It was a forgettable month around 2008 when I sat on one of the chairs in a classroom and my memorable English teacher told us to read Anton Chekhov’s A Lottery Ticket. That was my brief encounter with the Russian author, one of the greatest writers of short stories, and this same short story seemed to stay, fervently, at the back of my mind even in the years after. I cannot pinpoint if it was because of its honest depiction of human nature, human foolishness or both that made A Lottery Ticket one of my personal favourites but there was something beautiful in its common, simple, plot almost-without-a-conclusion that made me tell myself that I should read more of Chekhov’s works.

“We see those who go to the market to buy food, eat during the day, sleep during the night, who talk their nonsense, get married, grow old, complacently drag their dead to the cemetery; but we don’t see or hear those who suffer, and the horrors of life go on somewhere behind the scenes.”

Years have passed, the goal of reading more of Chekhov’s works also stayed at the back of my mind until I saw Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov at one of the bookshops a month ago. This short story collection, consisting of 30 stories, is diverse, with varying kinds of people included in the stories – doctors, peasants, students, guests, city people, country people, officials, hunters, the sane, the insane and ferry riders.

Women are often treated badly in Chekhov’s short stories, if not always in the background afraid of their husbands or lovers, as depicted in Peasant Women, Rothschild’s Fiddle, The Black Monk, A Boring Story, At Christmastime and Anyuta. At times, they are passive but the challenging, deceitful and/or revengeful ones (The Huntsman, Anna on the Neck, The House with the Mezzanine, The Darling, The Fidget, Sleepy). The men are the same, crippled by indifference in life, the unexciting and wearisome life (A Boring Story, Gusev and Ward No. 6The Bishop and A Boring Story, asking us “Which is a more relevant death when both of them will be forgotten?”. Guilt, driven by an accidental sneeze, played a relevant role in The Death of a Clerk and once more, guilt as a character’s hammer for realisation in Rothschild’s Fiddle. Of course, it is worth nothing that people in these stories find themselves in their situations, almost clueless, do not know what to do yet they do what they do and things happen here because they happen (you know, like in real life). And this, I think, is why Chekhov’s stories stand the test of time; generation by generation, all of them are what we are, what we do and how we find ourselves.

Human folly, human condition and human nature emanate in all of Chekhov’s stories--“The past, he thought, is connected with the present in an unbroken chain of event flowing one out of the other.” The stories are not complicated, some of them end without a real end and in their simplicity, we find most people in this collection walking every day, we see them every day, talk to them every day and well, they may be even ourselves.

My personal favourites are The Huntsman, A Boring Story, Sleepy, Peasant Women, Anna on the Neck, Ward No. 6, The Black Monk, Gooseberries, The Man in a Case, The Darling, The Lady with the Little Dog, and The Fiancée.


“Only one who loves can remember so well.”

“Money, like vodka, does strange things to a man.”

“Only tell me, good sir, why is it that even amidst great joy a man can't forget his griefs?”

“They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death. ”

“To harbour spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.”

“At the door of every contented, happy man somebody should stand with a little hammer, constantly tapping, to remind him that unhappy people exist, that however happy he may be, sooner or later life will show him its claws, some calamity will befall him – illness, poverty, loss – and nobody will hear or see, just as he doesn’t hear or see others now. But there is nobody with a little hammer, the happy man lives on, and the petty cares of life stir him only slightly, as wind stirs an aspen – and everything is fine.”

I read a book about how to write a short story, which name checked Anton Chekhov enough times that I felt guilty for never having read him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t buy the SELECTED STORIES years ago, where it’s since been collecting dust in my garage among thousands of other unread volumes. But there it was, up front in the pile and easy to find. I decided to read it, even if it was thick as a brick. I read slow and have given myself the artificial target of completing a book a week, so I hope Chekhov understands the pressure this puts me under. I’ve also been binge-watching Mad Men on TV because life is too short and still I find it necessary to place it on hold. The series isn’t bad, but it’s really only a soap opera for people who don’t like soap operas. The style is more rarefied but the drinking and fucking are the same (if not the smoking). The characters are well-defined and the plots are okay, even if they lock in step with the expected from time to time. It does address deeper issues. But the real illumination for me was how much more alive, vital and real (a strange word) Chekhov’s stories are. Oddly, I can’t put my finger on why. His characters speak in what sounds to me as exaggerated and dramatic, though that might be the translation or the times. But each person Chekhov sketches is more flesh and blood, each storyline I followed more resonate, than a hundred must-see TV shows. I guess it’s not a fair comparison - apples to oranges - but storytelling is storytelling. Chekhov has an almost magical ease by which he pulls that rabbit out of the hat.

Overall: 3.5
30 stories -
5 stars: 14
4 stars: 5
3 stars: 11

'The Death of a Clerk': 5
'Small Fry': 4
'The Huntsman': 5
'The Malefactor': 4
'Panikhida': 5
'Anyuta': 3
'Easter Night': 3
'Vanka': 5
'Sleepy': 3
'A Boring Story': 5
'Gusev': 5
'Peasant Women': 5
'The Fidget': 4
'In Exile': 3
'Ward No. 6': 3
'The Black Monk': 3
'Rothschild's Fiddle': 3
'The Student': 4
'Anna on the Neck': 5
'The House with the Mezzanine': 3
'The Man in a Case': 5
'Gooseberries': 4
'A Medical Case': 5
'The Darling': 5
'On Official Business': 5
'The Lady with the Little Dog': 5
'At Christmastime': 5
'In the Ravine': 3
'The Bishop': 3
'The Fiancée': 3

On the back of this volume, we're told that Chekhov has been called "the greatest of short story writers". We're not told who said this. We're not told if it was one person who said this or if it's a wide belief. Not that it really matters - it's just that (at least based on this major collection) it's not true.

These are, for the most part, not great stories; my ratings are sometimes a bit generous. Quite a few are meandering, totally structureless, strangely repetitive (and at times seemingly pointless) tales of the lower classes. At best, they're significant peeks into the culture of the period.

A number of them are little more than brushstrokes of a story. These are actually (as indicated) some of the stronger entries; not very ambitious, pinpointing something specific, bringing about an initial positive impact (for what they are in their limited way) even if they may not have staying power in memory.

There are particular standouts. Stories like 'The Death of a Clerk', 'The Huntsman', 'Panikhida', 'A Boring Story', 'Gusev', 'Peasant Women', 'Anna on the Neck', 'The Man in a Case', 'A Medical Case' and (certainly best of all) 'The Lady with the Little Dog' serve to make the reader hungry for more stories on the same level. 'The Lady...', alone, may be the most fully realized and most fully satisfying story in the collection. Nothing else here quite touches it.

As was the case with a number of other Russian translations undertaken by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, I cannot fault the translators. Overall, the tone is consistently fluid. In fact, some of their best work is revealed when the stories themselves are better to begin with.

I'm a bit more familiar with Chekhov as a playwright. I've recently picked up a volume of his collected plays and am looking forward to the read. I'm a little surprised that his short stories were only occasionally of real interest.

I haven't read this exact book but recently re-read Lady with the Lapdog which contains many of the same stories. Anyway these are masterly as all readers know. Carver's favourite author.

There is a vein of dull misery running through much of modern realism. It is not even tragedy, because tragedy requires that the person be suffering as a result of their actions, and that they be emotionally complex enough to understand what is happening to them, and to feel the whole of that pain.

These stories of misery have none of that, they are tales of the ignorant, of the emotionally stunted, who bumble into one stupidity after another, never realizing why or what it means. Is there a certain kind of realism in this? Sure--but fundamentally, it's only half the story.

Sure, we all might feel that way sometimes, if we're depressed, and so we look at the world and say 'it sucks out there, and always will'--and part of it is that we want that to be true, too. We want it to suck, and for us to have predicted it, because that means that none of this is our fault. If things suck, it's because that's how they're meant to be, not because we happened to fuck up.

But the world just isn't that bad. Life isn't that bad, even when we feel like wallowing in it, that's not reality, that's just our own baggage, our own coping. So, for an author to take that kind of nihilism and turn it into a book just ends up feeling silly. It's empty, it's self-centered, and it's not profound. We did Nihilism already, and found better things to supplant it.

But that's what's amazing about Chekhov, because by all rights, that is what his stories should be: these little moments of sad life for these miserable little nobodies who don't know any better. And yet, they're not. They're somehow beautiful and delicate and profound. There's this undefinable Will to Joy in each one that makes it come off as sweet and sympathetic.

And his people are so strange. Each one is a true character, because none of them are just 'types', place-fillers. That's the lesson Chekhov took from Gogol: that describing a man's head as looking like a dented pumpkin feels somehow more real than just saying it was big, and not entirely round, and somewhat over-fleshy. Making someone flat and grey doesn't make them seem miserable, because misery is vivid and colorful and overwhelming--that's what makes it such a damn bother. If it were colorless and bland, it could never roll over a human mind.

Now, I'm just as willing to hate stupid people as anyone--and back in college, I was even more ready to disregard them. Yet Chekhov's stupid little people are impossible to hate, because they seem real. Like everyone, they try to put up a front, but you can see little bits, between the seams, that show you just how vulnerable and desperate they are for something, anything, which brings out that fundamental human thought: "Oh god. Me too."

And yet, not everyone sees it. I know they don't, because one girl asked my professor "Why is Chekhov such a pessimist?" He was utterly confounded by the question, he couldn't understand where it came from, how anyone could come to that conclusion. I mean, here's an author showing you the beautiful soul of another human being, in the midst of whatever turmoil or failed search for meaning, and somehow doing it in the span of a few pages--and you call that pessimism?

But then, Nietzsche was also misunderstood in that way, as was Machiavelli. These weren't men talking about the world as they thought it should be, but the world as they saw it, every day, all around them--and their reaction to that darkness was not to give in, or fold up, but to say 'we can fight our way through this'. Not out of it, perhaps, but definitely through it.

But then, to a certain type of idealist, even admitting that things can be bad, or will be bad, is seen as pessimistic, defeatist. I don't buy that. If I'm fighting, I want to know what I'm up against. I want to know everything about them, because that's how I'm going to win. To me, optimism isn't self-delusion, it isn't being in good spirits when things are going fine--that's too easy, anyone can do that--it's pushing on even when time are hard, even knowing they will probably still be hard tomorrow.

They will be hard tomorrow. But I'll still be here, and Chekhov will still be here, and if that's not enough for you, then you're only in it to get attention, anyways.

The god of the short story, and for a reason. Only Chekhov reflects on the most minute of things, and makes them seem so important. Only Chekhov can make a flash swig up in a pan, and illuminate all of the fires on the other side of its swirls. Only Chekhov brings characters that are of a similar milieu and part of the world... but not really; they are peasants, they are doctors, they are maids, and they are lords. Only Chekhov can create in just a few sentences an entire world.

If you haven't read Chekhov yet, why are you waiting for me to validate his art? Go out, and read him now.

চেখফ পড়া হইল অবশেষে। কি বলব এই ব্যাপারে? কেন চেখফ এত মহান? কেন ছোট গল্পের ক্ষেত্রে চেখফ অদ্বিতীয়? চেখফ পড়লে কি কি বিকট দার্শনিক সমস্যার মুশকিল আসান হয়ে যাবে?
কিছুই না হয়ত। যেটা বলা যায় চেখফকে নিয়ে তা হল তাঁর গল্পের সারল্য। একেবারে আশেপাশের মানুষজন, নিতান্তই আটপৌরে কথাবার্তা, একদম নিত্য-নৈমিত্তিক সব ঘটনা। গল্পে যে একটা চূড়ান্ত ক্লাইম্যাক্স থাকতে হবে, শেষে ভীষণ কোন টুইস্ট দিতে হবে, এমনটাও কিছু না। কোন কিছুর তোয়াক্কা না করে চেখফ কেবল গল্পগুলো বলে গেছেন, নানান দৃশ্য নিয়ে এসেছেন চোখের সামনে। সৈনিক থেকে শুরু করে জেনারেল, চাষা থেকে জমিদার, সাধারণ গ্রাম্য পাদ্রী থেকে বিশপ, শিক্ষক, আমলা, ডাক্তার- কে নেই চেখফের ভান্ডারে। বিভিন্ন বয়সের, বিভিন্ন পেশার, বিভিন্ন শ্রেণীর মানুষ উঠে এসেছে তাঁর চোখে। তাঁর এই দেখাটাও একেবারেই আমাদের, সাধারণ মানুষদের চোখ দিয়েই। আর এখানেই হয়ত চেখফের অসাধারণত্ব। তিনি আমাদের গল্প আমাদেরকেই শুনিয়েছেন একদম আমাদের মত করেই।
গল্প-উপন্যাস এসব নিয়ে গত একশ বছরে যা যা হয়েছে, বিশেষত কাফকা-বোর্হেস-মার্কেজ ইত্যাদি ইত্যাদি পড়ার পরে ভাবি নতুন কি আর থাকবে চেখফে। আর আবিষ্কার করি, নতুন কিছু নেইও আসলে চেখফে। তাহলে কেন অযথা এত কথা বলা? কারণ এই যে নতুন কিছু না বলাটা, এই যে হাজার হাজার বছর ধরে চলে আসা মানুষের সভ্যতার চিরায়ত যে সুরটা, সেই সুরেই এত আপনভাবে গল্প বলাটা, এটাই হয়ত চেখফের নতুনত্ব।
হয়ত এই কারণেই চেখফ হয়ে ওঠেন একদম ঘরের মানুষ, নিজের আপনজন। এই জ্যাম, যান্ত্রিকতা, ধুলা-ময়লা, লোক-দেখানো অভিনয়, পচে-গলে যাওয়া সবকিছুর ভীড়ে আমাদের হারিয়ে যাওয়া একেবারে সাধারণ যে সত্তা, একেবারে সাধারণ যে অভাব-অনুভূতি, যা একদম আদি- অকৃত্রিম, একদমই মানবীয়; এসবই যেন চেখফে খুঁজে পাই।
পুনঃ এত পরে কেন চেখফ পড়লাম এই কষ্ট মনে হয় কখনই যাবে না। বাট স্টিল, বেটার লেট দ্যান নেভার।

I will never stop reading this book. I'll read it again and again. And then again.

I was planning to give it a try to 20 stories, but ended up with 37 because they were that good! Some stories were just a few pages long, while some were going for more than a hundred (I even read 5 plays - never imagined doing this - but here we are I guess). But at the end it felt like all of the stories were dealing with similar issues: decay and weariness of life and hope or hopelessness for a better future. All of it wrapped in a non judging, confident and beautiful writing.
From the most to the least order:
Ward No.6
The Duel
Ariadne
The Steppe
The Bet
The Seagull
The Three Sisters
Uncle Vanya
My Life
The Lady with the Dog
The House with the Mezzanine
Kashtyanka
The Black Monk
In the Ravine
Peasants
Murder
A Dreary Story
The Grasshopper
About Love
The Kiss
The Man in a Case
Rotchild's Fiddle
Two Volodyas
The Bishop
The Darling
The Wedding
A Visit with Friends
Ionitch
A Doctor's Visit
Gooseberries
The Cherry Orchard
Clerk died
Terror
Misery
In Trouble
The Student
Drunk

This collection of stories is a rare gem where almost all stories leave you thinking about life, humanity and beyond.

There is nothing extra ordinary in these stories with respect to content but the way these stories have been delivered is exemplary. Chekhov is a master story teller. Each and every story will leave you unsettled and spellbound for some time. Chekhov has unearthed emotions and has given voice to even the minutest of feelings in his characters.
He is one of a kind and it seems that nobody has understood life better than him. Its like he has extracted the core of life and served it on a platter to you.

All the stories are mind blowing but the ones which have left a deep impression on me are the following (not in the order):

A boring story/ A dreary story
Ward No. 6
The Black Monk
Rothschild's Fiddle
The Bishop
The Fiancee/ The Betrothed
A man in a case
A malefactor
In the Ravine
Gooseberries
The Huntsman

This review would be incomplete if I don't mention that Anton Chekhov is the writer who got me into reading. The short story called "The Bet" has a huge impact on me and has nudged me into reading.

Highly recommended to all... :)

تشيكوف .. أحد رواد القصة القصيرة
ذلك الذي لا احبذه على أيه حال :)) لا استطيع الاندماج في القراءة او الارتواء من الوقت المخصص لها
لا يهم القصص قصيرة جدا بعضهم شعرت وانه نقطة ومن بداية القصة الجديدة .. موقف سواء تضحك منه او تتعجب
وبعضها يتميز بسخرية لازعة ونقد مستتر واعتقد هي ما جذبتني.

اعجبني الكثير منهم وبطبيعة الحال لم يعجبني الأكثر ولم أصل لما وراءه.

An excellent selection that manages to capture the immense variety of Chekhov's work. Will have to write a full review at some point.