Description
The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, the ambitious and confused Arkady Dolgoruky, a nineteen-year-old youth, arrives in St. Petersburg to confront the biological father he barely knows, Andrey Versilov. Arkady is torn between a fierce desire to expose his father’s wrongdoings and a desperate need to earn his love and recognition.
Arkady carries a powerful personal philosophy, which he calls his “Idea”: a solitary, disciplined pursuit of immense wealth and independence as a rejection of society. This idea, however, is quickly overshadowed by the chaotic family drama he enters.
Arkady becomes entangled in the life of his father, Versilov, a morally contradictory figure oscillating between saintliness and cynicism, who has numerous romantic and financial intrigues. The tension escalates as both father and son become romantically fixated on the same enigmatic woman, Katerina Nikolayevna.
The novel’s main plot revolves around a mysterious, potentially incriminating document written by Katerina, which could destroy the reputation and inheritance of an aging prince. Arkady obtains this document, believing it gives him power over others.
As Arkady navigates a world of gambling, deceit, blackmail, and sudden tragedy, he must contend with the influence of his father and the machinations of others who seek to manipulate him for the document. The struggle to understand Versilov’s complex character and Arkady’s own place in this disintegrating family unit pushes him to the breaking point, forcing him to choose between his destructive “Idea” and the path toward genuine self-discovery.
Browse the table of contents, check the quotes, read the first chapter, find out which famous book it is similar to, and buy “The Adolescent” on Amazon directly from our page.
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen. Conclusion
The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the chief thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted.
I need money, that is my primary idea.
I have only been happy for a very short time in my life, but I was so happy that it was enough for my whole existence.
The true history of a man’s life is never written.
The great thing is not to be different from anybody else, but to be truthful to yourself.
I
“Unable to restrain myself, I sat down to write this story of my first steps in life, though I could have done without it. One thing I know for sure: I will never sit down to write my autobiography again, even if I live to be a hundred. One must be too basely in love with oneself to write about oneself without shame. I excuse myself only by the fact that I am not writing for the reason everyone else writes, that is, not for the reader’s praise. If I suddenly decided to write down word for word everything that has happened to me since last year, I did so because of an inner need: I am so struck by everything that has occurred. I am only recording the events, avoiding everything extraneous with all my might, and especially—literary flourishes; a literary man writes for thirty years and in the end has no idea why he wrote for so many years. I am not a man of letters, I do not want to be a man of letters, and I would consider dragging the insides of my soul and beautiful descriptions of feelings to their literary market an indecency and a baseness. With vexation, however, I have a premonition that it seems impossible to do entirely without describing feelings and without reflections (perhaps even vulgar ones): so corrupting is the effect of any literary pursuit on a person, even if undertaken solely for oneself. And the reflections might even be very vulgar, because what one values oneself may well have no value in an outsider’s view. But all that aside. And yet, here is a preface; there will be nothing more of this kind. To the matter at hand; although nothing is more difficult than beginning any task—perhaps any task at all.”
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.