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

[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.