Common Story

When young Alexander Adouev arrives in Saint Petersburg with dreams of literary glory and true love, he carries with him the tender, ridiculous conviction that life is a romantic novel. His uncle Piotr, a ruthless pragmatist who has built a fortune through cold calculation, sees only a naive boy who must be cured of dangerous sentiment. What follows is a sharp, often hilarious collision between two worldviews: Alexander's earnest pursuit of poetry, passion, and meaning versus his uncle's relentless demand that he grow up, get serious, and make money. Goncharov skewers romantic idealism with precision and affection, showing Alexander through a series of doomed romantic entanglements that expose both the hollowness of his dreams and the hollowness of his uncle's victories. By novel's end, the dreamer has not quite become a realist, and the realist has not quite won. The result is a wickedly smart comedy of manners about what it costs to want something more than money.