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The Portable Chekhov
Anton Chekhov remarked toward the close of his life that people would stop reading him a year after his death. But his literary stature and popularity have grown steadily with the years, and he is accounted the single most important influence on the development of the modern short story.
Edited and with an introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, The Portable Chekhov presents twenty-eight of Chekhov's best stories, chosen as particularly representative of his many-sided portrayal of the human comedy--including "The Kiss," "The Darling," and "In the Ravine"--as well as two complete plays; The Boor, an example of Chekhov's earlier dramatic work, and The Cherry Orchard, his last and finest play. In addition, this volume includes a selection of letters, candidly revealing of Chekhov's impassioned convictions on life and art, his high aspirations, his marriage, and his omnipresent compassion.
Edited and with an introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, The Portable Chekhov presents twenty-eight of Chekhov's best stories, chosen as particularly representative of his many-sided portrayal of the human comedy--including "The Kiss," "The Darling," and "In the Ravine"--as well as two complete plays; The Boor, an example of Chekhov's earlier dramatic work, and The Cherry Orchard, his last and finest play. In addition, this volume includes a selection of letters, candidly revealing of Chekhov's impassioned convictions on life and art, his high aspirations, his marriage, and his omnipresent compassion.
631 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1947
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About the author
Anton Chekhov
5,890 books9,761 followersDramas, such as
The Seagull
(1896, revised 1898), and including "A Dreary Story" (1889) of Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, also Chekov, concern the inability of humans to communicate.
Born ( Антон Павлович Чехов ) in the small southern seaport of Taganrog, the son of a grocer. His grandfather, a serf, bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught to read. A cloth merchant fathered Yevgenia Morozova, his mother.
"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." Tyranny of his father, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, open from five in the morning till midnight, shadowed his early years. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog from 1867 to 1868 and then Taganrog grammar school. Bankruptcy of his father compelled the family to move to Moscow. At the age of 16 years in 1876, independent Chekhov for some time alone in his native town supported through private tutoring.
In 1879, Chekhov left grammar school and entered the university medical school at Moscow. In the school, he began to publish hundreds of short comics to support his mother, sisters and brothers. Nicholas Leikin published him at this period and owned Oskolki (splinters), the journal of Saint Petersburg. His subjected silly social situations, marital problems, and farcical encounters among husbands, wives, mistresses, and lust; even after his marriage, Chekhov, the shy author, knew not much of whims of young women.
Nenunzhaya pobeda , first novel of Chekhov, set in 1882 in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Mór Jókai. People also mocked ideological optimism of Jókai as a politician.
Chekhov graduated in 1884 and practiced medicine. He worked from 1885 in Peterburskaia gazeta.
In 1886, Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him, a regular contributor, to work for Novoe vremya, the daily paper of Saint Petersburg. He gained a wide fame before 1886. He authored The Shooting Party , his second full-length novel, later translated into English. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in later her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . First book of Chekhov in 1886 succeeded, and he gradually committed full time. The refusal of the author to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia, who criticized him for dealing with serious social and moral questions but avoiding giving answers. Such leaders as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, however, defended him. "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 The Wood Demon , play in 1889, and problems with novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890, he traveled across Siberia to Sakhalin, remote prison island. He conducted a detailed census of ten thousand convicts and settlers, condemned to live on that harsh island. Chekhov expected to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. Hard conditions on the island probably also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey came his famous travel book.
Chekhov practiced medicine until 1892. During these years, Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental 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." Because he objected that the paper conducted against Alfred Dreyfus, his friendship with Suvorin ended
Born ( Антон Павлович Чехов ) in the small southern seaport of Taganrog, the son of a grocer. His grandfather, a serf, bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught to read. A cloth merchant fathered Yevgenia Morozova, his mother.
"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." Tyranny of his father, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, open from five in the morning till midnight, shadowed his early years. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog from 1867 to 1868 and then Taganrog grammar school. Bankruptcy of his father compelled the family to move to Moscow. At the age of 16 years in 1876, independent Chekhov for some time alone in his native town supported through private tutoring.
In 1879, Chekhov left grammar school and entered the university medical school at Moscow. In the school, he began to publish hundreds of short comics to support his mother, sisters and brothers. Nicholas Leikin published him at this period and owned Oskolki (splinters), the journal of Saint Petersburg. His subjected silly social situations, marital problems, and farcical encounters among husbands, wives, mistresses, and lust; even after his marriage, Chekhov, the shy author, knew not much of whims of young women.
Nenunzhaya pobeda , first novel of Chekhov, set in 1882 in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Mór Jókai. People also mocked ideological optimism of Jókai as a politician.
Chekhov graduated in 1884 and practiced medicine. He worked from 1885 in Peterburskaia gazeta.
In 1886, Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him, a regular contributor, to work for Novoe vremya, the daily paper of Saint Petersburg. He gained a wide fame before 1886. He authored The Shooting Party , his second full-length novel, later translated into English. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in later her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . First book of Chekhov in 1886 succeeded, and he gradually committed full time. The refusal of the author to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia, who criticized him for dealing with serious social and moral questions but avoiding giving answers. Such leaders as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, however, defended him. "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 The Wood Demon , play in 1889, and problems with novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890, he traveled across Siberia to Sakhalin, remote prison island. He conducted a detailed census of ten thousand convicts and settlers, condemned to live on that harsh island. Chekhov expected to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. Hard conditions on the island probably also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey came his famous travel book.
Chekhov practiced medicine until 1892. During these years, Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental 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." Because he objected that the paper conducted against Alfred Dreyfus, his friendship with Suvorin ended
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August 31, 2020
"Gurov, soothed and spellbound by these magical surroundings—the sea, the mountains, the clouds, the wide sky—thought how everything is really beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget the higher aims of life and our own human dignity."
Chekhov is a completionist's nightmare. With the entire internet at my disposal I still can't figure out conclusively how many stories he even wrote. Wikipedia gives a "partial list" of his works which names about 300 different stories. Another website claims (spuriously, maybe?) that he'd already written more than 400 of them by his mid 20s. At first I sort of half-intended to read all his short fiction—I enjoyed doing that with Kafka and Borges—but with this guy I'm not sure that's actually possible. I settled for The Portable Chekhov, curated and translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, instead.
Yarmolinsky's collection includes 28 pieces—a mere drop in Chekhov's veritable ocean of fiction—but it seems like it's probably pretty representative of the author's main modes. There are some very short stories and some approaching novella length. There's a lot of ambivalent Chekhovian realism, but also a surprising number of lighter, more satirical works. The satirical stuff is mostly from early in Anton's career, a period in which he later claimed to have approached writing "the way I eat pancakes now." He got more serious as he got older, and, reading the stories chronologically, you definitely notice that the outlook gets darker the closer you are to the end.
Whatever. That's all Book Report 101 stuff. What actually matters is that Chekhov is really goddamn good.
If you've read another 19th-century Russian writer it's probably Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, and for all their differences those two both liked to write very long books with very prominent Christian themes. I love them both, F.D. especially is one of my all-time faves, but they're also the reason most people hear "Russian literature" and immediately start thinking of thousand-page tomes about Christian penitence and the Russian Spirit rather than, you know, stuff they want to read about. The Big Two have cornered the market, and their sales pitch could use some work.
Chekhov, though, he takes a totally different angle. For one thing, he's not into the Jesus stuff: his abusive dad was a religious fanatic, so you can see why that wouldn't rub off on him. He grew up working class in the middle of nowhere, became a doctor, and continued to practice medicine and treat the poor for free well after he could have given it up to pursue his writing full-time. (All this, mind, while penning hundreds of stories, more than a dozen plays, and a novel in his spare time.) He was a boots-on-the-ground sort of writer who spent time with all sorts of people, which means he also knew how to write them: his characters are always human beings—sympathetic and frustrating and complicated and yes, oh so relatable—rather than symbols or ideas. "My holy of holies," he claimed once, "is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom—freedom from violence and falsehood, no matter how the last two manifest themselves."
Chekhov's got a reputation for being melancholic, and it's true that he doesn't pull any punches about the brutal realities of life for the poor, for women, and for anyone else whom society has shoved aside and forgotten. (As a side note, Chekhov was writing better women 130 years ago than just about any male writer I've ever read; men today truly have no excuse.) But for all his gritty authenticity, that stuff about celebrating love and freedom and the body is absolutely true, too. When someone like Dostoevsky writes about human suffering, there's a part of him that thinks we all kind of deserve it; we're all sinners unworthy of God's love. But Chekhov doesn't judge people that way. Human beings are his muse, they're very literally his life's work, and he wants the best for them even when they're too distracted or deluded to want it for themselves. There's such an overwhelming good-naturedness about Chekhov, such vibrancy and tenderness and humor coursing through his stories, even when the characters themselves are at their most loathsome. I'd even go so far as to argue that it's because he cares so much for people that he can portray their low and hateful moments with such absolute honesty. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky always have a sermon ready, but Chekhov knows the truth is never so tidy. Much as we may wish otherwise, we're neither damned for our sins nor redeemed for our faith; this mess of a life is all we have, and it's up to us to work it out.
Before I read Chekhov I'd always heard about how impressionistic his stories were, how nothing really happened in them, how they ended so abruptly. That's the sort of thing we've come to expect in at least the more MFA-y strand of short fiction up to this day, and Chekhov is supposed to be the father of the modern short story. But saying that Chekhov writes nothing but boring little vignettes about middle class people standing around is just as reductive as, well... the mess we've made of the term "Kafkaesque." Lots of things go on in Chekhov stories—there's romance and peril and rage and death—it just happens in the way it typically happens in real life: unannounced, unexpected, often uncommented on. The most formative inner dramas of my life will probably be all but invisible to my coworkers and Facebook friends, and their inner dramas will likewise go unnoticed by me. But Chekhov is here to chronicle those little dramas—to memorialize the losses and celebrate the gains that look insignificant from the outside but mean so much to those who experience them. That's far from boring: I'd argue it's what fiction is all about.
Chekhov's stories do often end abruptly, that much is true, but he's not just being coy or playing games. Real life isn't broken up into tidy little chapters, and Chekhov is obsessed with capturing the ambiguity of real life and encouraging his readers to make their own meaning from it. He's not the first or the only artist to try that sort of thing, of course, but it's surprisingly hard to do well: just think how many books and movies attempt to pull off an "ambiguous" ending but only succeed in being frustrating, pretentious, or predictable. That’s rarely the case with Chekhov. Every time I thought I'd outfoxed him and guessed what his non-ending would look like, he'd outfox me back and do something totally unanticipated. He's never formulaic, at least not in the sampling of stories I read, and that's especially incredible given the sheer bulk of his output.
If all that weren't enough, Chekhov also just knows how to turn a sentence. Even in translation (and suffice it to say Yarmolinsky's is a very good one IMO) I was regularly taken aback by the beauty or aptness of a particular description or character detail or simile. Actually, I rarely felt like I was reading a translation at all, except maybe in the more dialogue-heavy stories. I'd unhesitatingly rate Chekhov as a better stylist than L-Tol or F-Dos, which is extra amazing given how effortless and unlabored he makes it seem. He's very much a product of the realist movement, like most of his late 19th-century literary colleagues, but his best work also anticipates the playfulness and fragmentation of modernists such as Woolf or Joyce. Some pieces—most notably the ending of "Gusev," which follows the slow descent of a body buried at sea—even take on a sort of magical realist cast, which I didn't expect at all.
In short, Chekhov is full of surprises. Not everything he wrote was gold (though you wouldn't guess it from reading this review), but the gold is what I remember nearly four months after finishing this collection. Humanity, imagination, warmth, intelligence, honesty, humor: these shine through in Chekhov's fiction and, even more exceptionally, in the life he lived.
We bookish people like to talk about books as empathy-builders. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but I do know that I feel like a slightly better and more compassionate person for having read these stories.
Chekhov is a completionist's nightmare. With the entire internet at my disposal I still can't figure out conclusively how many stories he even wrote. Wikipedia gives a "partial list" of his works which names about 300 different stories. Another website claims (spuriously, maybe?) that he'd already written more than 400 of them by his mid 20s. At first I sort of half-intended to read all his short fiction—I enjoyed doing that with Kafka and Borges—but with this guy I'm not sure that's actually possible. I settled for The Portable Chekhov, curated and translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, instead.
Yarmolinsky's collection includes 28 pieces—a mere drop in Chekhov's veritable ocean of fiction—but it seems like it's probably pretty representative of the author's main modes. There are some very short stories and some approaching novella length. There's a lot of ambivalent Chekhovian realism, but also a surprising number of lighter, more satirical works. The satirical stuff is mostly from early in Anton's career, a period in which he later claimed to have approached writing "the way I eat pancakes now." He got more serious as he got older, and, reading the stories chronologically, you definitely notice that the outlook gets darker the closer you are to the end.
Whatever. That's all Book Report 101 stuff. What actually matters is that Chekhov is really goddamn good.
If you've read another 19th-century Russian writer it's probably Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, and for all their differences those two both liked to write very long books with very prominent Christian themes. I love them both, F.D. especially is one of my all-time faves, but they're also the reason most people hear "Russian literature" and immediately start thinking of thousand-page tomes about Christian penitence and the Russian Spirit rather than, you know, stuff they want to read about. The Big Two have cornered the market, and their sales pitch could use some work.
Chekhov, though, he takes a totally different angle. For one thing, he's not into the Jesus stuff: his abusive dad was a religious fanatic, so you can see why that wouldn't rub off on him. He grew up working class in the middle of nowhere, became a doctor, and continued to practice medicine and treat the poor for free well after he could have given it up to pursue his writing full-time. (All this, mind, while penning hundreds of stories, more than a dozen plays, and a novel in his spare time.) He was a boots-on-the-ground sort of writer who spent time with all sorts of people, which means he also knew how to write them: his characters are always human beings—sympathetic and frustrating and complicated and yes, oh so relatable—rather than symbols or ideas. "My holy of holies," he claimed once, "is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom—freedom from violence and falsehood, no matter how the last two manifest themselves."
Chekhov's got a reputation for being melancholic, and it's true that he doesn't pull any punches about the brutal realities of life for the poor, for women, and for anyone else whom society has shoved aside and forgotten. (As a side note, Chekhov was writing better women 130 years ago than just about any male writer I've ever read; men today truly have no excuse.) But for all his gritty authenticity, that stuff about celebrating love and freedom and the body is absolutely true, too. When someone like Dostoevsky writes about human suffering, there's a part of him that thinks we all kind of deserve it; we're all sinners unworthy of God's love. But Chekhov doesn't judge people that way. Human beings are his muse, they're very literally his life's work, and he wants the best for them even when they're too distracted or deluded to want it for themselves. There's such an overwhelming good-naturedness about Chekhov, such vibrancy and tenderness and humor coursing through his stories, even when the characters themselves are at their most loathsome. I'd even go so far as to argue that it's because he cares so much for people that he can portray their low and hateful moments with such absolute honesty. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky always have a sermon ready, but Chekhov knows the truth is never so tidy. Much as we may wish otherwise, we're neither damned for our sins nor redeemed for our faith; this mess of a life is all we have, and it's up to us to work it out.
Before I read Chekhov I'd always heard about how impressionistic his stories were, how nothing really happened in them, how they ended so abruptly. That's the sort of thing we've come to expect in at least the more MFA-y strand of short fiction up to this day, and Chekhov is supposed to be the father of the modern short story. But saying that Chekhov writes nothing but boring little vignettes about middle class people standing around is just as reductive as, well... the mess we've made of the term "Kafkaesque." Lots of things go on in Chekhov stories—there's romance and peril and rage and death—it just happens in the way it typically happens in real life: unannounced, unexpected, often uncommented on. The most formative inner dramas of my life will probably be all but invisible to my coworkers and Facebook friends, and their inner dramas will likewise go unnoticed by me. But Chekhov is here to chronicle those little dramas—to memorialize the losses and celebrate the gains that look insignificant from the outside but mean so much to those who experience them. That's far from boring: I'd argue it's what fiction is all about.
Chekhov's stories do often end abruptly, that much is true, but he's not just being coy or playing games. Real life isn't broken up into tidy little chapters, and Chekhov is obsessed with capturing the ambiguity of real life and encouraging his readers to make their own meaning from it. He's not the first or the only artist to try that sort of thing, of course, but it's surprisingly hard to do well: just think how many books and movies attempt to pull off an "ambiguous" ending but only succeed in being frustrating, pretentious, or predictable. That’s rarely the case with Chekhov. Every time I thought I'd outfoxed him and guessed what his non-ending would look like, he'd outfox me back and do something totally unanticipated. He's never formulaic, at least not in the sampling of stories I read, and that's especially incredible given the sheer bulk of his output.
If all that weren't enough, Chekhov also just knows how to turn a sentence. Even in translation (and suffice it to say Yarmolinsky's is a very good one IMO) I was regularly taken aback by the beauty or aptness of a particular description or character detail or simile. Actually, I rarely felt like I was reading a translation at all, except maybe in the more dialogue-heavy stories. I'd unhesitatingly rate Chekhov as a better stylist than L-Tol or F-Dos, which is extra amazing given how effortless and unlabored he makes it seem. He's very much a product of the realist movement, like most of his late 19th-century literary colleagues, but his best work also anticipates the playfulness and fragmentation of modernists such as Woolf or Joyce. Some pieces—most notably the ending of "Gusev," which follows the slow descent of a body buried at sea—even take on a sort of magical realist cast, which I didn't expect at all.
In short, Chekhov is full of surprises. Not everything he wrote was gold (though you wouldn't guess it from reading this review), but the gold is what I remember nearly four months after finishing this collection. Humanity, imagination, warmth, intelligence, honesty, humor: these shine through in Chekhov's fiction and, even more exceptionally, in the life he lived.
We bookish people like to talk about books as empathy-builders. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but I do know that I feel like a slightly better and more compassionate person for having read these stories.
December 3, 2015
Another tchek-off(!) for my reading of J. Peder Zane's "Top Ten". Still to go: James Joyce and Marcel Proust. I think that'll do it for the top ten on the list. Only about 300 to go after that! My edition is from 1965. I just checked... it's "War and Peace", not Joyce. I'll read that one soon. It's calling me... This book cover image is not the one for the 1965 edition I'm reading.
Finished the intro last night along with the first story: "Vanka" - pretty mournful stuff. Poor Chekhov might have lived longer if he'd been more serious about talking care of his health. Move to Tucson, dude! Another 18th/19th century literary TB victim.
Read "The Privy Councilor" this morning. I assume they'll all be winners. AC has that same modernist detachment as Flaubert. He doesn't say: "this is bad or evil"(or sad or funny etc.), he only has to describe it!
Last night: "The Chameleon" and "At the Mill". Short-short stories. Good stuff... from "At the Mill" the miller is are Koch-wannabe!
"... but the Lord knows what kind of soul you have. Oh Alyosha(the miller), darling, the envious have put the evil eye on you! You've been blessed in everything. You're clever and handsome and you area prince among merchants, but you're not human. You're unfriendly, you never smile or say a kind word, you're as pitiless as a beast ... They lie about you, they say that you suck people's blood, that there are evil deeds upon your soul, that with your helpers you rob passers-by at night and that you are a horse-thief. Your mill is like an accursed place." - YIKES!
Read "The Siren" and "Sergeant Prishibeyev" last night. Great stuff as always. Chekhov is the king of wry and ironic! Looks like he's have been a great food writer too.
Read "The Culprit" last night. Pretty funny and then a bit sad. Chekhov was not a fan of the ignorant peasantry. Destructive in this case. But still funny...
Moving along through "The Culprit", "Daydreams" and "Heartache" as AC continues to mine the human condition for these brief sketches of humanness. If he'd lived longer he might have hit four figures in total number of stories! The underlying theme here? It's the sad, slow shake of the head: "that's life..."
Last night "An Encounter"... Then "The Letter"...
"The Kiss" - The longest story so far and a classic. Reminiscent of the Alice Munro quote: "There are times in life when something happens; and then there are all the other times."(perhaps not totally accurate).
Read "The Name-Day Party" last night - fascinating. A young husband and wife absorbed in their unhappiness ignore the REAL issue and disaster ensues. Middle-class melodrama at its finest.
Last couple of nights: "An Attack of Nerves" - an attack of reality is more like it! And "Gusev" - a melancholy meditation on life, death and all the rest - beautiful... To call theses stories "philosophical" would be an understatement...
The bitter irony continues with "Anna on the Neck", the story of a poor girl making good and leaving the embarrassing relatives behind. I's dog-eat-dog out there!
Next up: "In the Cart" - in the same bitter, resigned vein as the rest. Where is "happiness" anyway?
Got back to this last night and read "At Home", another bittersweet tale of the inevitability of reality and the acceptance of it.
"Peasants" is longer story, almost a chronicle of misery of the hard life of poverty. Not for the squeamish or sunny-siders.
"The Man in a Shell" - A pithy tale of the way one chooses to live one's life and of how one's culture shapes the choices. Great stuff - of course!
"Gooseberries" - I'm pretty sure I read this before, probably in "Fiction 100". Another wistful/woeful tale of life's frustrations.
P.381 in this edition is a wow, a must read: "Behind the door of every contented, happy man there ought to be someone standing with a little hammer and continually reminding him with a knock that there are unhappy people, that however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws, and trouble will come to him - illness, poverty, losses, and then no one will see him or hear him, just as he neither sees nor hears others." and...
"I too would say that learning was the enemy of darkness, that education was necessary but that for the common people the three R's were sufficient for the time being. Freedom is a boon, I used to say, it is as essential as air, but we must wait a while. Yes, that's what I used to say, and now I ask: Why must we wait? ... Why must we wait I ask you? For what reason?"
"About Love" is a follow-up/next day sequel to "Gooseberries" and a great story about ... love!
"The Darling" - about a woman who's life and happiness depends on others. Risky...
"The Lady with the Pet Dog" - The author returns to a pet topic. Men and women and life in general - spiritually/emotionally speaking that is. His writing is just sooo smooth and wistful.
"At Christmas Time" - More hopelessness of the powerless and moneyless. Vulnerability to suffering...
"On Official Business" - More problems of drinking. Beautiful description of fierce winter weather.
"In the Ravine" - The last story turns out to be a mini-novel and a whopper. Devastating portrait of Mother Russia with the open question of how good a job is Mom doing for her kids! Not so great as it turns out. This is a portrait of a venal middle-class family. Be warned, as the nastiest shock of all these stories takes place here. The author seems to strongly imply that the materialistic, grasping life is bereft of spiritual reward. I'm reminded of "Things Fall Apart" where the "center cannot hold". Without some "higher authority" enforcing some kind of moral/ethical standards life looks pretty grim. On the other hand... there is beauty and serenity in this story, just not with the merchant family in the middle of it: Aksinya is a grasping, lunatic, materialistic, lusty demon in the flesh.
Started "The Cherry Orchard" last night. It's the last part of the book...
Heading for Act Three tonight in this semi-absurdist tragi-comedy. What's with the orchard? An icon of the past. Ideal beauty to be sacrificed for the sake of solvency - maybe... we'll see.
The fools dance while the orchard is sold to the local developer with big dreams. One act to go...
Finished up "The Cherry Orchard" last night. On to a few letters...
And finally done after many weeks. According to the afterword by Donald Hall it was assumed that AC would likely be forgotten a few decades after this death but the outcome was exactly the opposite. Thanks to English/American readers he became a cult figure to modernists. Easy to see why. His language at times bears the burden of awkwardness(to us) of its times(including the translations - of course) but otherwise the crystal clear prose and modernist/ existentialist realism(non-romanticism) of the stories is arresting. Chekhov = the Vermeer of writers!
Finished the intro last night along with the first story: "Vanka" - pretty mournful stuff. Poor Chekhov might have lived longer if he'd been more serious about talking care of his health. Move to Tucson, dude! Another 18th/19th century literary TB victim.
Read "The Privy Councilor" this morning. I assume they'll all be winners. AC has that same modernist detachment as Flaubert. He doesn't say: "this is bad or evil"(or sad or funny etc.), he only has to describe it!
Last night: "The Chameleon" and "At the Mill". Short-short stories. Good stuff... from "At the Mill" the miller is are Koch-wannabe!
"... but the Lord knows what kind of soul you have. Oh Alyosha(the miller), darling, the envious have put the evil eye on you! You've been blessed in everything. You're clever and handsome and you area prince among merchants, but you're not human. You're unfriendly, you never smile or say a kind word, you're as pitiless as a beast ... They lie about you, they say that you suck people's blood, that there are evil deeds upon your soul, that with your helpers you rob passers-by at night and that you are a horse-thief. Your mill is like an accursed place." - YIKES!
Read "The Siren" and "Sergeant Prishibeyev" last night. Great stuff as always. Chekhov is the king of wry and ironic! Looks like he's have been a great food writer too.
Read "The Culprit" last night. Pretty funny and then a bit sad. Chekhov was not a fan of the ignorant peasantry. Destructive in this case. But still funny...
Moving along through "The Culprit", "Daydreams" and "Heartache" as AC continues to mine the human condition for these brief sketches of humanness. If he'd lived longer he might have hit four figures in total number of stories! The underlying theme here? It's the sad, slow shake of the head: "that's life..."
Last night "An Encounter"... Then "The Letter"...
"The Kiss" - The longest story so far and a classic. Reminiscent of the Alice Munro quote: "There are times in life when something happens; and then there are all the other times."(perhaps not totally accurate).
Read "The Name-Day Party" last night - fascinating. A young husband and wife absorbed in their unhappiness ignore the REAL issue and disaster ensues. Middle-class melodrama at its finest.
Last couple of nights: "An Attack of Nerves" - an attack of reality is more like it! And "Gusev" - a melancholy meditation on life, death and all the rest - beautiful... To call theses stories "philosophical" would be an understatement...
The bitter irony continues with "Anna on the Neck", the story of a poor girl making good and leaving the embarrassing relatives behind. I's dog-eat-dog out there!
Next up: "In the Cart" - in the same bitter, resigned vein as the rest. Where is "happiness" anyway?
Got back to this last night and read "At Home", another bittersweet tale of the inevitability of reality and the acceptance of it.
"Peasants" is longer story, almost a chronicle of misery of the hard life of poverty. Not for the squeamish or sunny-siders.
"The Man in a Shell" - A pithy tale of the way one chooses to live one's life and of how one's culture shapes the choices. Great stuff - of course!
"Gooseberries" - I'm pretty sure I read this before, probably in "Fiction 100". Another wistful/woeful tale of life's frustrations.
P.381 in this edition is a wow, a must read: "Behind the door of every contented, happy man there ought to be someone standing with a little hammer and continually reminding him with a knock that there are unhappy people, that however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws, and trouble will come to him - illness, poverty, losses, and then no one will see him or hear him, just as he neither sees nor hears others." and...
"I too would say that learning was the enemy of darkness, that education was necessary but that for the common people the three R's were sufficient for the time being. Freedom is a boon, I used to say, it is as essential as air, but we must wait a while. Yes, that's what I used to say, and now I ask: Why must we wait? ... Why must we wait I ask you? For what reason?"
"About Love" is a follow-up/next day sequel to "Gooseberries" and a great story about ... love!
"The Darling" - about a woman who's life and happiness depends on others. Risky...
"The Lady with the Pet Dog" - The author returns to a pet topic. Men and women and life in general - spiritually/emotionally speaking that is. His writing is just sooo smooth and wistful.
"At Christmas Time" - More hopelessness of the powerless and moneyless. Vulnerability to suffering...
"On Official Business" - More problems of drinking. Beautiful description of fierce winter weather.
"In the Ravine" - The last story turns out to be a mini-novel and a whopper. Devastating portrait of Mother Russia with the open question of how good a job is Mom doing for her kids! Not so great as it turns out. This is a portrait of a venal middle-class family. Be warned, as the nastiest shock of all these stories takes place here. The author seems to strongly imply that the materialistic, grasping life is bereft of spiritual reward. I'm reminded of "Things Fall Apart" where the "center cannot hold". Without some "higher authority" enforcing some kind of moral/ethical standards life looks pretty grim. On the other hand... there is beauty and serenity in this story, just not with the merchant family in the middle of it: Aksinya is a grasping, lunatic, materialistic, lusty demon in the flesh.
Started "The Cherry Orchard" last night. It's the last part of the book...
Heading for Act Three tonight in this semi-absurdist tragi-comedy. What's with the orchard? An icon of the past. Ideal beauty to be sacrificed for the sake of solvency - maybe... we'll see.
The fools dance while the orchard is sold to the local developer with big dreams. One act to go...
Finished up "The Cherry Orchard" last night. On to a few letters...
And finally done after many weeks. According to the afterword by Donald Hall it was assumed that AC would likely be forgotten a few decades after this death but the outcome was exactly the opposite. Thanks to English/American readers he became a cult figure to modernists. Easy to see why. His language at times bears the burden of awkwardness(to us) of its times(including the translations - of course) but otherwise the crystal clear prose and modernist/ existentialist realism(non-romanticism) of the stories is arresting. Chekhov = the Vermeer of writers!
March 6, 2010
Books in this Portable series are often hard to rate and review. As with any writer, some of the individual's work is better than others; when you have most of that work in one collection it's hard to be as discerning about the collection as a whole. And since GR still hasn't come to terms with the idea of 1/2-star ratings, those of us suffering from a wee bit of OCD have to make do with what we have.
I have always thought I had read most of Chekhov's short stories. I had previously, of course, read his play The Cherry Orchard and short stories like The Lady with the Pet Dog, but it wasn't until I picked up this book that I realized how limited was my reading experience of Chekhov. Additionally I found that a lot of the short stories I had previously read were clearly in need of a re-read anyhow, and for that I am glad I read this. Still, it's 640 pages of one author... one Russian author. And that's a lotta Rusky to take in at one time. If reading The Portable Dorothy Parker wasn't enough to make me want to drink myself under a table, reading about the plights of Russians in the 19th- and early 20th-centuries was.
Supposedly Chekhov did the stream-of-consciousness style of writing, like before Joyce and all. But (unlike Joyce) his stories never made me feel the urge to rip my fingernails out one-by-one without anesthetic. So I'm not sure what Joyce was reading that inspired him to do something completely different with it, but hey, more power to him. I'll stick with my Chekhov. He did challenge his readers, and that's attractive (like Umberto Eco), but not so to the point that anyone should feel dumb, like they're just not cool enough to get him. He wrote stories to support himself and his family (very admirable) before he became a physician. His medical and clinical background often creeps up in his writing and I almost felt smart just reading it at times. Several of his short stories are rather brief, but they all pack a punch. Many of them show Chekhov's views on contemporary issues and politics, but not in a heavy-handed-Upton-Sinclair sort of way. Subdued, yet... there it is.
I have always thought I had read most of Chekhov's short stories. I had previously, of course, read his play The Cherry Orchard and short stories like The Lady with the Pet Dog, but it wasn't until I picked up this book that I realized how limited was my reading experience of Chekhov. Additionally I found that a lot of the short stories I had previously read were clearly in need of a re-read anyhow, and for that I am glad I read this. Still, it's 640 pages of one author... one Russian author. And that's a lotta Rusky to take in at one time. If reading The Portable Dorothy Parker wasn't enough to make me want to drink myself under a table, reading about the plights of Russians in the 19th- and early 20th-centuries was.
Supposedly Chekhov did the stream-of-consciousness style of writing, like before Joyce and all. But (unlike Joyce) his stories never made me feel the urge to rip my fingernails out one-by-one without anesthetic. So I'm not sure what Joyce was reading that inspired him to do something completely different with it, but hey, more power to him. I'll stick with my Chekhov. He did challenge his readers, and that's attractive (like Umberto Eco), but not so to the point that anyone should feel dumb, like they're just not cool enough to get him. He wrote stories to support himself and his family (very admirable) before he became a physician. His medical and clinical background often creeps up in his writing and I almost felt smart just reading it at times. Several of his short stories are rather brief, but they all pack a punch. Many of them show Chekhov's views on contemporary issues and politics, but not in a heavy-handed-Upton-Sinclair sort of way. Subdued, yet... there it is.
September 23, 2025
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano, adapted from Anton Chekhov and directed by Nikita Mikhalkov
10 out of 10
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano does not figure on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list - https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo... - and appears to have been largely ignored, in spite of the fact that it looks like a classic – it was here, in our land, though that may also be due in large part to the strange name and the fact that the then soviet Union, where they made this glorious film – and not much else of value we could argue falsely and sardonically – was one of the few sources of entertainment behind the Iron curtain, where we could not exactly say well, let us watch some Hollywood fare (wait a minute, maybe that was a good thing, considering the avalanche of Avengers, Cats that asphyxiate audiences now) tonight, for a change…
The Unfinished Piece is based on Anton Chekhov, the genius that gave the world some of the best literature we could read, such as The Seagull - http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/t... - and we can see the inspiration in the craftsmanship with which the characters are created and rendered on the big screen, by a team of illustrious, though Soviet, artists, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, who plays the doctor Nikolay Triletskiy, from Aleksandr Kalyagin as Mikhail Vassilyevich Platonov, a disabused teacher, that has some support in his simple, but loving, gritty, enduring wife, a woman that can infuriate him with her soups (borsches), but also alleviate his torments and bring him on track again, after one of his apparently frequent breakdowns and descends into lamentations, criticisms of the laziness of others(pertinent, but no less annoying for the incriminated parties), regret for the Unfinished Piece in his life – the magnificent title and the sublime dialogue is referring to the things that lack in the existence of the personages and that of the viewers who are invited to think seriously, meditate over their lives and the purpose it could serve, chances they could make after this transcendent Work of Art…
Mikhail Platonov – leaving aside the third name that Russians so often, if not always use – had been in love with Sophia Yegorovna and now they meet at this mansion, where a group of men and women will discuss matters of great significance, but also indulge in foolish games – they plan on riding a poor pig and one of the rather insolent servants brings one from the village – and during the interaction many mirthful and sad moments will succeed each other, such as the moment when the former lovers see each other after many years and then, at a later stage, the teacher recalls the feelings that one student and a girl shared, then she decides that they would separate, he takes her to the railway station, watches the lights of the train grow dimmer, then returns for a long time to the same station, without the chance to see her returning, drinks a lot and then becomes a modest, insignificant man – someone in the room thinks the story recalls one of the Russian writers, though we know this is what had happened between Sophia and a much younger Misha…
At one moment, during a heavy rain that has started, a man from the neighborhood comes to the big house, looking for the doctor and when he sees him, he says that he has become because his wife is very sick, he has an equipage nearby and is ready to ride with the doctor, who, alas, says that maybe he will come tomorrow, or at the latest the day after tomorrow, for he is busy now – they still have to listen to music from the Mechanical Piano, dance and play some games – but this declaration of intent makes Mikhail very angry and he protests and states that he is the only doctor in the area and that woman needs him and this is outrageous, he had studied at university and does not help the people who are desperate for him…
Having said that, we do have the chance to hear the sad, frustrated doctor later on, as he describes his life of disappointments, waiting for people to call for him at the most impossible hours, as he waits for cases of dysentery – was it? – and he thinks continuously of diarrhea and he is offended by the long, repeated journeys he has to take along bumpy roads, where he is shaken out of his mind and it is evident that though perhaps not as disabused as Mikhail – who still looks like he does have a tremendous ally in the woman who says that she loves him more than anybody ever could and proves it to a large if not full extent when she keeps running after him, even after he had insulted her, attacked her sour soups and everything else apparently.
The young wife is rather simple – though Fyodor Dostoyevsky said something like ‘he would rather be a sausage maker that believes in god without a doubt or question and she goes to church every single day, to light a candle, sure that the almighty is up there, watching over everything and protecting her and humanity in general…’, words to that effect Insha’Allah – the question being if she is a simpleton, though even in that case, she is surely redeemed by the rare, fantastic, divine worship and admiration she evidently feels for her husband, that she criticizes when he embarrasses both of them, attacking all those present at the gathering – mostly with good reason, contrary to what one says, that he has no servants to punish, so he has decided to lash the guests and hosts – the doctor for his lack of responsibility and humanity ultimately, others for their laziness and the fact that one does not do anything, after he had studied at university, he has returned and ever since, he has o project, no contribution and could conceivably do nothing for the rest of his life…
Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino as Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano sounds in Russian is a marvelous, phenomenal film, though one of those forgotten gems that have not attracted much attention – on the IMDB site, there are only 4 (four!) critics and 12 users that have expressed some thoughts about the movie
10 out of 10
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano does not figure on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list - https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo... - and appears to have been largely ignored, in spite of the fact that it looks like a classic – it was here, in our land, though that may also be due in large part to the strange name and the fact that the then soviet Union, where they made this glorious film – and not much else of value we could argue falsely and sardonically – was one of the few sources of entertainment behind the Iron curtain, where we could not exactly say well, let us watch some Hollywood fare (wait a minute, maybe that was a good thing, considering the avalanche of Avengers, Cats that asphyxiate audiences now) tonight, for a change…
The Unfinished Piece is based on Anton Chekhov, the genius that gave the world some of the best literature we could read, such as The Seagull - http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/t... - and we can see the inspiration in the craftsmanship with which the characters are created and rendered on the big screen, by a team of illustrious, though Soviet, artists, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, who plays the doctor Nikolay Triletskiy, from Aleksandr Kalyagin as Mikhail Vassilyevich Platonov, a disabused teacher, that has some support in his simple, but loving, gritty, enduring wife, a woman that can infuriate him with her soups (borsches), but also alleviate his torments and bring him on track again, after one of his apparently frequent breakdowns and descends into lamentations, criticisms of the laziness of others(pertinent, but no less annoying for the incriminated parties), regret for the Unfinished Piece in his life – the magnificent title and the sublime dialogue is referring to the things that lack in the existence of the personages and that of the viewers who are invited to think seriously, meditate over their lives and the purpose it could serve, chances they could make after this transcendent Work of Art…
Mikhail Platonov – leaving aside the third name that Russians so often, if not always use – had been in love with Sophia Yegorovna and now they meet at this mansion, where a group of men and women will discuss matters of great significance, but also indulge in foolish games – they plan on riding a poor pig and one of the rather insolent servants brings one from the village – and during the interaction many mirthful and sad moments will succeed each other, such as the moment when the former lovers see each other after many years and then, at a later stage, the teacher recalls the feelings that one student and a girl shared, then she decides that they would separate, he takes her to the railway station, watches the lights of the train grow dimmer, then returns for a long time to the same station, without the chance to see her returning, drinks a lot and then becomes a modest, insignificant man – someone in the room thinks the story recalls one of the Russian writers, though we know this is what had happened between Sophia and a much younger Misha…
At one moment, during a heavy rain that has started, a man from the neighborhood comes to the big house, looking for the doctor and when he sees him, he says that he has become because his wife is very sick, he has an equipage nearby and is ready to ride with the doctor, who, alas, says that maybe he will come tomorrow, or at the latest the day after tomorrow, for he is busy now – they still have to listen to music from the Mechanical Piano, dance and play some games – but this declaration of intent makes Mikhail very angry and he protests and states that he is the only doctor in the area and that woman needs him and this is outrageous, he had studied at university and does not help the people who are desperate for him…
Having said that, we do have the chance to hear the sad, frustrated doctor later on, as he describes his life of disappointments, waiting for people to call for him at the most impossible hours, as he waits for cases of dysentery – was it? – and he thinks continuously of diarrhea and he is offended by the long, repeated journeys he has to take along bumpy roads, where he is shaken out of his mind and it is evident that though perhaps not as disabused as Mikhail – who still looks like he does have a tremendous ally in the woman who says that she loves him more than anybody ever could and proves it to a large if not full extent when she keeps running after him, even after he had insulted her, attacked her sour soups and everything else apparently.
The young wife is rather simple – though Fyodor Dostoyevsky said something like ‘he would rather be a sausage maker that believes in god without a doubt or question and she goes to church every single day, to light a candle, sure that the almighty is up there, watching over everything and protecting her and humanity in general…’, words to that effect Insha’Allah – the question being if she is a simpleton, though even in that case, she is surely redeemed by the rare, fantastic, divine worship and admiration she evidently feels for her husband, that she criticizes when he embarrasses both of them, attacking all those present at the gathering – mostly with good reason, contrary to what one says, that he has no servants to punish, so he has decided to lash the guests and hosts – the doctor for his lack of responsibility and humanity ultimately, others for their laziness and the fact that one does not do anything, after he had studied at university, he has returned and ever since, he has o project, no contribution and could conceivably do nothing for the rest of his life…
Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino as Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano sounds in Russian is a marvelous, phenomenal film, though one of those forgotten gems that have not attracted much attention – on the IMDB site, there are only 4 (four!) critics and 12 users that have expressed some thoughts about the movie
December 16, 2014
This is a good place to start if you are interested in the work of Anton Chekhov, who, in case you did not know, is regarded as one of the world's greatest writers, and one of the forerunners of modern literature. Without question a brilliant short story writer and a dramatist whose work continues to be produced and translated everywhere, Chekhov did not live long but he left behind a body of work that is brilliant, accessible, and a joy to read despite its bittersweet character.
Such were his gifts of immediacy and communication that there were many times during my reading in which I felt transported to Russia circa 1890. He makes us feel the cold breezes, hear the hoofs of the horses as the carriage moves forward, makes us chuckle at the behavior of his very believable characters while simultaneously empathizing with their heartaches. His work is both entirely Russian, and completely human and beyond national concerns. He shows us people who suffer, who hesitate, who behave humorously and foolishly, who are trapped by circumstances - in other words, he shows us ourselves, but does it so artfully that we are fascinated and must keep reading.
Whether this was a good selection of his stories I cannot say, but after reading the editor's (Avrahm Yarmolinsky) preface I was confident that I was in good hands. The translation, by whom I could not tell, was perfectly acceptable to me. If I wanted to snipe a little, I could ask why so few letters were included, and why "Three Sisters" and "Uncle Vanya", both masterpieces of realistic theatre, did not make the cut. I did find myself wondering if Chekhov would have supported the Russian revolution, and despite his sympathetic views of the peasantry, after reading this I am confident that he would not have. Perhaps it is a mercy that he did not live to see it, for he would not have approved, and would have probably been dealt with accordingly. Long live the writing of the great Chekhov! May many more generations of readers come to know him.
Such were his gifts of immediacy and communication that there were many times during my reading in which I felt transported to Russia circa 1890. He makes us feel the cold breezes, hear the hoofs of the horses as the carriage moves forward, makes us chuckle at the behavior of his very believable characters while simultaneously empathizing with their heartaches. His work is both entirely Russian, and completely human and beyond national concerns. He shows us people who suffer, who hesitate, who behave humorously and foolishly, who are trapped by circumstances - in other words, he shows us ourselves, but does it so artfully that we are fascinated and must keep reading.
Whether this was a good selection of his stories I cannot say, but after reading the editor's (Avrahm Yarmolinsky) preface I was confident that I was in good hands. The translation, by whom I could not tell, was perfectly acceptable to me. If I wanted to snipe a little, I could ask why so few letters were included, and why "Three Sisters" and "Uncle Vanya", both masterpieces of realistic theatre, did not make the cut. I did find myself wondering if Chekhov would have supported the Russian revolution, and despite his sympathetic views of the peasantry, after reading this I am confident that he would not have. Perhaps it is a mercy that he did not live to see it, for he would not have approved, and would have probably been dealt with accordingly. Long live the writing of the great Chekhov! May many more generations of readers come to know him.
June 29, 2023
These stories were almost all great. I only read the short stories, not the two plays.
March 27, 2018
A quote attributed to Chekhov, "Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass," highlights Chekhov's ability to show the reader the story instead of telling it. This ability is on display in this collection of short stories again and again, and it really is masterful writing.
Chekhov's short stories are often called sketches which is a perfect name for these stories that feel like they start in the middle and end before the resolution. Most of these stories offer just glimpses into the lives of the characters and end before things come together.
Although I recognize Chekhov's mastery of writing, I ultimately couldn't help feeling a little bogged down by the continually somber tone of his stories.
Chekhov's short stories are often called sketches which is a perfect name for these stories that feel like they start in the middle and end before the resolution. Most of these stories offer just glimpses into the lives of the characters and end before things come together.
Although I recognize Chekhov's mastery of writing, I ultimately couldn't help feeling a little bogged down by the continually somber tone of his stories.
November 30, 2019
I did find most of the stories interesting, some not so much. But I still can't pin down my feelings on Chekhov. I guess I will have a better understanding after I read some of his plays. But I will read this book again before I make a definitive judgement.
May 19, 2008
Some stories are good, some...not so much. There are some good technical things from Chekhov that short story writers might find helpful. Worth a read.
May 31, 2009
Two perfect stories: "The Kiss" and "The Lady With the Pet Dog."
October 24, 2019
It's Chechov, so.
December 31, 2021
PERFECTION!
February 23, 2024
Review written nearly 25 years ago...
3.5 stars for Anton Checkhov? What could I be thinking. First of all, having read my fair share of Russian literature in translation, I've discovered what a difference a good translator can make. The question of "true to the material" is one I can not answer since I do not speak Russian. However, as far as good writing in English goes... this I can judge. Exceptional stories like "Daydreams", "The Kiss", and "Gusev" stand out with stellar content: "Daydreams" finds a man whose hopes for the future are constantly bashed by the two police he is with. "The Kiss" deals with a soldier who creates an entire fantasy affair with a woman based on a single accidental kiss. And "Gusev" follows the title character's slow descent from sickness into death on board a battleship. "The Kiss", the finest of the bunch, was translated by Constance Garnett, while Yarmolinsky translated almost all the others. Stories like "The Peasants" are bogged down in Yarmolinsky's stilted style. It is difficult to follow or care about characters doing every day things when the reading of these things is so difficult.
This edition also has certain letters collected toward the end. Any relationship between the letters and the rest of the volume is lost to me. There is no mention of any stories we've just read, or any theme amongst the letters themselves. Perhaps more letters to a specific person, or revolving around the writing of a story would have been more appropriate. As is, the tiny letters section is very cutable, offering such a small glimpse as to prove useless. Granted, Yarmolinsky had an almost impossible task. There can be no "portable" Checkhov. The man wrote hundreds upon hundreds of stories, and even more letters. His collected work could, and does, fill volumes. Selecting six hundred pages, translating them, and hoping that they can somehow represent a man is fallacy. Yet, until a better collection comes along, we are forced to read what we can.
3.5 stars for Anton Checkhov? What could I be thinking. First of all, having read my fair share of Russian literature in translation, I've discovered what a difference a good translator can make. The question of "true to the material" is one I can not answer since I do not speak Russian. However, as far as good writing in English goes... this I can judge. Exceptional stories like "Daydreams", "The Kiss", and "Gusev" stand out with stellar content: "Daydreams" finds a man whose hopes for the future are constantly bashed by the two police he is with. "The Kiss" deals with a soldier who creates an entire fantasy affair with a woman based on a single accidental kiss. And "Gusev" follows the title character's slow descent from sickness into death on board a battleship. "The Kiss", the finest of the bunch, was translated by Constance Garnett, while Yarmolinsky translated almost all the others. Stories like "The Peasants" are bogged down in Yarmolinsky's stilted style. It is difficult to follow or care about characters doing every day things when the reading of these things is so difficult.
This edition also has certain letters collected toward the end. Any relationship between the letters and the rest of the volume is lost to me. There is no mention of any stories we've just read, or any theme amongst the letters themselves. Perhaps more letters to a specific person, or revolving around the writing of a story would have been more appropriate. As is, the tiny letters section is very cutable, offering such a small glimpse as to prove useless. Granted, Yarmolinsky had an almost impossible task. There can be no "portable" Checkhov. The man wrote hundreds upon hundreds of stories, and even more letters. His collected work could, and does, fill volumes. Selecting six hundred pages, translating them, and hoping that they can somehow represent a man is fallacy. Yet, until a better collection comes along, we are forced to read what we can.
November 9, 2021
The Portable Chekhov (1977.) This is a book of Anton Chekhov’s short stories. Chekhov was a Russian physician and playwright who lived from 1860 to 1904. He’s regarded as one of the best and most iconic short story writers in history, and is also known as a pioneer of early modernism in theater (i.e. the cherry orchard, SO good.) Chekhov’s writing became some of my favorite after reading this book. His stories are so well written and so compelling. My favorite Chekhov short story is called “A Calamity” and the ending is one of the best that I’ve ever read. He really captures the unexplainable emotions people experience but can’t categorize, which is a crazy feat, and one that I think about a Lot.
I’m biased, because I have such a sweet tooth for 19th and 20th century Russian lit, but these stories are some of my favorite, and Chekhov is one of my favorite authors. If you like short stories, I absolutely recommend this book and Chekhov’s short stories in general!! 100/10
I’m biased, because I have such a sweet tooth for 19th and 20th century Russian lit, but these stories are some of my favorite, and Chekhov is one of my favorite authors. If you like short stories, I absolutely recommend this book and Chekhov’s short stories in general!! 100/10
September 17, 2025
Someone left the book outside of their home for pick up so I took it, that was probably at the end of 2024. There was a note from 2001 in the book, written by a typewriter, something about “I want to once again start loving”. I started reading the book after getting out of the hospital and Chekhov never disappoints me. A while ago I had a conversation with HQ about famous writers we just never got into reading, Chekhov was one of them. While reading the book I was also reading a lot of R Carver who was a huge fan of Chekhov (he even included lines from Chekhov’s stories in his last collection of poems). I love the short stories and the depiction of humanity, ordinary people stuck in their life. It makes me feel that the human experiences have not really changed since 19 century Russia. (Ok and last thought, I’m convinced that Carver’s what we talk about when we talk about love was inspired by Chekhov’s About Love)
October 11, 2023
Chekhov is the master of short stories.
In the Ravine is an absolute masterpiece, as well as Peasants and the Kiss (more besides, but the names escape me).
It's too difficult to write a single review on a collection of short stories. But what I can say is I love Chekhov. His compassion and empathy for the downtrodden, his courage and honesty in facing the harsh realities of life, his love/hate relationship with nature & life, and the glimpses of hope he sometimes gives us are pearls.
There is beauty in this world, but it's the trifles of humanity that separate us from that beauty. And for those who have been trodden on, that beauty can remain within you, if you just don't let that light burn out.
In the Ravine is an absolute masterpiece, as well as Peasants and the Kiss (more besides, but the names escape me).
It's too difficult to write a single review on a collection of short stories. But what I can say is I love Chekhov. His compassion and empathy for the downtrodden, his courage and honesty in facing the harsh realities of life, his love/hate relationship with nature & life, and the glimpses of hope he sometimes gives us are pearls.
There is beauty in this world, but it's the trifles of humanity that separate us from that beauty. And for those who have been trodden on, that beauty can remain within you, if you just don't let that light burn out.
July 15, 2020
Although I have been reading this collection of short fiction, plays, and letters for three years, it wasn't because I didn't like it, it was they were short fiction and Chekhov's style of writing about the smallest of human foibles and lives kept me thinking about things and I wanted time to savor the stories.
The plays, I had read before and on rereading them, I found things that I had not noticed and thoroughly enjoyed.
The letters at the end had a whole different feel than either the stories or the plays. It was fascinating to hear in the words Chekhov's intelligence and talent and thoughts on the world that he lived in.
Very much worth the time reading this volume.
The plays, I had read before and on rereading them, I found things that I had not noticed and thoroughly enjoyed.
The letters at the end had a whole different feel than either the stories or the plays. It was fascinating to hear in the words Chekhov's intelligence and talent and thoughts on the world that he lived in.
Very much worth the time reading this volume.
October 10, 2022
About a million times more accessible and enjoyable than I expected. Long and lovely descriptions of the Russian countryside, fascinating accounts of Russian cuisine - I was assigned to read this book ages ago and never did; shame on me and whoever else chooses not to read it.
The edition isn't without fault: at times the translation is quite dusty; the appending of two Chekhov plays to the volume of stories felt unnecessary - though the letters that follow are quite entertaining.
Anything that manages to trump my aversion to Canon gets a Slow Clap. Awesome book. Highest Recommendation.
The edition isn't without fault: at times the translation is quite dusty; the appending of two Chekhov plays to the volume of stories felt unnecessary - though the letters that follow are quite entertaining.
Anything that manages to trump my aversion to Canon gets a Slow Clap. Awesome book. Highest Recommendation.
May 8, 2020
This is a reread from my college days, even the same book. It's even better the second time around. Though I have dabbled in some of the stories over the years reading them all again was a treat. I don't think I will make it through all 800 of his short stories though I'm tempted. I will occasionally dip into them when I want to discover a hidden treasure.
July 1, 2024
Out of all the Russian masters he rings out with quality’s superior to the rest. Nothing lost in translation with his concise word choice, deadpan humor and portrayal of human emotion. Was hoping it would live up to the hype considering how pretentious it is and lemme say it sure did
10/10 would for sure recommend
10/10 would for sure recommend
February 17, 2022
Most of the stories are out of this world good; such a broad display of bittersweet wisdom. Humane, truthful in a way nobody has ever done before or after. Anton Chekhov is God in short.
The translation feels outstanding as well.
The translation feels outstanding as well.
June 25, 2022
Sometimes it becomes necessary to stop reading a book – not because of the quality of its writing – but because it is not well done in some other respect.
I am giving up reading this particular book due to the quality of its translation and the quality of its narrator.
I am giving up reading this particular book due to the quality of its translation and the quality of its narrator.
December 26, 2025
I wish I could understand the hype of Chekhov. Everything I read was good, some even great. But it was not something i felt satisfied with. The Cherry Orchard was fantastic though, so i should probably read more of his plays
March 7, 2018
I had bought this before learning my lesson that I can't handle complete collections of work. Extreme highs but slogging through everything leaves you feeling low.
November 17, 2019
Chekhov is a brilliant short story writer, who is considered by many, including me, to be the best at the craft. This collection is good not great.
December 16, 2020
I loved to see how it is influenced Albee, and I vibed with the humor.
March 27, 2021
I forget on elegant his tales are. They really help me understand life, not find answers, but simply understand. Brilliant!!
April 24, 2021
whatever you do DO NOT be a peasant in 19th century Russia worst time of my life
August 12, 2021
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October 21, 2021
“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."
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