Shall I call it merely amazing? Shall I call it only wonderful? Not at all! The collection is more than words can say and an intellectual can review! I am sure anyone who loves reading shorter format of fiction will admire Chekhov's style of writing and telling the tales!

I'm not a literary critic, obviously. My description of books as sucky/trite/trash, etc kind of make me wonder how I ever even majored in English Lit all those years ago. But let me see if I can describe Chekhov in the way I've come to understand him ... and his awesomeness. (heehee)

Chekhov was a doctor before he was a writer, he knew how the human body worked, he knew the human mind, and he knew what external stimulus (the weather, the look in a person's eye, the placement of a strange object) could have on a person's physical being and their psyche. Combine this with this unmatched talent as a writer, and you've got the kind of writer that can touch your heart, wrangle your emotions, and fuck with your mind unlike any other.

When I read The Lady With the Dog, I had to go sit under a tree and contemplate life for a while. When I read the desire in the dialogue in The Seagull, I had to call my boyfriend. I didn't know why these things would happen when I read Chekov. The words were simply there on the page, no? No force was making me melancholic, no one was telling me to get randy from The Seagull and call my boyfriend.

No, Chekov is deeper than that. It's almost like hypnosis, the descriptions, the word combinations, etc. He writes one thing, but the way you will understand it and digest it mentally and physically is completely unexpected.

I love this guy.

Awe-inspiring as ever. Chekhov is one of the true all-time masters of short-form fiction.

In a way, I think Chekhov himself is somewhat similar to his own eponymous gun…

When you start reading one of his brilliant yarns, you’re aware of the fact that it is, of course, a Chekhov story. Then, immediately following this consideration (again, like that infamous pistol in Act One), the very foreknowledge of one specific piece of information (the author’s identity in this case; his Chekhovian pistola in the other) is enough for one to form a solid predictive thesis (namely that it’s gonna be an amazing story; in the case of the gun, that that gun will be used at some point in the story), and remain confident in the value of your assessment.

Layers upon layers upon layers...

Borges, anybody?

To give serious aid to forty outpatients between morning and dinnertime was physically impossible, which meant, willy-nilly, that it was all a deceit. During the fiscal year twelve thousand outpatients were received, which meant, simply speaking, that twelve thousand people were deceived.
from Ward No. 6



The stories in this collection (translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky) were written in the period 1883 to 1903. They appear to be set in the "present" - that is, they are tales of Russia and her people as things were in the last few decades of the 1800s. Chekhov's overall view of life, as revealed in the stories, is that the lot of man and woman is an unhappy one. This is true whether one is a peasant or a well off doctor, bishop, aristocrat, land owner, student ... whatever. The circumstances differ, the goods and evils of life vary from case to case, the balance figures differently from one man or woman to the next, but ultimately if we ask of each life "was it worth living?", Chekhov seems to say "perhaps, very marginally ... but at any rate that's all we have, so we soldier on, taking the bitter with the sour, and accepting (when we analyze things properly), that whether we have tried to do good to our fellow men or the opposite, the effect is pretty much the same".

Several stories from the last few years of the 19th century have very similar themes, contrasting the "happy, well-off" few to the miserable many. The way the stories play out, we are given pause to consider if the happy few perhaps in the end are the worst off, at least considered from the points of view that Chekhov develops. Such are, for example, the three stories written in 1898: "The Man In A Case", "Gooseberries" and "A Medical Case". In some stories (example, "The Fiancee") the protagonist appears to have averted disaster and to be headed for a fortunate future. But this has only been accomplished by, pretty much unwittingly, destroying the lives of others.

Like any selection of short stories by a good author, they are "uneven", which really means little more than "some affected me more than others". One which was perhaps very skillfully written, even though I was ultimately bored by it, was a story called ... "A Boring Story"! At over 60 pages, it was just about the longest story in the book, and was ... boring - at least to me.

I thought some of the best stories were "Sleepy", "Gusev", "Peasant Women", "Ward No. 6", "The Black Monk" and "At Christmastime". Of these, "Sleepy" struck me as one of the most horrifying stories I have ever read, all six pages of it. "Ward No. 6", a much longer story at over 50 pages, is a magnificent tale of the way in which two good men, through no fault of their own, can be dealt shockingly bad hands by life. "The Black Monk" is an astounding story that in my opinion fully deserves the description of magical realism. "At Christmastime" (another only six pages long) is wrenchingly sad, and the fact that it is an utterly common-place and completely believable story is what rescues it from being simply maudlin.

Chekhov is certainly not the only author to write short stories which express a basically pessimistic attitude about the human condition, in fact I would say that most short stories by good authors are more down-beat than otherwise. But Chekhov is a master story teller, and even if his outlook is not uniquely his own, the craftsmanship of the stories is.

Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys good short fiction.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Valley of Bones
Next review: Blue at the Mizzen
Older review: The Whistling Season

Previous library review: The Hedgehog and the Fox Berlin
Next library review: Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Somebody donated a paperback copy of this amazing collection in perfect condition to our library. So many of these stories brought back memories of college, especially "A Boring Story," "Anna On the Neck," and "Lady With A Small Dog." But there are also dozens of stories I hadn't read before. Some of them are very early stories that are obviously influenced by Gogol. Some of them are late stories where Chekhov is obviously dying of tuberculosis and keeps coming back to illness and death. But the sense of loss that pervades all these stories is never about self-pity. There's something dreamlike about even the ugliest lives and every moment seems to resonate with unspoken thoughts and feelings. These are beautiful and poignant stories.

The Russian literature course I took at Columbia was an amazing introduction to this author. It would have been nice if the professor, whatever his name was, had taken maybe five minutes to ask me why I liked the course and whether I wanted a career in academics. Maybe he could have suggested a good graduate program. Maybe he could have suggested that I take Russian. Maybe he could have encouraged me. Maybe he could have cared. No, wait. This was Columbia!

I want to write a review and I don't know where to start.This is what Chekhov does to me. Anton Chekhov leaves me stupefied with his brilliance with words and descriptions. He can paint a landscape of an entire Russian circumstance along with their characters with their emotions written bare on their faces concisely and to-the-point like a surgeon.
The first few stories in this book (added date-wise) seemed incomprehensible and frivolous but as I went on the stories seemed to grow on me and the maturity of the content and the story development can be seen clearly. Although written a century ago the observations and his thoughts transcends time and resonates with mine. I came to an understanding that I should expect less of the plot and more of the observations made and it all boils down to the fact that life may sum up to be a tragic experience and it may seem that you have barely scratched the surface of life but we must go on. His writings, his opinions expressed through his characters bring out your own thoughts you must have never concretely cogitated on and expresses it amidst the situation in his stories with an opulent prose. He is not giving you anything new and yet he is effective and I don't know how many authors can pull this thing off with such consummate grace.

His thoughts on modern literature (From 'A Boring Story')-
All modern literature seems to me not literature but some sort of handicraft, which exists only as to be encouraged, though one is reluctant to use its products. Even the best products of handicraft cannot be remarkable and cannot be praised without a "but."

On the importance of reasoning (Ward no. 6)-
Everything in this world is insignificant and uninteresting except the higher spiritual manifestations of human reason. Reason draws a sharp distinction between animal and man, hints at the divinity of the latter, and for him, to a certain degree, even takes the place of immortality, which does not exist. Hence reason is the only possible source of pleasure.We, however, neither see or hear any reason around us -which means we are deprived of pleasure. True, we have books, but that is not all the same as live conversation and intercourse. If you will permit me a not entirely successful comparison, books are the scores, while conversation is the singing.

Ironically, I liked his longer stories more than the shorter ones and wished he wrote full-fledged novels.
My favourites-
A Boring Story
Ward No.6
The Black Monk
The House With The Mezzanine
The Lady With The Little Dog
The Fiancée
The Bishop

And a job well done by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

Stories of everyday people struggling in their own little lives. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, Russia is in the midst of change and Chekov really excels at capturing the struggle of working class people. All the stories are quite good at turning the mundane into something beautiful, usually through character dialogue driving at a particular point before wrapping up with a beautiful ending. I only really loved a few of these stories, as most of them feel a bit dated and unrelatable, although as mentioned most of them are quite good at capturing this place and time.

Favourites: The Huntsman - documenting a hunter and his wife, Sleepy - a mother losing her mind, Gusev - a sailor's tale with a great ending, Anna on the Neck - a strained relationship between father and daughter, and Gooseberries - outlining the struggle of class difference (perhaps the best).

I'm generally good about not being too starstruck by literary reputation, and I feel pretty confident that I can bravely approach the big guns and judge them based on my personal view of their merits. But with Chekhov, for some reason, I find myself cowed. Like, I'm just not really sure what I think of him and I kind of have this stupid feeling like I want someone to tell me. You know, it's CHEKHOV, right? I should have some big RESPONSE. I should love him! Or loathe him! I need to think something BIG. It's CHEKHOV! I gotta come up with a passionate opinion about him! I gotta have some glittering insight into why he's so big and important, or else a rabid conviction that he's totally overrated and bad.

I really don't have any ideas like that though. "A Doctor's Visit" was so insanely awesome it made my brain melt a little and leak out my ears, but aside from that, I didn't have a strong opinion one way or another about the stories that I read ("The Chorus Girl," "Dreams," "In Exile," "The Teacher of Literature," "Anna on the Neck," "The Darling," "The Lady with a Dog," "The Bishop"). I mean, they were fine. There was stuff I liked. There was stuff to which I was fairly indifferent. I mean, I dunno, it was fine.... but this is CHEKHOV! I'm supposed to think something a lot stronger than "I dunno, it was fine."

But I didn't. Oh well! At least I've finally read Chekhov, even if I still don't have much to say about him one way or another.

“The Lady with the Little Dog”: A Development of Introspection

A work of fiction, in general, doesn’t depict reality itself but creates a tension in reality. The reader might expect to find grandiose ideas when dealing with literature, but Chekhov’s literary works discard this expectation and present plain and simple ideas. One can see in “The Lady with the Little Dog” that he does not rearrange or distort his plots for the sake of any philosophical agenda and does not try to deny the trivial facts of ordinary life — and this aspect of unfeigned lives leads the reader to have a glimpse of how his characters and readers are being introspective and more reflective about fundamental nature and purpose through their lives.

In the resort of Yalta, Gurov, a Muscovite who has drifted into ennui, meets Anna, the eponymous lady with the little dog, who has been waiting for her husband. They have a brief love affair in Yalta. After leaving the resort, however, they are unable to forget the affair and end up finding each other again. They have to avoid the public eye since both are married, and so they decide to live a double life. But the reader can find only a vague hope in their love. In terms of ethics, their love deserves to be criticized. But instead of projecting his own philosophy onto their lifestyle, Chekhov defers moral judgement and simply shows the reader how their lives go on.

The following dialogue seems trite but connotes the gist of this short story: "“It’s now three degrees above freezing, and yet it’s snowing,” Gurov said to his daughter. “But it’s warm only near the surface of the earth, while in the upper layers of the atmosphere the temperature is quite different” (Chekhov 374). Snow is falling on the street where Gurov and his daughter are walking, and at the same time, the temperature is three degrees above freezing. How can this happen? A very thin layer of warm air is sometimes found near the ground surface and temperatures may be several degrees above freezing. However, since the layer of warm air is so shallow, the snow reaches the ground in tact before it has a chance to melt and become rain. This phenomenon implies that two things that appear opposed are paradoxically able to coexist. Chekhov imbues his work with conflicting truths, and there would be a problem if one opted for one exclusively. Individuals are forced to accept conflicting truths.

Gurov and Anna are living mediocre lives before meeting each other at the resort of Yalta. Both have their own families, and they are financially stable. But are these the definitions of ‘a satisfied life?’ They meet in Yalta, which is far away from the cities of their mundane routines. The resort is a place where one can easily deviate from real life. This condition causes them to consider this love affair only as a romantic dream, but not as reality. Anna leaves Yalta and Gurov, saying “God be with you. Don’t think ill of me. We’re saying good-bye forever, it must be so, because we should never have met. Well, God be with you” (Chekhov 368). Gurov subsequently returns to his life, leaving the deviant summer behind: “Here at the station there was already a breath of autumn, the wind was cool. ‘It’s time I headed north, too,’ thought Gurov, leaving the platform. ‘High time!’” (Chekhov 368). However, they gradually begin to regard their daily lives as a lie rather than reality. Despite the fact that their lives were fine before they met, they can now hardly get through with their daily routine. Although they have never considered otherwise, they suddenly realize that they have had comfortable lives without any serious reflections on their lifestyle.

Gurov starts having difficulties communicating with people and feels distant from them. All of a sudden, Gurov feels disgust for words commonly used before: “‘Dmitri Dmitrich!’ ‘What?’ ‘You were right earlier: the sturgeon was a bit off!’ Those words, so very ordinary, for some reason suddenly made Gurov indignant, struck him as humiliating, impure. Such savage manners, such faces!” (Chekhov 370). Thus, he carries out a plan to find Anna again in order to enhance the value of his life. Gurov brings her into his real life rather than confining it to the one-time affair at the resort. Anna comes to Moscow to see Gurov once every few months, and they secretly live a double life without arousing anyone’s suspicion. Gurov is no more able to distinguish his real life from a false life: “an apparent one, seen and known by all who needed it, filled with conventional truth and conventional deceit, which perfectly resembled the lives of his acquaintances and friends” or “another that went on in secret - by some strange coincidence, perhaps an accidental one, everything that he found important, interesting, necessary, in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, which constituted the core of his life, occurred in secret from others, while everything that made up his lie, his shell, in which he hid in order to conceal the truth?” (Chekhov 374). Both are parts of his life, but they obviously contradict each other. These conflicting lives cannot coexist, and one inevitably turns out to be a false life, yet they are poised on the borderline for now as if they are ‘falling snow’ and ‘three degrees above freezing.’

Hence, the future of Gurov and Anna is obscure, and there is only a wisp of hope remaining between them, since they reached a deadlock in their relationship. Nevertheless, the reader still can perceive a positive aspect in which Gurov shows his capability of dealing with the truth sincerely: “Formerly, in sad moments, he had calmed himself with all sorts of arguments, whatever had come into his head, but now he did not care about any arguments, he felt deep compassion, he wanted to be sincere, tender…” (Chekhov 376). Gurov previously perceives this emotion with logic and rationality, but it is only a pretense of understanding. Now he has gone beyond the pretense and cold logic and embraced actual empathy and sorrow. Gurov and Anna become aware that their lives are full of hypocrisy, so they attempt to infuse their minds with new hope, but unfortunately the reality does no’t change at all. This story thus reflects the truth of human lives, that most people can reach the facts but are unable to harmonize them with the truth.

As stated above, Chekhov has no special trait that unifies his philosophy. Yet this does not mean that all these insignificant fragments of people’s lives constitute his literature itself. Every trivial elements may have a right of its own and impose its own meaning in the works of Chekhov. Each of the fragments is associated with one another, and they together form a harmony, producing their own logic. Gurov and Anna may not go anywhere. However, their lives lead themselves to introspection, and this connects to the reader’s real life as well.

I do not recommend that anyone read 500 pages of Chekhov at once. Insanely depressing to do so. I think I started this 2 years ago and only now am I finishing it which is probably how everyone should read this collection. Obvi the stories are incredible though. I admire his ability to be extremely unpretentious but also complex with his storytelling. Faves were the classics mostly. Like, “the lady with the little dog,” “the student,” and “gooseberries” ofc.

These stories are slivers of life, designed to be read slowly and savoured. Chekov is so adept at puncturing the heart of a matter with characters who think and feel deeply and who by proxy, elicit some kind of emotional and/or intellectual response from the reader. Exceptional stories that cover a wide array of topics, personalities and lifestyles. I admit a bias as I've always been drawn to the classic Russian writers, who I believe, most beautifully capture soul stirring moments – whether agonizing or ecstatic.

Irony befuddles me. I've looked up the definition, puzzled over it and read differing opinions over whether Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic' contains examples of irony, but I still feel in the dark. Maybe that's the real irony.
t
But that's a whole other essay. I bring this up because I recently dove into the short stories of Anton Chekhov and find myself similarly befuddled by Chekhov's Gun, a literary idea regarding how to set up a story and pay off what you set up. Chekhov mentioned the concept multiple times in letters, with one example as follows;

"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

But before we dive into interpretation, the first mystery regards this legendary rifle's fame. Apart from a few witty quotes, 'Chekhov's Gun' was the only thing I knew about him before starting on his work. By contrast, none of Chekhov's plays or short-stories is widely read even though he's regarded as a master of both formats. He has no Hamlet, Frankenstein or The Gift of the Magi; names known to the masses even if they haven't read the source. But people know Chekhov's Gun.
t
The second element of the mystery is that, if taken literally, Chekhov's Gun is preposterous. There are many reasons, dramatic or otherwise, a storyteller might present a rifle without promising or necessitating a gunshot. Maybe the rifle gets stolen. Maybe the owner goes for the gun too late to stop an assailant. Maybe he grabs the gun and tries to fire it but the gun misfires, foreshadowed by the layer of dust covering the weapon when it was revealed. Or more simply, including a rifle in the description of a home can tell us a lot about the homeowners; how they display it can indicate what they value and what they fear.
t
Scholarly interpretations of Chekhov's Gun focus more on 'Remove everything that has no relevance to the story' than the example firearm. They take it as advice about elegance more than foreshadowing; on broad concepts about how every piece of a story should fit together to form the whole; about removing anything extraneous that may distract from theme or message.
t
And that is a reasonable way to look at it, but I don't think many would remember Chekhov's Gun without the gun. Chekhov himself was quite attached to his chosen example, elucidating the need for firearms to fire on at least three occasions (per Wikipedia.)
t
And the modern way of thinking of the concept focuses on visuals. When I google 'examples of Chekhov's Gun' I mostly find discussions of movies and TV shows, with a focus on objects the camera lingers on to set up their eventual importance; think unlikely murder weapons.
t
But I found no iconic literary example of Chekhov's Gun in action, which supports the notion that it's a more nebulous mandate regarding efficient storytelling. Even as I read Chekhov's collection with an eye out for promises made and kept, I only found one clear, object-based example:
t
Gooseberries tells the story of a man who dreamed of joining the landed nobility with 'a country house, a river and garden, a mill and a mill pond' and 'for some reason gooseberries.' He achieves this dream through single-mindedness and frugality, and in the story's climax invites his brother to dinner where they partake of the title meal.
t
I'll leave you with how Ivan Ivanych (the landowner's brother and the story's narrator) describes the anticipated dessert, the closest I've read to Chekhov's Gun going off;

“They were tough and sour, but as Pushkin said, 'Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting illusion.' I saw a happy man, whose cherished dream had so obviously come true, who had attained his goal in life, had gotten what he wanted, who was content with his fate and with himself. For some reason there had always been something sad mixed with my thoughts about human happiness, but now, at the sight of a happy man, I was overcome by an oppressive feeling close to despair.”

Edited 4/21/2019