Oblomov Author:Ivan Goncharov The sly, subversive side of the nineteenth-century Russian literary character -- the one which represents such a contrast to the titanic exertions of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky -- was most fully realized in Ivan Goncharov's 1859 masterpiece, OBLOMOV. This magnificent farce about a gentleman who spends the better part of his life in bed is a reminder... more » of the extent to which humor, in the hands of a comic genius, can be used to explore the absurdities and injustices of a social order.« less