Stories of Anton Chekhov

published	November 31st 2000 by Bantam
binding	Paperback
isbn	0553381008 (isbn13: 9780553381009)
pages	496
description	Called the greatest of short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the h...more [close] Called the greatest of short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. Now, thirty of his best tales from the major periods of his creative life are available in this outstanding one volume edition. Included are Chekhov's characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as "The Huntsman" from 1885, which brilliantly conveys the complex texture of two lives during a meeting on a summer's day. Four years later, Chekhov produced the tour de force "A Boring Story" (1889), the penetrating and caustic self-analysis of a dying professor of medicine. Dark irony, social commentary, and symbolism mark the stories that follow, particularly "Ward No. 6" (1892), where the tables turn on the director of a mental hospital and make him an inmate. Here, too, is one of Chekhov's best -known stories. "The Lady with the Little Dog" (1899), a look at illicit love, as well as his own favorite among his stories, "The Student," a moving piece about the importance of religious tradition. Atmospheric, compassionate, and uncannily wise, Chekhov's short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov's prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style-and, in doing so, a true understanding of his greatness. [close]
date added	12-07-06 edit book

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Erin rated it:

03/02/08

Read in February, 2008

The Doctor’s Hammer: A Review of Anton Chekhov’s Stories
Chekhov’s stories are warmly intelligent, composed of prose that is usually utilitarian but occasionally prettily evocative, and littered with the kind of humble detail that seems inconsequential at first glance but lingers long in the mind’s eye. Some of the characters seem like they have wandered far from a certain farm near Dikanka, others bear a striking resemblances to Mlles. Bovary and Karenina, some have seem like they have...more The Doctor’s Hammer: A Review of Anton Chekhov’s Stories
Chekhov’s stories are warmly intelligent, composed of prose that is usually utilitarian but occasionally prettily evocative, and littered with the kind of humble detail that seems inconsequential at first glance but lingers long in the mind’s eye. Some of the characters seem like they have wandered far from a certain farm near Dikanka, others bear a striking resemblances to Mlles. Bovary and Karenina, some have seem like they have cousins in the plays, and then there are the numerous Pelageyas. Every kind of person inhabits these stories, they can leave their cards in the most fashionable drawing rooms in 19th century Moscow, they travel by train or post horse, by ferry, or on foot, they visit spas, they are at home in forests that resemble nothing so much as the woods I used to play in as a child.
How can I choose just one to review? I can’t---I want to mention all of my favorites but there are too many. The Huntsman is a bittersweet vignette about a peasant woman who meets a hunter in a field, and just when the author delicately indicates to the reader that they are married, the characters themselves reveal that they are ill matched and estranged, and story ends softly with a playwright’s skill in perfectly rendering the parting gesture. A Boring Story, like the Death of Ivan Ilych, tells the story of a conventional man’s life as he approaches death, but unlike Ivan Ilyich, who plunges headlong toward death and repents just in time, Nikolai Stepanovich dallies along the way, leaving plenty of time for him to reflect and grow bitter, he does not see all of the chances he had for meaningful happiness and because of this he will miss still more chances before he dies, and will be unable regard his life as anything other than a boring story. In Gusev, the titular character is a discharged private heading home; his view of the world is limited to what he sees through the porthole from his cot. He has no one to talk to except grumpy Pavel Ivanych who derides him for his ignorance, and before the story is over both men will be dead of consumption and dumped into the sea. Olga Ivanovna, in The Fidget, marries a Doctor but her nature is like that of Emma Bovary, a common combination of naiveté and cunning, she craves an elusive glamour, takes advantage of the trusting nature of her husband, has an affair that badly, and finally it is he who dies, leaving her to repent her superficiality (a fate both better and worse than Emma’s.) Anna on the Neck tells the story of a poor girl who marries a dull but rich old man in an attempt to save her family from poverty. At first she is the victim of her husband’s insensitivity and stinginess and cannot even help her family, and it looks as if she gave herself away to a man she did not love in vain. Then she attends an important ball and transforms herself into a lady, she gains ascendancy over her husband, over everyone in this way, but in the process she has become a selfish person who finally forgets even her family, a woman worthy of her dull but rich husband.
These stories deal with the stuff of life, the contents of the human heart: frailty and virtue, betrayal and ignorance, spiritual malaise, repentance and hope. In Gooseberries one of the characters talks about the fleeting nature of happiness and remarks “Everything is quiet, peaceful, and only mute statistics protest: so many gone mad, so many buckets drunk, so many children dead of malnutrition… And this order is obviously necessary; obviously the happy man feels good only because the unhappy bear their burden silently, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a general hypnosis. 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 he may be, sooner or later 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 the wind stirs an aspen---and everything is fine.” I would say that there is nobody with a hammer except for Chekhov himself, but I am hesitant to make that assertion, for although it is true that his stories remind us of unhappiness they remind us too that happiness, being fleeting, is precious, so if these stories are the hammer with which he taps, then he taps gently indeed and not insistently (like Dostoevsky would, he would probably break down the door with his monotonous tapping and then be embarrassed to be caught standing there) but only at opportune moments, knowing that in this way his hammering achieves the greatest effect.
Chekhov’s writing is not gorgeous, and he generally avoids attempts at gorgeousness in favor of his great strengths which are the artful arrangement of small details (I’m resisting the temptation to pick up a certain dropped lorgnette here) the graceful structure which is frequently symmetrical but sparse, built of light materials with a strength that comes from ingenious construction, and finally a swiftness of characterization, so that the reader is startled to recognize someone in so few words, the trick seems to lay in his close attention to seemingly trivial gestures. Chekhov may have been one of the rare writers who knew the limits of his (not inconsiderable) talent and was therefore able to make the most of what he had.
Here the detritus of daily life is important; the hunter’s white cap, the mug that “hits the floor with a clank” in Gusev, the “wrinkled tailcoat that smelled of benzine” that Anya’s father wears in Anna on the Neck, or the dish of red ice cream that he offered her, all of these things are heard or seen or touched by people and because of this they are all duly noted, part and parcel of “all the petty cares of life” that stir the happy man only “as wind stirs an aspen…”

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