Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius

by Bob Blaisdell

A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life.

In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and occasional embarrassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself.

He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary.

When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov’s talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov’s domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their family's serfdom is roiling beneath the surface.

Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama.

In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov , Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction

444 pages, Hardcover

Published December 6, 2022

About the author

Bob Blaisdell is a published adapter, author, editor, and an illustrator of children's books and young adult books. He teaches English in Brooklyn at Kingsborough Community College. He is a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle and Christian Science Monitor and the editor of more than three dozen anthologies for Dover Publications. Email him at Robert.Blaisdell@Kingsborough.edu

Reviews

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title indicates, from January 1886-December 1887, Blaisdell identifies when Chekhov emerged as the Chekhov who became a literary icon: the publication over a two year span of some of his most important and moving short fiction, over 100 stories that built his literary name and a period in which he also inched towards the dramatic world despite the critical stage failure of Ivanov. The book does not cover those famous landmarks of modernist theatre (a sequel perhaps?), but they would not exist if it weren't for the success of these short stories. We learn of Chekhov's influences, loves, and literary advances, with Blaisdell taking a deeper dive into the stories he identifies as break throughs, with generous excerpts and authorial guidance as to their importance. I've always felt that Chekhov's breakthroughs were pushing his characters into key breaking points in their lives, that the character drives the plot more than in previous fiction (character always drives plot but I mean that society is usually more of an impactful decider, whereas here, the person themselves drive their own fate).

Another solid addition to the recent trend of biographers not writing a full cradle to grave biography but rather choosing an epochal moment in their development, or a singular work, to illustrate and examine the creative evolution of a key author in the canon. Chekhov has always belonged there. Blaisdell shows us why.

[Joel Fishbane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book by a lover of Chekhov for either A) lovers of Chekhov or B) people who want to know what the big deal is. Blaisdell takes us month by month through two years of Chekhov's life and makes a convincing case that each was an annus mirabilis. There's some fun literary analysis, good biographical detail, and a honest look at some of Chekhov's flaws (some anti-Semitism, typical of the era). It's probably best to have already read a lot of Chekhov (which I have) but Blaisdell quotes at length and you'll still get the gist of the analysis even if your Collected Works of Chekhov has never been opened.