Yes, I mostly read this book because Francine Prose told me to in Reading Like a Writer; but also because I had heard from multiple people that Chekhov is the shit and needs to be read by everyone.

Having finished this collection of stories, I can wholeheartedly concur. There's nothing especially earth-shattering or revelatory about these stories - for the most part, each one is about ordinary people living ordinary lives and having ordinary experiences. There's nothing very special going on with any of them, but Chekhov writes about them in a way that's brilliantly done and quietly wonderful.

My favorite stories of the bunch were "The Death of a Clerk", "A Boring Story", "Ward No. 6", "The Lady With the Little Dog", and "In the Ravine."

What a collection of mesmerising short stories!!
The thing that I adore about short stories is telling you lessons , brings you wisdom behind few not boring lines , and Anton Chekhov did that brilliantly .

A fantastic collection of short stories by Chekhov

I doubt there are many better short-story collections out there.

They say he was the best. This book confirms it.

Chekhov represents a gap in my education, but one that won't be fully remedied anytime soon. I labored over 105 pages in this collection, and while there were a couple of stories ("The Huntsman, Easter Night") I really liked, the rest were a slog through knee-high mud. I picked up a contemporary volume of short stories yesterday after finishing Chekhov's "A Boring Story," (which lived up to its name, and at 50 pages more novella than short story, but who's counting?!) Suddenly, in the contemporary collection, there were issues and dialogue and characters to which I could relate. This one's going back to the library, which will leave Ibsen and Thomas Mann on my to-read list. (I did attempt The Magic Mountain once upon a time, but after 300 pages I was weary of reading about sputum-covered hankies. I stuck a tissue in the page where I'd bailed out and left it in my bookshelf as a reminder that life is too short for tedious books, no matter how celebrated.)

It's Chekhov, 'nuff said.

بأسلوب بسيط وساخر جعلني تشيخوف أتغلغل داخل نفوس البشر والعلاقات الإنسانية
قراءة أعمال تشيخوف متعة لا توصف
n  n

100% pure talent, very down-to-earth and not preachy. If I could meet one russian, dead or alive, it would be Chekhov.

Top 5: "my life", '"the house with the mezzanine", "Anna on my neck", "the student" and "lady with the dog".

He wrote 500+ shorter novels and I've read around 40, not a single one sucked. Some were not my cup of tea, like the "spring", but that's inevitable. Too bad he didn't write a book.

Not sure what I can really add to the body of opinion on Chekhov, but I will say that I loved this collection of stories. They are very well chosen, and many seem almost contemporary in their portrayals of mental illness and the subjugation of women. Loneliness is a recurring theme, and many of its characters are on the outside looking in. Many are trying to exert control over their lives, in one way or another. It's remarkable how fully detailed each of the characters are, really. Not every story is worthy of a full five stars - Chekhov's scene setting can be a trifle dull in the opening pages of a given story - but on the whole the collection is very well selected.

Favourites:

Easter Night
A Boring Story
Peasant Women
Ward No. 6
The Black Monk
The Man in a Case
The Lady with the Little Dog
The Fiancee

4.5/5

Favourite story: The Black Monk

It is a difficult prospect to review a collection of short stories. There isn’t an overarching plot to grab hold of, nor, perhaps, even a consistent theme-group. One is reduced to arranging scatterd bits and pieces of reflections and reactions, which—if all goes well—will add up to some sort of general impression.

My general impression of Chekhov is that he is a great artist; he is a master in every sense of the word.

Writing a good short story is a delicate art. Unlike the writer of a novel, the short story writer has little leeway to relax, to include details that would fill out a scene, to build complex character traits, to construct an intricate plot. The brevity calls for economy. Descriptions must be short and to the point; characters must be both interesting and quickly graspable. And the plot must somehow manage to be both unpredictable and engaging, without relying on a rich background of character or scene. I am reminded of those artists who work on the street making sketches of pedestrians. The artist must hone in on the most distinctive features of brow, countenance, and demeanor, while using only the most hastily executed lines to hint at the full picture.

One would never guess the immense difficulties of the task from reading Chekhov. He possesses that first and most diagnostic trait of a master: he makes it look effortless. The reader is immediately pulled into the story—which normally consist of little more than snatches from daily life—by some intriguing detail of personality, some slightly unexpected snippet of dialogue—hints and vibrations of what lay under the surface. Chekhov begins the scene with a casual description of an everyday event, and then sews in little threads of discolor into the narrative—just enough to keep the reader engaged and guessing. And when the denouement comes—which normally consists of a similarly common occurrence—the dramatic effect is unmatchable.

Chekhov is distinct from other writers for his acutely sympathetic mind. He can write convincingly about men or women, the rich or the poor, the haughty or the timid, the bold or the meek, the sane or the insane, the old or the young, the erudite or the ignorant. Indeed, it is one of the keys of his art, that tragedy, comedy, heroism, and tyranny exist as much in the mind as in the world; a slight word of reproach from a loved one can be just as crushing as the worst defeat. When we see through Chekhov’s eyes, we see the world as a battlefield of tiny struggles—so subtle and so constant as to be normally invisible, but all the more tragic because of their invisibility.
tt
I have not a word of reproach for his art; I have not even a caveat to my praise. If you want to see art at its finest—so subtle it hardly even comes across as art—then look no further, my friends, than Chekhov.

Selected Stories by Anton Chekov (1860-1904)

These short stories seem to me like a summary of the Russian nineteenth-century literature.

In the most extreme climate of snow and ice, torrential rain and flooding, knee-deep mud and dirt on every road, Russia was not a country for an easy living.

In his concentrated way, using a minimum of words, Chekov expresses all essential characteristics of country life.

Across all these short novels, we will meet, the wealthy and fat landowners and their descendants on top of the social ladder.
Their indolent life, spending time with hunting or dressing in long white dresses, silky ribbons in their hair, reading French novels, playing the piano, dancing, and singing and intriguing, hoping to get married to another rich landowners son.

We come across corrupted officials, stupid clerks, ruthless magistrates, and fanatic priests, monks, and bishops.
Religion, next to the Emperor, is the dominating power at every level of
Society.

Further down the ladder, we will see grumbling farmworkers, kept under control with brutality and half buckets of vodka.

On the last level, we will see the women, peasant woman, as day workers and their countless children.
These are the poorest, starving creatures, with nothing to say, trembling in fear of every man who would raise his voice to them, and bow to him and silently give whatever he wants.

Old women are like black shadows in the corners of dark and smoked out kitchens, just like mice, hardly existing.

Like a thread throughout the book, between the lines, appears the author’s conviction that this society as it was in his lifetime in Russia, must and will change.

Though he does not know how this will come about, he hopes for a miraculous, spiritual evolution.

What a great book, full of the most beautiful and sad stories.
I am not able to choose or to like one story more than the others, but several are dramatic to the extreme, and one or two are already haunting me.

I am sorry to have come to the last page and put it down.