Although Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov wrote several books that were widely read and discussed during his lifetime, he is now best remembered for one novel, Oblomov (1859), an indisputable classic of Russian literature that in its artistic stature and cultural significance may be compared to such other masterpieces as Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol's Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova, ili Mertvye dushi (The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls, 1842), Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1875-1877), and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Brat'ia Karamazovy (The Brothers Karamazov, 1879-1880).

Goncharov is often referred to as one of the major Russian realists of the nineteenth century; yet, this formulation, while largely legitimate, often overlooks the rich ambiguity of his works, the psychological complexity of his characters, and the surprising sophistication of some of his literary techniques, which appear to anticipate twentieth-century modernism. Among his modernist admirers were Samuel Beckett, who sometimes signed his letters "Oblomov," and James Joyce, who is said to...