Chekhov

[poliphilo]

Chekhov is the best. I don't know what prompted me, but I had three quarters of an hour to fill so I picked a volume of Chekhov off the shelf and read a story called The Black Monk. It's about a guy who's only happy when he's hallucinating. His well-meaning wife and father-in-law arrange for him to be cured of his "madness" and as a result their shared world falls apart. While I was reading it and for a good time afterwards I was  thinking, "this says all that needs to be said about human nature and the human condition and I wonder Western realist fiction didn't just end here. " Yes, Chekhov is the best. 

I have four volumes of Chekhov in the Constance Garnett translation. Neat little pretty little books from the 1920s- bound in dark green cloth.  I've sometimes thought it would be nice to own the full set-  which runs, I believe, to 13 volumes. 

Having read my story I thought I'd look for online discussion and commentary- and the first thing I found was a site that houses the entire Constance Garnett Chekhov. How wonderful. I can read all his stories. And the way I feel right now I think I'm going to. 

But also how sad -because now I've really no reason to go poking about in second hand bookshops for the 9 neat little pretty little books that are missing from my collection.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

An online book will never be as pleasurable, nor as easy, to read as a "real" book... Go on with the poking, I'd say!

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Also: For free, legal e-books, go to this site:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I think it's wonderful that this project exists.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Owning books is beginning to feel very self indulgent....

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

But as self-indulgences go, it's a good one.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm not about to give it up. :)

I second this...

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

There's something enchanting about the smell of old books and the people that old book stores attract. I could never give that up even if most of the time I leave empty handed.

Re: I second this...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've spent a lot of my life in secondhand bookshops and regularly dream about them.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I've seen "the Seagull" and "Uncle Vanya" and they seem to be all about vapid people sighing about why can't they go to Moscow. Maybe they are supposed to be satires on the middle classes. But I haven't tried the short stories.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not terribly fond of the plays either- they all seem to be the same play, set on the same country estate, with the same set of rather boring, annoying characters- but the stories introduce us to a much bigger, livelier world.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

I think we're supposed to see parts of ourselves in the limitations of the characters. I personally find Chekhov's plays terrifying--if they're comedies they're extremely dark ones about people who've wasted their lives and live in fear of fully admitting it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've seen one or two productions but they've never stuck in my head. They've always made Chekhov's world seem mannered and distant. I guess things would be turned round if I were to see a production that really grabbed me.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

For me the plays are much better read. They're extremely difficult for even superlative actors to get right.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Withnail: Anyway, I loathe those Russian plays. Always full of women staring out of windows, whining about ducks going to Moscow.
(From the film "Withnail and I")

Your comment reminded me of that quote...

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I've just finished "Russia - People & Empire" by Geoffrey Hoskins. I think Chekhov's story was an allegory for what was happening and had happened in Russia. I'm not sure how applicable it is to western experience but it sure describes what I've been reading about.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Chekhov's Russia is very unlike my England but I feel, nonetheless, that I know all his people.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Ah but that's the genius of his writing - and the greatest desire of all serious writers - to create characters that are so well realised and real that they are instantly recognizable as people we know or could know.

The thing which is instantly recognizable in this story and much of Chekhov's work - to me - as distinctly Russian is the plot, the environment.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

Ah, Chekhov. I developed an aversion to him whilst studying for my 'A' level Russian literature. Three Sisters was my teacher's favourite play, and I just didn't get it.

Give me Pushkin or Gogol any day.

That said, I've only read The Three Sisters, so perhaps I should give the stories another chance...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Dostoevsky used to be my favourite Russian writer but now I think it's Chekhov.

I developed an aversion to a number of writers who were pushed at me at school and uni. I find this conditioning very hard to undo.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

There's nothing quite like a "real" paper book; but I must stand up for electronic copies in one respect: I can read and keep pretty much as many of them as I want without their taking up one inch more space in my house. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And there's this- It would cost me quite a lot of money to buy the missing volumes of my Chekhov collection but I can "own" them on line for free.