Oblomov is a Russian novel about Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a kind-hearted landowner living in St Petersburg who can hardly bring himself to leave his sofa. Surrounded by a devoted but sluggish servant and by visitors who want something from him, he drifts through plans he never carries out, while his estate falls into disorder.
His lively friend Stolz, a man of energy and practical sense, tries to rouse him, and love enters his life as another possible reason to change. Funny, tender and sad by turns, the book is a study of idleness, habit and lost possibility, and it became a classic portrait of the so-called superfluous man in Russian literature.