Pukin, Lermontov, and George Sand, he regrets that reality is not as literary as he wishes it to be. 13 And yet, while he himself is fully aware of his bookishness, he feels threatened and exposed when Liza detects it in his preachment to her (1991: 94; 1972: 5, 159). Unmasked as an imitator, he fears and resents her unexpected perspicacity. The most dramatic cost of bookishness, however, is not even the loss of originality, but alienation from life and a loss of the authentic self. Accustomed to thinking and imagining everything as it happened in books, and to regarding everything in the world as [he] had already created in [his] dreams, the Underground Man fails to comprehend and to respond to living life (1991: 117, 119; 1972: 5, 174, 176). Barricaded behind his bookishness, he feels assaulted when life unexpectedly springs on him. As a most tragic consequence of this separation, he fails to recognize and to reciprocate Lizas affection, remaining alone in his underground. Far from being the Underground Mans unique anomaly, however, bookishness, according to him, is a disease of many. At the end of the Notes, he sees the loss of authentic connection with life as a distinctive feature of the collective we:
, . , , , . , ,

(1991: 122; 1972: 5, 178)

We have grown so out of the habit of even living that we sometimes feel a sort of loathing for living life, and therefore we cannot bear to be reminded of it. You see, we have reached the point where we look upon real living life almost as a burden, almost as servitude, and we are all agreed amongst ourselves that it is much better to live life according to books.

Like ulkaturin, who displays an unusual sensitivity to what, in fact, may be viewed as the condition of all, the Underground Man also exhibits a heighten-

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ed awareness of a malady that goes unnoticed by most people. When he professes to be more alive than anybody else, his claim rests not only on the extreme nature of his bookishness but also on his awareness of it. Unlike all those who never get embarrassed, and who live their lives oblivious to the radically attenuated nature of their selves, the Underground Man recognizes this attenuation even if he cannot help it:
! , , , , , ? . ? , , , , , , -

, ; ,

, . . 14 . (1991: 123; 1972: 5, 178-179)

Look more carefully! After all, we dont even know where this life is at the moment, or what it is, what its called. Leave us alone, without books, and wed instantly trip up, get lost we dont know where to place our allegiance, what to hang on to; what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We even find difficult to be human beings human beings with our own real flesh and blood; we are ashamed of it, we consider it a disgrace and strive to be some imaginary general type. We are stillborn, and for a long time we have not been begotten of living fathers and this pleases us more and more. We are acquiring the taste. Before long well think up a way of being begotten by an idea.

The Underground Mans prophesy of the collective we being begotten by an idea becomes realized, as it were, in Andrej Bitovs Pushkin House (1972). According to Lipovetsky, simulation of reality, and one might add the concomitant simulation of the self, that Bitov takes as his central theme is revealed in the novel to be the spiritual mechanism of the entire Soviet period. The prime example of such a simulator is Leva Odoevcev, the novels main hero and the successor to the nineteenth-century progression of the superfluous men. Like his predecessors, particularly the Underground Man, Leva is constantly engaged in forging all manner of self-serving fictions that tend to follow highly melodramatic and trite plot lines. And he seems to suffer similar consequences. When the unwitting participants of these fictions fail to accept the roles or attitudes he assigns them and Leva is forced to confront life, he feels betrayed and insulted. His way of coping is to replace old fic-

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tions with new ones, equally empty and self-serving. According to his grandfather Modest Platonovi , one of the novels few characters who manage to preserve their authenticity in the face of the apparently pervasive simulation characteristic of Soviet reality, Leva is profoundly alienated from life:
, , , . ! [...] , -

, 1987: 76; 1978: 93)

. (Bitov

Neither facts nor conditions nor reality exists for you only the concepts of them. You simply have no suspicion that life exists! grandfather Odoevcev tells Leva. The unexplained world throws you into a panic, which you take for the emotional suffering characteristic of a man with subtle feelings.

Levas only remedy is to have had an explanation for what happened before it happened, that is, to see only the part of the world that fits [his] premature explanation (imet objasnenie proisedemu rane, em ono proizolo, toest, videt iz mira li to, to podchodit tvoemu predevremennomu objasneniju; 1987: 76; 1978: 93). For grandfather, these premature explanations testify to what appears as a strikingly underground failure Levas inability to respond to life spontaneously and authentically, a failure that Odoevcev senior goes on to define as lack of intelligence. For intelligence, in his eyes, is not quotation, not recollection, not preparation according to any model, even the highest not performance. Intelligence is the capacity for the birth of a mirroring thought, synchronous with reality. Directly invoking Dostoevskij, Odoevcev asserts that this ability is not needed for anything but living life (1987: 77; 1978: 94). Not possessed of this gift, Leva is securely fenced from living life by his prepared and rehearsed responses. His perpetual forging of fictitious reality has a profound effect on the self that also takes the aspect of a recycled fiction. Diagnosing his syndrome, grandfather Odoevcev couches his insight into Levas failure to respond to life extemporaneously and unpremeditatedly in terms of authenticity of the self.
, , , , , ? ,

... . (1987: 75-76; 1978: 93)

From Turgenev to Bitov: Superfluous Men and Postmodern Selves

It seems that you are utterly sincere do you hear, Levushka, I dont doubt your sincerity, being sincere seems important to you but youre 15 utterly sincere in never being yourself.

573

Like the Underground Man, Leva both knows enough to value authenticity and possesses no authentic self. Unlike the Underground Man, however, he seems less aware of his simulations and less perturbed by them. Although half conscious of the non-coincidence with himself, he leaves it to his grandfather or the narrator to note it as a problem. 16 In fact, he hears himself speak even with rapture. In contrast to ulkaturin who feels trapped in the language that is not his own, or the Underground Man who gets carried away by his discursive simulations yet knows that they are merely simulations, Leva is largely oblivious to his inauthenticity. For example, bent on the thawing of the ice when visiting his estranged grandfather, Leva
[...] became so busy choosing what to say and what not to say, but most importantly how to say it, he found he had so much of this emotional subtlety, which lay in the evenness of his voice, the certainty of his tone, the honest frankness of his gaze that he was very much carried away by it all, and no longer seemed to be doing the talking. With the very attentiveness and the sudden collapse of tension, the very relaxation that he had meant for Grandfather, he himself listened to Leva talking his soulful and appealing voice falling from somewhere and did not hear at all the thickening, chilling silence that suddenly hung in the room and didnt thaw. [O] , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , -

, , . (1987: 75; 1978: 92)

Appalled by his grandsons rhapsodizing, Odoevcev senior is prompted to view Levas loss of authentic self as the condition of many. Are you all like this now, perhaps? he asks his grandson (1987: 93; 1978: 75). In the eyes of his grandfather, Leva typifies a particular Odoevcev calls it consumerist attitude toward spiritual concepts and values, an attitude that one could relate to the simulation of reality noted by Lipovetsky. In fact, the idea of spiritual consumption is associated with Leva not only by the grandfather but also by the narrator. Seduced at an early age by

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the adults assessment of his precociousness, Leva is afflicted by the illusions of greatness. Early in the novel the narrator sardonically relates Levas thoughts:
, ( (1987: 13; 1978: 21) , , ...) , , ,

Leva supposed his own time to be better than Turgenevs in that one had to be so great, gray, and bearded back then, just to write what could be so well mastered in our day by a boy as little (though very gifted) as Leva

The word usvaivaet, frequently used in pedagogical discourse and rendered in this translation as mastered, has in fact strong connotations of assimilation and digesting. In using this grown-up word, young Leva inadvertently hits upon the term that best describes what will be his attitude throughout his life. According to his grandfather, his grandson and all other Levas of the world guzzle each succeeding permitted concept individually as though it alone existed guzzle till [they become] revolted, vomit it up, and firmly forget it. What does not exist, he insists, is an intelligent, nonconsuming relationship to reality ([V]y budete obiratsja kadym sleduju im dozvolennym ponjatiem v otdelnosti budto ono odno i su estvuet obiratsja do otvra enija, do rvoty, do stojkogo zabytja ego. ego net i ne budet, tak to umnogo, ne potrebitelskogo otnoenija k dejstvitelnosti; 1987: 65; 1978: 81). It seems fitting that the culture deplored by Odoevcev senior for its compulsive ingestion of values and ideas none of them permanent or embraced with any sort of conviction should be a culture given to simulation. Since, according to Odoevcev, the Soviet intelligentsia has an identity only in relation to the system whether for, against, in between but always in relation to it it is not surprising that the only truths it can produce contain within themselves, in a rather postmodern fashion, the falsehoods they seek to replace. Tainted from the start by the same untruth that so exhausts and drives those who want to out it, these truths are doomed soon to be unmasked themselves (1987: 65; 1978: 80-81). Grandfather Odoevcev foretells that ten years from now, youll hear all your most treasured words and concepts used with erroneous and falsified meanings, and it wont be thanks to bad people seizing and distorting them, but thanks to you yourselves, your very concepts themselves, on which you rest your hopes (1987: 65; 1978: 80-81). Having surrendered to the habit of simulation, Leva and those he represents derive their self-understanding from

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the succession of often irreconcilable spiritual concepts and values they consume. Unlike his predecessors, however, Leva seems to be less conscious of and less concerned about the precarious status of his selfhood. Moreover, if we choose to believe Grandfather Odoevcev, simulation as a mode of being begins to feel increasingly natural to an increasing number of Levas contemporaries. Bearing out the Underground Mans prediction, attenuation of the self becomes a mass phenomenon that leads to a rapid proliferation of the updated Soviet variety of the superfluous man. In The Superfluous Man and the Necessary Woman: A Re-vision, Jehanne M. Gheith has attributed the value of the concept superfluous man to its flexibility and capacity to give rise to multiple interpretations. While for Gheith herself superfluity remains firmly linked with the idea of resistance and antagonism (what shifts, she says, is merely the specific contours of the superfluous mans opposition) her observation about the notions elasticity opens up new possibilities (Gheith 1996: 230). To discover new facets of superfluity, however, one needs, as David Patterson has argued, to approach it from new perspectives. Following Pattersons lead, in this paper I have tried to move away from the familiar terms of analysis. Instead of examining the superfluous man in relation to history, society or other characters, I have asked after what constitutes his superfluity on the level of the individual self. Relying on some of the central insights of postmodern discourse of the self, I have suggested a reading that considers superfluity in terms of the selfs attenuation. Viewed in this light, superfluity appears not as an aspect of the characters adversarial position or a marker of their difference but rather as a condition that affects the ever increasing numbers of individuals. Somewhat oddly perhaps, of the three characters I have considered, it is Turgenevs ulkaturin that is most deeply and painfully affected by his selfs dissolution in the language that constitutes it. While a harbinger of the malaise that in Bitovs novel becomes a pervasive condition of life, ulkaturin seems the only one to still believe in the existence of the self outside of language. Bitovs Leva, on the other hand, in whom attenuation of the self appears to reach the highest level of intensity, seems less aware and less perturbed by it than his predecessors, as if with the advent of the postmodern moment it becomes harder, not easier, to recognize what is often regarded as a characteristically postmodern feature. Bearing out the Underground Mans prediction that bookishness is soon to engulf ever larger masses of people, the novel portrays Levas simulations not as an aberration but as a form of the selfs existence that is typical of the Soviet intelligent.

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NOTES
1 2 3

5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

Byron (1975: 482). Turgenev (1999: 17). For the Russian see Turgenev (1963, 5: 184). I wish to thank Irina Parkanian and Leo Zaibert for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also due to the participants of my course The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature in the fall of 2006, and to Linda Madden of Keene State Colleges Interlibrary Loan. For more discussions on the superfluous man in English, see Chances (1978; 2001), Clardy and Clardy (1980), Gheith (1996), Jackson (1958), Seeley (1994). Henceforth the second reference points to the appropriate page in the Russian original. As is well known, Derrida sees language as a network of differences that both makes the sign intelligible and simultaneously destabilizes meaning due to a number of related processes: because of the possible suspension of difference (emblematized in his famous coinage diffrance); because of the inevitable rubbing off of the contrasting term on its counterpart (the concept of the trace); because of the signs essence that dictates its applicability to multiple contexts and disallows its use in reference to a unique object (iterability), and some others. Derrida speaks of these concepts throughout his writings. On diffrance, see, for instance, Diffrance (Derrida 1982) and (1976; passim); on trace see Linguistics and Grammatology (1976); on iterability see Signature Event Context (1991). I have slightly modified Pattersons translation. According to Derrida, for example, because linguistic signs must transcend specific contexts in order to be recognizable as signs they can never refer to a unique object at a specific moment but instead must always be repeatable, or in Derridas parlance iterable. I have slightly modified Kentishs translation in this instance. Patterson comments on the mimicked nature of the superfluous mans word in relation to Rudin. I have modified Kentishs translation. I have modified Kentishs translation. Consider, for instance, his regret that his quarrel with the officer in a tavern was not sufficiently literary (50; 5: 128). The allusion to the imaginary general type resonates with Dostoevskijs discussion of the universal human being (ob e elovek) in Winter Notes about Summer Impressions, whose writing coincided with his preliminary work on Notes from the Underground. Although in Winter Notes Dostoevskij is largely preoccupied with the relationship between Russia and the West, his critique of Western values reveals his concern about the effects of these values not only on the character of nations but also on the nature of the self. Both become similarly affected by the disturbing loss of difference that

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15 16

manifests itself in the disappearance of humanity and authenticity, a consequence of the western ideal of progress. See Dostoevskij (1972-1990, 5: 59). For a discussion of some aspects of Dostoevskijs response to the western liberal tradition in Winter Notes see Murav (2004). I have modified Brownsbergers translation. One of the rare exceptions is noted by Lipovetsky (1999: 290).

LITERATURE Baker, Harold D. 2000 Modest Platonovich in Bitovs Pushkin House: A Theory of History and Culture. Twentieth-Century Russian Literature: Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies (Eds. Karen L. Ryan, Barry P. Scherr). New York. Bitov, Andrej 1978 Pukinskij dom. Ann Arbor. 1987 Pushkin House (Trans. Susan Brownsberger). New York. Byron, Lord 1975 The Poetical Works of Byron. Boston, New York, London. Chances, Ellen 1978 Conformitys Children: An Approach to the Superfluous Man in Russian Literature. Columbus, OH. 2001 The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature. The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature (Ed. Neil Cornwell). London, New York. Clardy, Jesse, Clardy, Betty 1980 The Superfluous Man in Russian Letters. Washington DC. Derrida, Jacques 1976 Of Grammatology (Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak). Baltimore. 1982 Margins of Philosophy (Trans. Alan Bass). Chicago. 1991 A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds (Ed. Peggy Kamuf). New York. Dostoevskij, F.M. 1972-1990 Polnoe sobranie so inenij v tridcati tomach, Vol. V. Leningrad. Dostoevsky, Fyodor 1991 Notes from the Underground (Trans. Jane Kentish). Oxford. Gheith, Jehanne M. 1996 The Superfluous Man and the Necessary Woman: A Re-vision. The Russian Review, 55, 226-244. Jackson, Robert Louis 1958 Dostoevskys Underground Man in Russian Literature. The Hague.

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Lipovetsky, Mark 1999 Russian Postmodernist Fiction: Dialogue with Chaos (Ed. Eliot Borenstein). Armonk. Murav, Harriet 2004 From Scandalon to Scandal: Alyoshas Rebellion Reconsidered. Slavic Review, 63, 756-770. Nakhimovsky, Alice Stone 1988 Looking Back at Paradise Lost: The Russian Nineteenth Century in Andrei Bitovs Pushkin House. Russian Literature Triquarterly, 22, 195-204. Patterson, David 1987 The Superfluous Mans Superfluous Discourse. Language and Style: An International Journal, 20-3, 230-241. Seeley, Frank 1994 From the Heyday of the Superfluous Man to Chekhov. Nottingham. Turgenev, I.S. 1963 Polnoe sobranie so inenij i pisem v pjatnadcati tomach, Vol. V. Leningrad. Turgenev, Ivan 1999 Diary of a Superfluous Man (Trans. David Patterson). New York/London.