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Selected Stories

by Anton Chekhov, Richard Pevear (Introduction, Translation), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translation)

4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 · rating details · 10,973 ratings · 236 reviews

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life.

Considered the greate...more

Paperback, 454 pages

Published October 31st 2000 by Modern Library (first published 1900)

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Jul 04, 2008 La Petite Américaine rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Is Your Brain Bigger than a Bolt? Yes? Read This.

Shelves: classics_i_loved, kicked_ass

I'm not a literary critic, obviously. My description of books as sucky/trite/trash, etc kind of make me wonder how I ever even majored in English Lit all those years ago. But let me see if I can describe Chekhov in the way I've come to understand him ... and his awesomeness. (heehee)

Chekhov was a doctor before he was a writer, he knew how the human body worked, he knew the human mind, and he knew what external stimulus (the weather, the look in a person's eye, the placement of a strange object)...more

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Sep 21, 2008 Rick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This collection of thirty stories by the Russian dramatist and short story master is a fine career sample, beginning with early sketches and including major stories often anthologized such as “Ward No. 6” and “The Lady with the Little Dog.” His subjects are doctors, peasants, petty officials, ferrymen, monks, nannies, soldiers, patients, artists, society folks. His topics are as broad—fidelity, integrity, meaning, duty, survival, faith, class. There are stories about a medical student and an art...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Frederick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: chekhov

Of course, as of this writing (May 7th, 2008), I'm still in the middle of reading this, but I have one or two things to say. First, I notice that these stories share a sensibility with Depression-era Hollywood. If what I've just written sounds insane, so be it: Chekhov would have thrived at M-G-M. The first reel of THE WIZARD OF OZ could very easily have been scripted by Chekhov. ("Narrator: The old magician, pitying the urchin, begged her to heed the vision shown him in the crystal ball; her an...more

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Jan 19, 2008 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Finally got around to Chekhov's short stories this year. I'd been hearing his name as a must-read for quite some time - he either invented or defined many of the narrative possibilities inherent in the short story.

Based on how others had raved, I sat down preparing to be completely blown away. (Some people just go crazy for Chekhov!) I made a fair-sized dent in the book and it just wasn't happening - sure, the stories were great and intelligently crafted, and "The Lady with the Little Dog" was v...more

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Dec 07, 2008 Jose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contos

Chekhov na busca pelo momento. A trama faz reverência a estes momentos....

Vale a pena ler pelos finais incríveis e pela intuição que a tudo alcança e abarca. Pode-se constatar no conto "Children" sobre - nada, a não ser como voyeurs espionando crianças brincando sós - e o final maravilhoso onde nos revelamos como leitores no texto - e como pais.

Agatha - ? - a trama engenhosa conduzindo a mais um momento onde a própria visualização do conto em nossa memória embeleza o desfecho. Agatha entre dois...more

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May 14, 2013 Tommy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To preface my review, the short story format doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as long-form fiction. That being said I don't understand how Chekhov is as beloved and revered as a master/one of the primary examples of the Russian literature. I find his work often boring and devoid of the passion, imagination, beauty and even depths of horror found in so much of the Russian literature I love. From this collection, I enjoyed the The House with the Mansard the most, but that is not saying too much...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm always pushed back to Chekhov. Whether it's reading Francine Prose's brilliant "Reading LIke a Writer," in which she ultimately throws up her hands with regards to there being any coherent "rules" for good writing that, in fact, Chekhov didn't break, or whether it's George Saunders pointing to Chekhov stories as his starting point for the first story in "The Tenth of December," or Saunders saying that the role of literature isn't to change politics on a macro scale but rather to induce a fra...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Hortense rated it 5 of 5 stars

The story about the sneeze set me to thinking about the aggressive possibilities of sniveling apologies. This minor subaltern type sneezes in a theatre and some spray mists the august shoulders of a minor Grandee. The poor subaltern cannot believe his wildly overbearing apologies are sufficient, he cannot find release. You might say Subaltern becomes a sort of stalker. Things don't end well.

Read this story when I was about 15. It is true that I was total spaz (like I'm not now?). I started going...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Bob Mustin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’ve had this book of stories for a while, waiting, I suppose, for the time and mood to be right to not only read them but to study them. If you aren’t familiar with Chekhov, he was a ground-breaker in story style, up there with de Maupassant and Hemingway. Tolstoy sang young Chekhov’s praises (Why? Keep reading.) and every writing class in the northern hemisphere makes much of these stories (and deservedly so). The book is voluminous for one who must study, so I’m reading it in halves, so I won...more I’ve had this book of stories for a while, waiting, I suppose, for the time and mood to be right to not only read them but to study them. If you aren’t familiar with Chekhov, he was a ground-breaker in story style, up there with de Maupassant and Hemingway. Tolstoy sang young Chekhov’s praises (Why? Keep reading.) and every writing class in the northern hemisphere makes much of these stories (and deservedly so). The book is voluminous for one who must study, so I’m reading it in halves, so I won’t miss much of significance.

To generalize, and counter to Pevear’s assessment of Chekhov as one with no social agenda, I found him much like Tolstoy - critical of those in power in the last years of Tsarist power and grudgingly supportive of those on society’s lower rungs.
But these stories are more complex than that. Chekhov bemoans ignorance, superstition, and blind faith in his lower and middle class characters. He tends to become mildly outraged at those who spurn science and rationality for all those famous emotional fig leaves Russians in that era tended to drape over their foibles.

While extremely dated, there are universal characteristics here, as we’ve grown to expect from our greatest writers. The stories are heavy on character, but they begin and end without the moral points readers no doubt sought in that age. Not that Chekhov is a nihilist; he simply depends on his characters to render situations the reader can use to make those points for him.

Favorites? A couple stand out from the rest in these predominantly present tense stories:

“The Malefactor” is a very short piece written in 1885 in which Denis Grigoriev, a hapless peasant is hauled before a magistrate to answer for his stealing bolts from a railroad track.
More when I get back to his stories.

“A Boring Story” is a much longer piece, in first person present tense (begun in faux-third person) told by one Nikolai Stepanovich, a well-known professor. This is both Chekhov’s opportunity to depict academe in late 1800s Russia, but also to air philosophical bits on family life.

My rating 17 of 20 stars
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Aug 02, 2012 Wayne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Russophiles, Chekhovians and Short Story Lovers

Recommended to Wayne by: my friend Chekhov!!!

Shelves: european-favourites, russian-roulettes, short-stories

My THIRD volume of Chekhov short stories this June/July!!!
plus the novella "The Duel".

Seeing the recent excellent British film "The Duel" was what began this latest Chekhovian splurge...followed by reading the novella itself.

Then the new editions by Penguin of the stories in 3 Volumes which now have them in chronological sequence so that Chekhov's growth in style and theme can be more fully appreciated.
Plus very informative introductory essays.
I read the first of these - "The Steppe and Other S...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Inderjit Sanghera added it

Many writers pride themselves on the beauty of their prose style. Flaubert would spend days composing the perfect sentence for Madame Bovary. Nabokov wrote his prose ecstatically, his vocabulary was formidable and formed a core part of his aesthetic values. Proust’s composition was like a flower, the sentences formed a stem upon which the petals of his metaphors were able to grow and develop. Thomas Mann was concerned with weighty philosophical problems, Dostoevskii with psychological ones, Conr...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

I can appreciate the wry glance at humanity and the careful construction of his stories, but in the end I find them boring, partly because Chekhov's observations of people's behaviour are far from startling and the period in which it is set is of limitted interest to me. Having said that I have enjoyed visiting his house in Yalta and reading his biography. He was a genuine kindly soul whose beautiful house and garden overlooking the Black Sea reflect well on him. It is interesting that he met Le...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reveiws-2

Stories by Anton Chekhov and translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a book filled with 30 short stories by the greatest of short story writers Anton Chekhov. In this book there are the stories of The Death of a Clerk and Small Fry, just to name a couple. In The Death of a Clerk, a young man known as Ivan Dmitrich Cherviakov goes to a play and sneezes on a well known man sitting in front of him. He tries to apologize but the man asks him to stop and tells him that he is trying to...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Mikael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction

In a second hand book store I came across this lovely little two hundred page selection of Anton Chekhov short stories, an old Swedish edition from 1955 – precisely the kind of thing I hope for when I browse in antiquarian shops. I was fairly familiar with Chekhov as a playwright, but was aware that he is also considered one of the world’s finest short story writers. I can now see why. Out of the twenty-one stories in this volume, most are good and some are great.

There is little here in the way...more In a second hand book store I came across this lovely little two hundred page selection of Anton Chekhov short stories, an old Swedish edition from 1955 – precisely the kind of thing I hope for when I browse in antiquarian shops. I was fairly familiar with Chekhov as a playwright, but was aware that he is also considered one of the world’s finest short story writers. I can now see why. Out of the twenty-one stories in this volume, most are good and some are great.

There is little here in the way of grand events or effects. In superbly clear and visual language, Chekhov investigates social mores and human nature, as well as some rather unusual philosophical quandaries (as in “The Bet”). There is some comedy here, but mostly tragedy and sadness: “The Dowry” is among the most restrained treatments of hopeless yearning I’ve ever read, while “The Baron” shows us the pathetic ruin of a man whose love for the theatre was his undoing, and “Dreams” gives us a man who stays alive thanks to his ability to cling to beautiful fantasy, but who gets his spirit crushed by a few harsh words.

Chekhov’s world is not only sad, it is also filled with parasites, con men and other unpleasant people, the protagonist of “75,000” perhaps taking the cake as a particularly vile piece of slime, although some characters from the other stories could give him a run for his money. Chekhov, however, remains non-judgmental, a neutral conveyor of events, and any reaction to vileness, loss, tragedy and for that matter comedy is left to the reader to decide for him or herself ¬– the author only very rarely imposes his own view on matters.

The shorter the story, the more Chekhov excels. The longer ones sometimes feel a little unfocused, but the briefer tales, like the ones mentioned above and the alternately heartrending and grotesque “Once a Year”, are perfectly polished miniature gems that speak immense insights and truths in as little as five or six well-tuned, low-key pages.

On the Western stage, Chekhov is second only to Shakespeare among the classics, and yet I had heard that he is even more highly regarded as a short story writer than as a dramatist. Some of the stories feel flimsy, but by and large the consistency of quality here is nothing short of astounding, and becomes even more so when you realise that writing wasn’t even Dr. Chekhov M.D.’s day job.

Yet another one in the line (stretching to the horizon) of brilliant Russian authors, showing off his mastery of the short form.

Rating: 8 of 10.

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Nov 30, 2012 Andy McKenzie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not sure I read the same stories as everyone else; I read the "Wordsworth Classics" versions. The weirdness of some of these stories really appealed to me. But some of them were pretty boring. All in all, above average. My favorites:

- Overseasoned (a nice example of a Prisoner's dilemma variant)
- At Home (where the father deliberates on whether or not to use the "dark arts" of deception on his child)
- The Malefactor (Kafka's The Trial-esque, with a "failure to communicate")
- The Troussea...more

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Jan 29, 2010 Bettie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: play-dramatisation, slavic, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, winter20092010, classic, published-1899

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 21, 2010 Madeline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yes, I mostly read this book because Francine Prose told me to in Reading Like a Writer; but also because I had heard from multiple people that Chekhov is the shit and needs to be read by everyone.

Having finished this collection of stories, I can wholeheartedly concur. There's nothing especially earth-shattering or revelatory about these stories - for the most part, each one is about ordinary people living ordinary lives and having ordinary experiences. There's nothing very special going on wit...more

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Aug 25, 2010 Lii rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book in Latvian; it seems there must be a little different selection of stories in the English version. My book had 15 short stories. Here are my favorite ones:

“A Boring story”
A story of a dying professor’s self analysis. Chekhov doesn’t waist words in any of his stories, but still the characters in this book are so vivid and realistic. In this story the professor spends his days thinking about his famous name, which doesn’t help him any more now that he is slowly dying. The author...more I read this book in Latvian; it seems there must be a little different selection of stories in the English version. My book had 15 short stories. Here are my favorite ones:

“A Boring story”
A story of a dying professor’s self analysis. Chekhov doesn’t waist words in any of his stories, but still the characters in this book are so vivid and realistic. In this story the professor spends his days thinking about his famous name, which doesn’t help him any more now that he is slowly dying. The author shows the relationship between the professor, his family and his step-daughter Katia. The people who used to be his closest are now changed. He didn’t even notice when it happened, it’s like living with strangers. He shares a house with them, but is still lonely. A sad, but beautiful story.

“The Man in a Case”
Belikov is a teacher of Greek. He is hiding himself in heavy, thick clothes and wearing rubber galoshes even on the hottest days of summer. Everyone in the school, including his colleges, is afraid of him. He strictly follows all of the rules and in his opinion – what’s not allowed is strictly prohibited. He is hiding his thoughts behind a wall of never ending rules. He is like a shadow that everyone tries to avoid. The day of his funeral is considered a good day for all of his coworkers and students. They all feel relieved that no one is watching them anymore.

“The Lady with the little dog”
Gurov is a married man who loves to spend his time with other women. As fast as he gets excited and passionate about every new encounter he gets bored just as fast. He has never been in love. Then he meets Ann, the lady with the little dog. The story between them begins as usual for him and looks like it will end like that as well. Ann is also married, but she is shy and an old-fashion woman. She falls in love with Gurov, and so does he, though he doesn’t realize it at the time.
This is the most famous story of Anton Chekhov. A heartbreaking story about impossible love.

I enjoyed the book from the very first pages till the end. The author paints a perfect picture of 19th century Russia. Chekhov is one of my new favorite authors now and I will look forward to read more of his stories and plays. I can recommend this author to all those who enjoyed works of Dostoyevsky or Bulgakov.
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Jun 08, 2012 Oleg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Chekhov used to be mandatory in Russian literature class back when I was in high school. Maybe this is part of the reason why I didn't enjoy his stories very much.. Also, he seemed too dark and depressive, as pretty much all the rest of Russian writers of XIX century. As I read it again now, it is perceived completely differently.

Chekhov somewhat reminds me of House M.D., if he lived in XIX Century Russia and wrote books. Everybody lies, nobody is really the protagonist, people are corrupt, weak...more

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May 25, 2012 Alnoory. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved reading Chekhov's stories. I read a volume of them, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, as well as "The Kiss," which was recommended by my mother and unfortunately wasn't included in the volume translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

My favorite stories tended to be the shorter ones that focused on one character or one couple. They each had a sad, poignant ending, and yet I loved the beauty in them. Chekhov didn't try to say too much in each story, and I finished each one...more

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Dec 13, 2012 M.C. Hewins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thoroughly enjoyed this Wordsworth Classics compilation of Anton Chekhov's selected stories. What makes this addition such a rewarding read was the care with which these selections have been chosen. As noted in the superb introduction by Joe Andrew, Professor of Russian Literature from Keele University, "All but four of the stories first appeared in the 1880's and many of them are only a few pages long. Consequently, they give the reader not only a particularly keen insight into the early peri...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Jasreet Badyal rated it 5 of 5 stars

Short blurb: This is a great collection of short stories and the translation is very readable.

I enjoyed reading the short stories, but at some point I started to want to read something that I had a plot strung together rather than these blips. I think it's the perfect read for someone who doesn't have much time, you can quickly read a short story before bed. I wish I had picked it up during the semester. But now that I have a bit more free time, I would prefer to read a lengthier piece.

Chekhov's...more

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Dec 17, 2008 Marguerite rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: bailed-out, short-stories

Chekhov represents a gap in my education, but one that won't be fully remedied anytime soon. I labored over 105 pages in this collection, and while there were a couple of stories ("The Huntsman, Easter Night") I really liked, the rest were a slog through knee-high mud. I picked up a contemporary volume of short stories yesterday after finishing Chekhov's "A Boring Story," (which lived up to its name, and at 50 pages more novella than short story, but who's counting?!) Suddenly, in the contempora...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature, short-stories, read-in-2010

This isn't exactly the volume I got, which focused more on Chekhov's later work, but since there are like a thousand Chekhov collections out there I'll stick the review on this page.

The most immediately striking thing about Chekhov's stories is their efficiency. In his best stories Chekhov doesn't waste a single word, painting vivid images of 19th-century Russia and creating immediately striking characters with a brevity any aspiring writer should pay attention to. The stories themselves tend to...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Paul Bozzo rated it 3 of 5 stars

James Wood once said of Chekhov that his characters could easily forget that they really belong to Chekhov—that's how free they are. It's a very accurate description of Chekhov's writing, and this style reaches its apotheosis in Chekhov's, "A Boring Story," which follows an accomplished though aging and dissolute professor of medicine as he charts his own decline. The first person narrator in fact owns so much of himself as a character and is so selfish with the focus of his story that it feels...more James Wood once said of Chekhov that his characters could easily forget that they really belong to Chekhov—that's how free they are. It's a very accurate description of Chekhov's writing, and this style reaches its apotheosis in Chekhov's, "A Boring Story," which follows an accomplished though aging and dissolute professor of medicine as he charts his own decline. The first person narrator in fact owns so much of himself as a character and is so selfish with the focus of his story that it feels as if Chekhov knew that allowing this doctor the ultimate freedom to seize all the story's attention for himself would be better for the story than trying to force the reader's eyes away from him, and this strategy works quite well. The narrator intrigues us with his authoritative and unique viewpoint on an academic and domestic life he's come to both dominate and despise. We see those who are under him in every aspect of his life, and we intuitively understand why this doctor holds his position above them. More than this, we also understand how he's come to regret his ascendancy at such an advanced age, a time when he feels he has so little power left to change his world to better suit his own happiness. We also see how, in the end, he comes to regret focusing so much on himself throughout his life and throughout the story, when, due to his self-absorption, he finds himself powerless to help one of the few people he seems to have genuine tenderness for. In "A Boring Story," Chekhov truly lets his main character run free, and lets the consequences of that choice become the story's drama.

For as much as I praise Chekhov in this respect, however, I must also say that, for every story like "A Boring Story" that thrives on its characters' freedom, there are 5-10 that flounder because of it. Few seem more than simple, sad scenes that have within them relatively few standout moments. Some of them, notably those that depict helpless commoners like "At Christmastime," seem almost condescending to its subjects' backwoods-naïvete. The perennial favorite "The Lady with the Little Dog," seems to me to thrive because of Chekhov's command over his characters and their storyline, just the opposite of "A Boring Story." All in all, I found that if Chekhov were only a tad more assiduous a storyteller who had more of an idea what he wanted to accomplish with each story, more of them would be hard to forget. As is, however, many of his stories in this collection are as hard to recall with any specificity as the innumerable characters named Yegor that appear throughout the collection (it seemed there was one in nearly every story I read).(less)

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Jun 30, 2010 Rachel Mecham rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the US and most other countries, Chekhov is famous for his plays, but in Russia he is more famous for his short stories. The concept that draws me to his stories is the same concept found througout Russian literature: a socially-redemptive (or "sad") ending. Few writers are as capable of this as Chekhov. Some of my favorite short stories end in a false hope. At the end of the story the main character feels they have conquored the problem in their life and all will be right with the world. The...more

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Oct 31, 2011 Hafeez Lakhani rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

"Are you munching?" Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes. "There, munch away, munch away... Since we have not earned enough for oats we will eat hay... Yes,... I have grown too old to drive... My son ought to be driving, not I... He was a real cabman... He ought to have lived..."
Iona is silent for a while, and then he goes on:
"That's how it is old girl... Kuzma Ionich is gone... He said goodbye to me... He went and died for no reason... Now, suppose you had a little colt, and you were...more

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May 16, 2013 Han Asra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, european, favorites, literature, russian, western

Tepat sebelum menyelesaikan buku ini, saya menyelesaikan buku kumcer yang ditulis oleh sastrawan Rusia lainnya, yaitu Nikolai Gogol. Seperti yang stuliskan diulasan saya disitu, dengan panjang cerita yang hanya berupa cerpen atau novella, Nikolai Gogol bisa membawakan karakter, berserta konfliknya dengan sangat baik dan jenaka, sehingga mereka lebih mudah dikenang dibandingkan dengan karakter novel yang ditulis oleh penulis yang lebih inferior.

Anton Chekhov disini meneruskan jejaknya, sebagai pe...more Tepat sebelum menyelesaikan buku ini, saya menyelesaikan buku kumcer yang ditulis oleh sastrawan Rusia lainnya, yaitu Nikolai Gogol. Seperti yang stuliskan diulasan saya disitu, dengan panjang cerita yang hanya berupa cerpen atau novella, Nikolai Gogol bisa membawakan karakter, berserta konfliknya dengan sangat baik dan jenaka, sehingga mereka lebih mudah dikenang dibandingkan dengan karakter novel yang ditulis oleh penulis yang lebih inferior.

Anton Chekhov disini meneruskan jejaknya, sebagai penulis cerpen dan juga dramatis. Cerpen yang dituliskan olehnya banyak yang tidak memiliki plot yang jelas, atau bahkan tidak ada sama sekali. Namun selama membaca kumpulan ceritanya, tidak pernah sekalipun saya terpikirkan untuk melewatkan satu cerita sekalipun. Karena dibalik ketiadaan atau kurangnya plot tersebut, Anton Chekhov menggantinya dengan karakter yang sangat menarik.

Seperti pendahulunya, Nikolai Gogol, cerpen yang ditulis oleh Anton Chekhov tidak berfokus pada plot, namun karakter. Tapi diantara keduanya terdapat perbedaan besar yang begitu gamblang. Apabila dalam cerita Gogol dia sering menuliskannya secara satiris, dan jenaka terhadap kaum aristokrat Rusia pada saat itu, maka Chekhov akan menggambarkan karakternya secara realis, apa adanya, dengan sedikit kejenakaan. Dan bila Gogol memfokuskan ceritanya pada keseharian, konflik mereka yang disebabkan oleh hal remeh, maka Chekhov akan menceritakan konflik dan penderitaan para karakternya.

Dalam cerita yang ditulis Chekhov, kita aka sangat sulit untuk menemukan plot yang koheren. Kadang cerita akan berhenti disitu saja. Namun itu tidak menjadi masalah sebagaimana Chekhov bisa memberikan konflik interpersonal dan intrapersonal yang sangat baik sebagai kompensasi dari tidak adanya plot tersebut. Chekhov memberikan cerita akan studi karakter yang begitu menawan sebagai mana mereka menghadapi konflik masing-masing yang kebanyakan tidak berakhir dengan baik. Disinilah cerita-cerita Anton Chekhov memiliki rasa dan karakter yang begitu kuat.

Tulisan cerpen Anton Chekhov pun sebenarnya tidak dapat dikatakan sebagai yang indah. Apa yang ditulisya begitu lurus, langsung dan hemat, walaupun mereka memang kadang memiliki ritme didalam kalimatnya. Namun untuk dapat mencapai tersebut sesungguhnya adalah hal yang sulit. Hanya beberapa penulis yang menulis dengan gaya lurus dan hemat, seperti yang dirinya pengaruhi, missal Ernest Hemmingway, mampu memberikan cerita fiksi yang menawan, sederhana, tapi tidak dangkal dan memiliki kedalaman tersendiri. Di tulisannya, Chekhov tidak melakukan hal yang sia-sia.

Setelah hampir 1.5 abad Chekhov meninggal, kita masih dapat melihat beberapa warisan dan pengaruhnya pada dunia sastra. Namun sesungguhnya, Chekhov dapat dikatakan hanya sedikit membawa pengaruh dibandingkan dengan penulis lainnya seperti Charles Dickens atau Leo Tolstoy karena karya terbaik Chekhov bukanlah pada cerpen, namun pada permainan drama miliknya yang memiliki kekuatan yang sama yaitu studi karakter. Walaupun begitu, saya yakin didalam cerpen yang ditulisnya beliau menggunakan paradigma penulisan yang sama ketika dia menulis naskah untuk drama, dan untuk itu, Anton Chekhov bukanlah penulis sastra klasik dunia secara keseluruhan yang dapat dilewat begitu saja, karena itu akan menjadi kesia-siaan yang merugikan pembaca sendiri.(less)

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Jun 27, 2011 Amélie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: russie, relecture, 2011

Qu'est-ce que je peux dire sur Chekhov qui a pas déjà été dit? (Ces dans des moments comme ceux-là que je trouve mes recensions ici un peu insignifiantes.)

J'ai lu toutes les nouvelles de Chekhov en un été, il y a trois ou quatre ans, & c'est un de mes plus beaux souvenirs de lecture. J'empruntais les livres à la bibliothèque de l'université, de vielles éditions de la Oxford University Press reliées de cuir rougeâtre, & je lisais les histoires partout -- dans l'autobus, dans l'arrière-bou...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Jaber rated it 5 of 5 stars

إن كان لأبناء روسيا أن يفخروا بشيء ما من تاريخهم , فلا أرى لهم مفخرة أكبر من إنجاب أديب بحجم تشيخوف
كان كنفاني يقول أنه متهم بالإنحياز وهي تهمة لا ينفيها , لانه كان منحازا إلى من هم تحت , وأظن يا أعزاي ان تشيخوف قد سبق إلى هذا الإنحياز
قرات الكتاب بترجمة أبو بكر يوسف , وبطبعة ققديمة للغاية هي طبعة دار التقدم 1981 , وبمقدمة كتبها رفيق تشيخوف وربما تلميذه الأديب المناضل ماكسيم غوركي وقد ذكر فيها ما يعرفه عن تشيخوف وكيف كان هذا الأديب إنسانا .
كنت قبل أن أقرأ لتشيخوق قد قرأت الأعمال القصصية لطمليه...more

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About Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught himself to read and write.Yevgenia Morozov, Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of a cloth merchant.

"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloom...more Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught himself to read and write.Yevgenia Morozov, Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of a cloth merchant.

"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." His early years were shadowed by his father's tyranny, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, which was open from five in the morning till midnight. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog (1867-68) and Taganrog grammar school (1868-79). The family was forced to move to Moskow following his father's bankruptcy. At the age of 16, Chekhov became independent and remained for some time alone in his native town, supporting himself through private tutoring.

In 1879 Chekhov entered the Moskow University Medical School. While in the school, he began to publish hundreds of comic short stories to support himself and his mother, sisters and brothers. His publisher at this period was Nicholas Leikin, owner of the St. Petersburg journal Oskolki (splinters). His subjects were silly social situations, marital problems, farcical encounters between husbands, wives, mistresses, and lovers, whims of young women, of whom Chekhov had not much knowledge – the author was was shy with women even after his marriage. His works appeared in St. Petersburg daily papers, Peterburskaia gazeta from 1885, and Novoe vremia from 1886.

Chekhov's first novel, Nenunzhaya pobeda (1882), set in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Hungarian writer Mór Jókai. As a politician Jókai was also mocked for his ideological optimism. By 1886 Chekhov had gained a wide fame as a writer. His second full-length novel, The Shooting Party, was translated into English in 1926. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926).

Chekhov graduated in 1884, and practiced medicine until 1892. In 1886 Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him to become a regular contributor for the St. Petersburg daily Novoe vremya. His friendship with Suvorin ended in 1898 because of his objections to the anti-Dreyfus campaingn conducted by paper. But during these years Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgemental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion."

Chekhov's fist book of stories (1886) was a success, and gradually he became a full-time writer. The author's refusal to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intellitentsia and he was criticized for dealing with serious social and moral questions, but avoiding giving answers. However, he was defended by such leading writers as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888.

The failure of his play The Wood Demon (1889) and problems with his novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890 he travelled across Siberia to remote prison island, Sakhalin. There he conducted a detailed census of some 10,000 convicts and settlers condemned to live their lives on that harsh island. Chekhov hoped to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. It is probable that hard conditions on the island also worsened his own physical condition. From this journey was born his famous travel book The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin (1893-94). Chekhov returned to Russia via Singa(less)

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“Only one who loves can remember so well.” — 13 people liked it

“They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.” — 12 people liked it

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