Sanine

Sanine follows the return of Vladimir Sanine, a radical individualist, to his provincial Russian town, where his hedonistic philosophy clashes with societal norms. Through affairs, suicides, and philosophical debates, the novel explores the hypocrisy of conventional morality and the search for authentic meaning in a repressive world.

Vladimir Sanine returns home after years of wandering, unsettling his family and acquaintances with his calm indifference and rejection of social conventions. His sister Lida, torn between suitors, succumbs to the seductive Sarudine and later faces pregnancy and shame. The intellectual Yourii Svarogitsch, paralyzed by nihilistic despair, commits suicide after a failed romance with Sina Karsavina. Sina, in turn, has a passionate but guilt-ridden affair with Sanine, who offers her tenderness but no conventional commitment. Sanine delivers a brutally honest eulogy at Yourii's funeral, calling him 'one fool less,' and later leaves town, disgusted by humanity. He jumps from a moving train to walk freely into the dawn, embodying his philosophy of radical self-liberation. The novel contrasts Sanine's vital, amoral vitality with the suffering of those trapped by social expectations, religious guilt, and intellectual despair.