character in "Virgin Soil," Solomin, is a failure because he is not
exactly true to life, he is not typically Russian. That criticism
seems to me to miss the main point of the work. Of course he is not
true to life, of course he is not typically Russian. The typical
Russian in the book is Nezhdanov, who is entirely true to life in his
uncertainty and in his futility; he does not know whether or not he is
in love, and he does not know at the last what the "cause" really is.
He fails to understand the woman who accompanies him, he fails to
understand Solomin, and he fails to understand himself. So he finally
does what so many Russian dreamers have done--he places against his
own breast the pistol he had intended for a less dangerous enemy. But
he is a dead man long before that. In sharp contrast with him,
Turgenev has created the character Solomin, who is not at all
"typically Russian," but who must be if the revolutionary cause is to
triumph. He seems unreal because he is unreal; he is the ideal. He is
the man of practical worth, the man who is not passion's slave, and
Turgenev loved him for the same reason that Hamlet loved Horatio. Amid
all the vain babble of the other characters, Solomin stands out
salient, the man who will eventually save Russia without knowing it.
His power of will is in inverse proportion to his fluency of speech.
The typical Russian, as portrayed by Turgenev, says much, and does
little; Solomin lives a life of cheerful, reticent activity. As the
revolution is not at hand, the best thing to do in the interim is to
accomplish something useful. He has learned how to labour and to wait.
"This calm, heavy, not to say clumsy man was not only incapable of
lying or bragging; one might rely on him, like a stone wall." In every
scene, whether among the affected aristocrats or among the futile
revolutionists, Solomin appears to advantage. There is no worse
indictment of human intelligence than the great compliment we pay
certain persons when we call them sane. Solomin is sane, and seems