I've always been curious about "Chekhov's gun". No, it's not what you're thinking. The name is likely best known--commonly known (even--to writers or practitioners in related occupations, even to those who have not read his stories) for the said literary term.

Such curiosity stumbled i to satisfaction whe I found a copy of this compilation of short fiction. I dove right in. No, I wasn't looking for a gun per se. I needed to see why Chekhov's name merited the posterity it holds.

Well, I saw it.

Chekhov's literary finesse is admirable. There's mastery in his way of wielding language; with a tight yet profoundly deft. On a personal note, for some reason, reading Chekhov feela like watching a Wes Anderson film. Especially The Duel.

Of course, Chekhov is not everyone's glass of vodka. Some find comfort in slow-paced, dialogue-driven (to an extent, intellectually Marites-esque, if we're bold enough to be honest) stories. Others crave validation (of being in touch with real life) from highly provocative thrillers. For those looking for a calm, meditative break from the fast-paced life or other fiction, his writings compiled here offer refreshment.

Each narrative in this book offers a poignant glimpse into the tapestry of Russian rural life during the 1890s. The stories predominantly center around the intricacies, either good or bad, of human condition. Chekhov bores a window into scenes of interpersonal dynamics looping around decision-driving emotions like love, resentment, and rage. These themes resonate through time and render Chekhov's narratives as consistently contemporary.

Out of dozens of novellas, The Steppe easily steps forward to rank among favorites. It unfolds as a leisurely odyssey of a young boy with a group of city-bound peasants, suffused with a freeform narrative style.

The main allure of this book (or his work as a whole), arguably, is how it possesses an inexhaustible quality that keeps one engrossed indefinitely. It serves as a reflection of the lives of seemingly real individuals, offering a temporary respite from the mundanity of one's own existence. His work, especially the ones included in this collection, are nothing short of brilliant.

If you love Russian literature, this will satisfy that itch. The first story is about 100 pages about a boy traveling on the steppe in Russia. Really, nothing happens. But like all Russian writers, Chekhov somehow fills the pages with detail that entertains and draws you in as only a bleak, Russian writer could.

This book is a collection of short novels written by Anton Chekov. The novels are:
The Steppe, The Duel, The Story of an Unknown Man, Three Years, My Life

If this collection consisted of just The Duel & My Life, I would definitely have given it 5 stars. All the novels were very interesting and discuss the human condition through a series of characters and events. The Duel in particular was my favourite.
Was not expecting how much religion was brought up in all these stories though!

As good as it gets. I read the Constance Garnett translations but I would think it would be impossible to tarnish these in translation (they're also available free online, I believe). They're all worth reading, as are all the stories Chekhov wrote from 1888 to 1904 (I just finished a major binge). My favorites: The Steppe (amazing, like a Russian Italian Western), The Duel, Ward No. 6, In the Ravine, Gusev, Misery, Sorrow, Sleepy, The Lady with a Dog, The Student, etc.

Chekhov's plays and short fiction tend to overshadow these, his longer prose works, and unfairly, as it happens. Most of these are concise masterpieces, with only one exception to me (My Life). Most will like be familiar with The Duel which is probably the most well-known of these, but the other works are just as good. The Steppe is a meandering tale of a boy going to the city with a bunch of peasants, nostalgic and almost stream-of-conscious. The Story of an Unknown Man was my favorite, a kind of intellectual terrorist disguises himself as a servant in the failing household of the son of his movement's nemesis.
Chekhov's style is enviable, for he has a good sense of compact, but fertile, language. The stories themselves can be said to focus overall on missed opportunities and their wake, which are, as often as not, second chances.

The Russians. For me, there are no group of writers as important, as enjoyable, as the classic Russians. Reading this collection had special meaning as I am reading a copy purchased by my son who, over the last couple of years, has become a reader of the classics.

This book features five of what are considered Chekhov's best novellas.

The first book is titled " The Steppe ". Like many of his books the story is a description of a time, a place, a way of life, as much as it is a story about characters. In this story we follow Egorshuka, a young Russian boy, who will be transported by his merchant Uncle and the village Rector to a distant village to begin his formal education. He is concerned about this, still a young boy he has the typical concerns of leaving home. Halfway through his journey he is left by his uncle with a group of farmers who are traveling in a more leisurely way to a mutual destination. This is the biggest part of the story as it allows a peak at these simple folks lives. A very strong story, wonderful writing.

" The Duel " is the second story and it is much more personality driven. It too succeeds at every level. We follow Ivan Laevsky a man who currently lives with a fallen woman, a woman who left her husband for him. So, fallen she may be but it is his fault. But, as we soon learn, two years into their living together he now is not in love with her. He wants to leave her. Much of the story is his trying to justify his attitudes to friends and others. At the sMe time we meet other characters. The town Doctor, highly respected, who also takes in boarders. One of which is a very dignified man who is repulsed by Laevesky's immoral behaviors. Their conflict which leads to the duel in the title is a contrast between two different ways of living.

" The Story of an Unknown Man " begins with a man named Ivanych explaining that he has, under false pretenses, taken a job as a servant for a man named Orlov. He explains this is because he seeks to learn all he can about the mans father, who, we are told, is some sort of nasty banker, merchant, industrialist type and our hero is a pending radical. As he settles into the home though he takes pity on the mistress of the house who he sees being used very poorly by Orlov. Orlov feels very constrained by marriage. He spends all his time with his friends, eventually contriving weeks long non existent business trips. He actually is spending time at those same friends houses. Eventually he tells the woman of the house of the situation. Earlier he himself has a crisis. After months of gaining no information about the Father, his target, the man shows up to visit his son when he is not there. A perfect opportunity to strike the man, to kill him if he desires. In the end the man seems so normal, so ordinarily pitiful, he cannot bring himself to do so. With both his mission unfulfilled and the woman seeing the falseness of her relationship the two leave together eventually falling into a relationship. Eventually the woman becomes pregnant and has a child. The child is returned to her " Father " who thanks Ivanych for his help in providing for the child in the interim.

" Three Years " follows a man named Laptev. He is the second son of a factory owner. Estranged a bit from his Father he has fallen in love with a dear friend of his sisters. His sister, unfortunately, is very ill. She also is married to a man who is not a good husband, unfaithful, uncaring. The woman is well regarded, very beautiful and is not interested in Laptev romantically. When he asks her to marry him she declines quickly and in an embarrassed way. Later that evening, however, she considers again. He is not attractive and she considers him a bit boorish but he is, by all she knows, caring and kind. She is, at 25, getting older, what if no one else more suitable ever presented himself for marriage. And, it must be pointed out, he is wealthy. Eventually they marry, though he does at time doubt her motives, it turns out they are well matched. They have a child and her life becomes, naturally so, besotted with the child, to the exclusion of most everything else. He feels her drift away, he fears losing her. His relationship with his Father and brother falters even more, his sister dies, he and his wife take in her daughters. In short nothing happens and everything happens. One thinks the author wants us to see that to each man the daily trials of marriage and family can be a life's work. In the end he and we are surprised that only three heads have passed as Laptov wonders what else life will bring.

" My Life, " subtitled, A Provincials Story, is the most political of these five stories. We meet Mishail and Cleopatra, the adult son and daughter of a well to do noble. As the story begins the son is being fired from his ninth job, he cannot seem to keep work that should suit him. His Father is greatly disappointed and rebukes him sternly, even beating his full grown son with a stick. While his Father wants him to honor his ancestors by taking work suited to a man of his wealth, Mishail is concerned with society as a whole, the enslavement of the poor, and feels that manual labor for all is the only just society. Over time Mishail moves into these professions but is disowned by his Father. He lives poorly. Still, uniquely, his choice is so odd amongst the eligible men of good family that it seems several women, including one described as the most beautiful in the village develop interest in him. She claims to admire his choices, agreeing that to be rich is to be full of greed, speaks about the need for equality. Yet, when they marry and he leaves his manual labor to go run the farm that she has inherited we find her growing more and more repulsed at the peasants in the surrounding area. While he too is bothered by them, their stealing, their drunkenness and ignorance of learning, he also can find it in his heart to admire their simpleness. His wife, however, grows more and more upset until eventually she leaves both the farm and the town leaving with her Father for Petersburg. His sister at the same time has finally left the tyranny of their Father and developed a relationship with the town Doctor. This man, a self proclaimed admirer of her brothers ideas, is married with a daughter their age, but he feels no remorse for their affair. Of course he will not leave his wife and it seems to suit his purposes when Cleopatra dies in childbirth. By this time Mishails wife has written asking for a divorce before she leaves for America. As the story ends we see Mishail still doing manual work, house painting, wallpapering, etc in the town but being treated more respectably, as an eccentric if you will, as he raises his sisters daughter.

great collection of Anton Chekhov I bought the everyman`s library edition with the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (both of them have other great translations as well of many Russian writers)
the collection has all of Chekhov Short novels (the steppe, the duel, the story of an unknown man, three years and my life)
The steppe: great piece that will put feelings from despair to happiness to tranquillity as only Chekhov knows how, even now I still remember Egorushka and his adventure.
The duel: fast read and redemption of a fool man, great work as well
The story of an unknown man: XII is the best part that will get to the heart of many readers that only read and do not act, in Orlov we will see part of ourselves (readers) and parts we do not like.
Three years; I think the most funny of the whole collection, many of the problems in this short story could be still seen today which makes the novel very interesting to read.
My life: you will see some ideas of Tolstoi, the ending is not a "happy ending" but a happy ending, an ending where a man is not preoccupied about how he lives his life but proud of his life, working the best of his circumstances and living while others in the story keep dreaming without opening their eyes.

highly recommended to all

Read only the first story "The Steppe". It was a nice piece of literature. Takes you back to the old days of travelling through a landscape that would be much appreciated (with nostalgic elements) by those having lived country life.

4.5 stars. A collection of five very engaging, interesting novellas.

The Steppe: A story about a young boy, Yegorushka’s first journey away from home, to a grammar school, where he is being taken by his uncle and a retired clergyman. This novella is more of a collection of short stories including discussion of the merits of education, drivers telling the boy stories and the boy experiencing a storm out in the open.

The Duel: The tale pits a scientist, a government worker, his mistress, a deacon and a physician against one another in a verbal battle of wits and ethics, ending in a duel. The main argument was over individualism versus the common good.

The Story of the unknown man: An anonymous assassin is sent to infiltrate the household of Orlov, the son of a minister, deemed a ‘serious enemy’. The assassin observes the extravagant and frivolous habits of the wealthy family and is repelled by Orlov’s treatment of Orlov’s lover.

Three Years: Alexei Laptev is married to Yulia. Yulia was not in love with Laptev but agreed to marry him as it was her best option, alleviating boredom and getting her away from her self obsessed father. Three years pass and things have changed.

My Life: Misail Poloznev, a young gentleman, renounces the privilege of capital and education in favour of earning his living through manual labour. His father despairs his sons decision.

A very enjoyable reading experience. Highly recommended. I particularly liked ‘Three Years’ and ‘My Life’.

The five novellas were published between 1888 and 1896.

Second reading. This is a collection of novellas. My Life: A Provincial's Story is a brilliant, deeply impressive, story. Its structure is perfect, its characterizations deft, spot on, its descriptive passages vivid, tactile, redolent. Set in 1890 or so it's narrated by a young man, Misail, a noble, who has this highly romanticized notion of manual labor. (Based in part on Kropotkin's theories of cooperative evolutionary relationships. See Mutual Aid.) His contempt for so-called intellectual work, such as that undertaken by his ungifted architect father, drives that man half mad. He fears Misail will turn his back on his noble advantages and become a worker, which would be a humiliation to him. This is just what Misail does. It's a hideous life he's chosen. His narration is in part a virtual exposé on the corrupt daily practices of just about everyone in town, and it's searing, scandalous. The nobility, the peasants, the workers, the clergy--everyone's taking his off-the-books kickback. He is quite alone for a long time, but because he has acted on what he believes in, he meets those whom he thinks of as his first true friends in the narrow-minded provincial town. Masha is the daughter of the town engineer, a predacious capitalist who's building a railroad near the town. The other is a young man, Vladimir, soon to take his qualification test to become a doctor. Meanwhile, Misail's sister is a virtual slave to the tyrannical father. Not until her life is half over does she, seizing perhaps on Misail's example, break away from him. I have read Chekhov's entire corpus of 400 or so stories. In my humble view My Life is among the 25 or so that are his through-the-roof masterpieces. But be sure to read the Peaver-Volokhonsky translation, not Contance Garnett's. (N.B. I should make clear that I read all of Chekhov’s stories in the 1980’s Ecco reprint edition, translated by Constance Garnett, which I recommend only as a stopgap if a Peaver and Volokhonsky translation is unavailable.)

I think I can officially say Chekhov is my favorite author, I have read him more consistently than anyone else since discovering him at a Capuchin retreat house. I am finally coming somewhere close to being out of things to read by him.

These stories are basically novellas and, besides the first one which was more like 4 stars, each one was bonafide 5-star material.

I didn't understand why and from what all these sixty-five thousand people lived. I knew that Kimry subsisted on boots, that Tula made samovars and guns, that Odessa was a seaport, but what our town was and what it did, I didn't know. Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya and the two other proper streets lived on ready capital and on the salaries the officials received from the treasury; but how the remaining eight streets lived, which stretched parallel to each other for some two miles and disappeared beyond the horizon — that for me had always been an unfathomable enigma. And the way those people lived was shameful to tell about! No park, no theater, no decent orchestra; the town and club libraries were visited only by Jewish adolescents, so that magazines and new books lay uncut for months; rich and educated people slept in stuffy little bedrooms, on wooden beds with bedbugs, the children were kept in disgustingly dirty rooms known as nurseries, and the servants, even old and respected ones, slept on the kitchen floor and covered themselves with rags. On ordinary days, the houses smelled of borscht, and on fast days, of sturgeon fried in sunflower oil. The food was not tasty, the water was not good to drink. In the duma, at the governor's, at the bishop's, in houses everywhere, there had been talk for many years about the fact that our town had no good and cheap water, and that it was necessary to borrow two hundred thousand from the treasury for a water system; very rich people, who numbered up to three dozen in our town, and who chanced to lose entire estates at cards, also drank the bad water and all their lives talked passionately about the loan — and I didn't understand that; it seemed simpler to me to take the two hundred thousand from their own pockets. I didn't know a single honest man in the whole town. My father took bribes and imagined they were given him out of respect for his inner qualities; high school students, in order to pass from grade to grade, boarded with their teachers and paid them big money for it; the wife of the army administrator took bribes from the recruits at call-up time and even let them offer her treats, and once in church was unable to get up from her knees because she was so drunk; the doctors also took bribes during recruitment, and the town physician and the veterinarian levied a tax on the butcher shops and taverns; the district school traded in certificates that provided the benefits of the third category; the dean of the cathedral took bribes from the clergy and church wardens; on the municipal, the tradesmen's, the medical, and all other boards, they shouted at each petitioner's back: "You should say thank you!" and the petitioner would come back and give thirty or forty kopecks. And those who didn't take bribes — for instance, the court administration — were haughty, offered you two fingers to shake, were distinguished by the coldness and narrowness of their judgments, played cards a lot, drank a lot, married rich women, and undoubtedly had a harmful, corrupting influence on their milieu. Only from the young girls came a whiff of moral purity; most of them had lofty yearnings, honest and pure souls; but they didn't understand life and believed that bribes were given out of respect for inner qualities, and, after marrying, aged quickly, went to seed, and drowned hopelessly in the mire of banal, philistine existence.

This guy.