fiction files redux discussion

I read this story last night, without doing all the reading I intend to do about Chekhov, because I wanted the story and the writer to be fresh for me.

There are a few things that struck me, things that made me think: Gee, I should tell people to pay attention to this as they read.

In no particular order.

-- Watch the surroundings, the scenery, the weather as the plot & characters move/change.

-- Infatuation, lust, predation, fantasy, obsession, love, commitment, secrecy... the cycle of relationships

-- Consider Gurov's opinion of women as the story begins and how (or whether) it changes through the course of the story.

-- Anna - the changes in her are more obvious, but watch them in terms of the pace of Gurov's character. Her self awareness, her shame and anxiety.

Brian was kind enough to share the introduction to a book of Chekhov's stories, downloadable from the link at the end of the post.

Some of the points made about Chekhov's goals as a writer are worth considering in the light of this story, and in the context of his place in the Russian canon (next post). So I'm going to post a couple of quotes from the intro... I thought these were good ones. Both are quotes from letters.

The artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is as limited as that of any other specialist -- that's what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says that the artist's field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. the artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes... You are right to demand that an author take conscious stock of what he is doing, but you are confusing two concepts: answering the questions and formulating them correctly. Only the latter is required of an author."

The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me strength to be one. I hate lies and violence in all their forms, and consistory secretaries are just as odious to me as Notovich and Gradovsky [two unscrupulous left-wing journalists:]. ... I look upon tags and labels as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist."

Seriously, I now officially have a crush on a dead white Russian male. Doesn't all of that sound Joycian?!

Of the "spiritual condition" during Chekhov's time, Lev Shestov wrote:

To calculate beforehand is impossible. Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is impossible for him to present himself a clear and distinct notion of what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity. One believes and disbelieves -- everything.

Shestov goes on to say of Chekhov's heros:

Thus the real, the only hero of Chekhov, is the hopeless man. He has absolutely no action left for him in life, save to beat his head against the stones... He has nothing, he must create everything for himself. And this "creation out of the void," or more truly the possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and inspire Chekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Chekhov begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mikhailovsky did not call "evil" in vain.

Oopsy daisy, that intro is here: files.me.com/joshandshelby/idz55u and in PDF format. Thanks again, Brian. Valuable insights.

Chekhov has been called an "impressionist," which I totally get, because he depicted people as he saw them, because he told stories of people from huge variety of backgrounds (not just the wealthy ones), and because he left Moscow to tell the stories of the whole of Russia, not just of the great cities.

Chekhov repudiated the traditional role of the writer in Russian society -- the intro says, "the writer was seen first as a pointer of the way, a leader in the struggle for social justice; his works were expected to be "true to life" and to carry a clear moral value... Chekhov's impressionism was seen as a form of art for art's sake, a denial of the writer's social role, and a threat to the doctrine of realism, and he was attacked for deviating from the canons of useful art."

Haven't we had this very discussion about art in the old FF? Does the artist have a responsibility to those who experience his art? If so, what?

I think that if The Lady with the Dog had included some sort of moral lesson it would be such a different story... it would be far less interesting.

This dovetails nicely into Chekhov's 6 rules of writing a good story:

1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. Total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; 6. compassion.

I, for one, feel fortunate to get to read someone who has goals like this... with the possible exception of #2 I reach for these in my own work. And I didn't even know there was this handy list for me to tack to the wall!

(I'm posting all of this info because I think it helps to inform us of what Chekhov was trying to do with his work. Not because I want to somehow evaluate its success, but because I think it's important to know about a writer's stated goals, if he was kind enough to leave us with any.)

Thanks for posting this stuff Shel and thanks to brian for making the intro available. I may read this story tonight or tomorrow morning so I will be back and hopefully have something intelligent to say.

Ok so I just read it. It was a fairly short short story and the first bit of Chekhov I have read. I read the Robert Payne translation from Chechov's Forty Stories. I have heard praise heaped upon Chekhov before but this was beyond my expectations.

Shel wrote: "Consider Gurov's opinion of women as the story begins and how (or whether) it changes through the course of the story.

Gurov's change in attitude was probably the most significant change I saw. At the beginning he was thinking, "I am gonna try to nail this broad." and Women are a lesser group.

Gurov changed from simply trying to get laid to caring about Anna and being in "love" for the first time in his life. I am not sure that his overarching "women are lesser beings" attitude changes but it does seem to go away.

It seems unclear to me just how much time elapses during the course of this story. We get the sense that it goes on for sometime but nothing really definitive.

Also what's with all the Russian Anna's always having affairs?

I don't think Gurov's attitude of "women are lesser creatures" really went away even after he realized his love for Anna. You could tell by the way he reacted at the hotel when she was so upset. He was all "I'll order up some tea while she gets her cry out."

This was my first time reading Checkov as well. It was a nice little dip and has definitely made me want to read more of him.

I was surprised by how abruptly the story ended. Reading it on Gutenberg there was no page break between it and the next story and I got confused! I liked how it ended though, no real resolution so the reader is free to draw their own conclusions about where the relationship would have gone. In my mind Anna eventually sees Gurov as he was starting to see himself: older, less interesting, and she moves on. u

("the lower race.")
("There's something pathetic about her, anyway," he thought, and
fell asleep)
(From the past he preserved memories of careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully and were grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief it might be; and of women like his wife who loved without any genuine feeling, with superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that suggested that it was not love nor passion, but something more significant; and of two or three others, very beautiful, cold women, on whose faces he had caught a glimpse of a rapacious expression--an obstinate desire to snatch from life more than it could give, and these were capricious, unreflecting,domineering, unintelligent women not in their first youth, and when Gurov grew cold to them their beauty excited his hatred, and the lace on their linen seemed to him like scales.)

(she mused in a dejected attitude like "the woman who was a sinner" in an old-fashioned picture.)
(Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.)

(All personal life rested on secrecy, and possibly it was partly on that account
that civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.)

(He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not
himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same.)

(And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning.)

It seems to me all but the last paragraph shows their own obsession with the state of society and how it affects their behavior. Excuses they use, justification, some how resigned to unhapiness. The last paragraph shows their realization and exceptence of happiness and the overwhelming fear of just being happy and in love. What a horrible time period to live in.

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t feel the “women are lesser creatures” vibe, not completely… (except that she didn't really seem to know what she wanted). What stuck with me was that feeling of wanting what you can’t or shouldn’t have, or how great a romance can be at the beginning when it’s fresh and new. That air of mystery. Or drooling over an object in a storefront window and it makes you think "If only I could have that, I would be so happy."

When he first saw Anna, she was adorable and intriguing. But after they were together, she became plain and pathetic, or irritating…

And he did it again when they parted and he returned to his family. At first, it was comforting to be back home, to be with the family and hang out with his buddies. Then it became stale and mundane and he wanted to relive his love affair again so that he could feel desirable or younger or whatever.

It just seems to me that his idea of love was about lust, and that once he got what he wanted, he still found something unsatisfying about it.

I’m with Kerry on the abrupt ending. I was so not ready for it, but I couldn't think of a better way to end it.

I can't believe that Gurov would ever be happy with Anna because... I don't know... I think he might have lived his life always looking for the next high... I'll have to think about this one some more.

I want to read it again and pay more attention to the surroundings and the weather.

The surroundings and weather - Chekhov really uses these to great effect - to further the story, to describe the internal life of his characters...

As we move through this affair, the pair becomes increasingly physically isolated. They meet in a public place, they kiss in a public place... there is a scene in which they walk together on the boardwalk, surrounded by people and life, in which they kiss and then wonder if they've been seen. Later, after they consummate the affair, here is how Chekhov describes their surroundings (and why they sit outside a church... well, I think there is significance there, too):

At Oreanda they sat on a seat not far from the church, looked down at the sea, and were silent. Yalta was hardly visible through the morning mist; white clouds stood motionless on the mountain-tops. The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical surroundings--the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky--Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.

A man walked up to them--probably a keeper--looked at them and walked away. And this detail seemed mysterious and beautiful, too.

I read it as the pair moving away from civilization, and that they have to do this for the affair to gain ... legitimacy? And this, to me, is the moment they "fall in love" if that's what you want to call it. Even though Gurov doesn't figure it out until later.


Finally, the "confession" of love happens in the dark recesses of a theater... a place where fantasies are played out on the stage, a place where people can escape reality (all very Aristotelian, I know) but Anna and Gurov are even deeper inside that place of fantasies, in the bowels of this small-town, less-sophisticated theater.

So. Will they find a way to be together? Earlier in the story, this is what Chekhov has to say:

Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people--always slow to move and irresolute--every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable. But at every fresh meeting with an interesting woman this experience seemed to slip out of his memory, and he was eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing.

(It would be simple to read him as a deplorable character who uses women, but I resist that interpretation. I think he's more of the can't live with em, can't live without em type.)

Anyway, so what he's saying is that even in the most superficial of brief flings, there is a point at which it's too much work, basically.

Here's the part where he realizes he's "in love" with her:

In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna Sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to time would visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did. But more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything was still clear in his memory as though he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the day before. And his memories glowed more and more vividly. When in the evening stillness he heard from his study the voices of his children, preparing their lessons, or when he listened to a song or the organ at the restaurant, or the storm howled in the chimney, suddenly everything would rise up in his memory: what had happened on the groyne, and the early morning with the mist on the mountains, and the steamer coming from Theodosia, and the kisses. He would pace a long time about his room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and in his fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a shadow and haunted him. When he shut his eyes he saw her as though she were living before him, and she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she was; and he imagined himself finer than he had been in Yalta. In the evenings she peeped out at him from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner--he heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. In the street he watched the women, looking for some one like her.

Oh, right after that his wife says he doesn't do a good job playing the fop ... I thought DAMN, she has his number. I think this part can be read two ways... as can the latter part of the story, where he sits there pondering how he has found love so late in his life and how could it be that they're both married...

So one more generous interpretation is to say that yes, love is sometimes inconvenient. It comes late, it comes to you after you commit to another path, it surprises and confounds. Right? And in a way, I believe that this happens every day. Maybe I just know a lot of people in second marriages. That's the romantic soul in me. It's one of Chekhov's "holiest of holies"... love.

But ... then there is a less generous, and maybe too judgmental way to read it: Gurov has cabin fever in the winter. He wants to escape his life. Anna is more of a fantasy than someone he really loves.

And here is the very end of the story:

Then they spent a long while taking counsel together, talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long at a time. How could they be free from this intolerable bondage?

"How? How?" he asked, clutching his head. "How?"

And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning.

I am inclined to go with my more generous reading today.

I'm still mulling this story over (after reading it last night), and I think I could take or leave the lovey-dovey, soap opera, are-they-in-love-or-is-it-just-a-passing-fling aspect of the story. The hook for me is the part about public vs private lives (you started to address it, Shel, with your setting discussion), and the number of people who are affected by (and yet choose to go along with) this compartmentalization. For instance, the only real insight we get into Anna's husband is the narrator's comment "and her husband believed her, and did not believe her."

People seem to sign up for some interesting work in relationships, whether they are working out issues with their parents or trying to recapture an earlier romantic experience or even punishing future partners for the behavior of past partners. It seems to me that Gurov's real discovery in this story is of the divided, compartmentalized nature of his own life, and it's borne out in his interior monologue as he walks his daughter to school:

"He explained that, too. He talked, thinking all the while that he
was going to see her, and no living soul knew of it, and probably
never would know. He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by
all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative
falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances;
and another life running its course in secret. And through some
strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything
that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in
which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that
made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people; and all
that was false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself to conceal
the truth--such, for instance, as his work in the bank, his
discussions at the club, his "lower race," his presence with his
wife at anniversary festivities--all that was open. And he judged
of others by himself, not believing in what he saw, and always
believing that every man had his real, most interesting life under
the cover of secrecy and under the cover of night. All personal
life rested on secrecy, and possibly it was partly on that account
that civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal privacy
should be respected."

That's all I've got for now.

I'm still mulling this story over (after reading it last night), and I think I could take or leave the lovey-dovey, soap opera, are-they-in-love-or-is-it-just-a-passing-fling aspect of the story. The hook for me is the part about public vs private lives ...

It seems to me that Gurov's real discovery in this story is of the divided, compartmentalized nature of his own life, and it's borne out in his interior monologue as he walks his daughter to school:

Most excellent insights. Absolutely. I mean, here he is, going about caring for his child, and he's thinking about this life of secrets he leads. I find it interesting that he applies this supposed truth of his life to other people, too - because if he is this way, then other people must be living the same way. Lives of lies, quiet desperation...

The divide between how he is supposed to live, the proper way to be, and who he really is - which is a schemer, someone always looking for the better fish in the sea.

I still think the question of love is relevant, because it's about the collision of this interior secret life and the one sanctioned by society -- what happens when one bleeds into the other in undesirable ways - Gurov begins having a difficult time compartmentalizing (in that passage above I quote about when he realizes he loves her). What else, other than love, has the power to do that? (OK, maybe that's the hopeless romantic in me.)

I think that Chekhov does pose The Only Question That Matters (the question of love) in a different way... it's not soap opera-y at all, to me. Reminds me of Vicky Christina Barcelona -- Penelope Cruz's character says at one point that the only true love is unfulfilled love.

Say it ain't so! I hope people have more thoughts about this story! It's only Tuesday!

Should I write something like "Gurov was right about women, they're only good for a few fucks" to drum up response? ;-)

I think everything has been said. It's a little story with a few interpretable points made. I'm just not a fan of the russians. NEXT!

hey shel: i haven't had a chance to finish the story yet... last week of some freelance work i've been doing. i promise i will try to come back today. :)

I was just trying to bump my thread.

Oh, look. I did it again. ;P

Never mind me, CARRY ON!

Pish-posh, Margaret. See you at O. Henry.

previous to this i've only read chekhov's the cherry orchard (which is really great by the way). i couldn’t help but compare this to tolstoy’s anna karenina, for the storyline, the “anna’s” as dan also pointed out, and the difference in the title characters, to name a few examples. also, the guidelines chekhov used for writing, which shel posted above, are so different from what I’ve read of tolstoy. specifically his first guideline: "Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature"- which tolstoy was all about in anna karenina. and the “impressionist” i can also easily see in chekhov’s style, rather than lengthy descriptions of everything we are given fleeting glimpses - but just enough to see and smell - and at the end we are left to surmise what their future was. yeah, i know I’m comparing a sort story to a 900 page novel :). even for it’s brevity, this short story contained so much emotion that I felt these were people i really knew.

i also kept thinking of the neutral milk hotel’s song the aeroplane over the sea (been listening to the album a lot)– the descriptions of youth and the sun and the descriptions of nature.

i enjoyed this selection and will certainly be reading more chekhov!

I think the ending of this story truly makes it great. I mean, Chekhov is a wonderful writer--his prose and diction ought to be studied by anyone who wants to write--but it's those last three paragraphs that make the story for me. I've always struggled with endings, especially in short fiction, and I think Chekhov nailed this one...how can we be free, Gurov repeating "How?" almost in agony as he clutches his head, and the slow realization that the hard work of their relationship is just beginning.

Chekhov aesthetics dealt a lot with ending and beginings. He didn't even believed that an end or begining was really necessary, sometimes cutting them after a story was done. Joycean? Kafkanian?

His letters to his editor are wonderful. First the guy was a really nice dude. His style never fades. And his humor. It is not a danger to say that he is another of those masters of irony... but with a heart. Funny adition.
Funny enough, he was already fighting against writers that wanted to write as if the world was good, happiness was only a matter of spiritual realisation, etc. In other words, one already worried with self-help and the reading habits.

Jcamilo wrote: "Chekhov aesthetics dealt a lot with ending and beginings. He didn't even believed that an end or begining was really necessary, sometimes cutting them after a story was done. Joycean? Kafkanian?
..."

What he says in his letters is distinctly Joycian to me, and almost like Eliot in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, which if memory serves was the seminal critical essay that set forth the tenets of modernism. It talked about the role of the artist in society - the idea that the artist is like a flint, or an empty vessel... that takes in all around him and interprets it for others, but not necessarily in this grandiose socio-political way.

I also return to this idea of him as an impressionist. Even if the artists themselves denied a political enterprise in painting peasants or women at washtubs, in a way, the very lifting of that veil is a political act and the very desire to depict life "as it really is" can be viewed that way as well. A subversive political act, but one nonetheless. Chekhov's willingness to venture outside the conventions of his time is not explicitly political, but in painting pictures no one else was painting, he is showing life as it truly is.

The intro says that this focus on life as it truly is - one of his holiest of holies - is what gives him immediacy even today.

I thought that his focus on characters, their inner lives... the minutiae that make up a life, the play with perspective, and the way we make decisions... very Joycian.

It might be more accurate to say that Joyce was Chekhovian, though.

I haven't read a ton of Kafka, but for me he had this way of making everything tinged with fear and horror. I know that there are times he exalts the human spirit and all that good stuff but not like Joyce.

I recall him saying he (Or any artist) do not have to show anything to anyone. I would like him to "show, not tell" of Wittengstein. Of course, this is all somehow the XX literature, specially because Chekhov is a aestheticist (Just like Joyce)...

With Kafka, there is much in Kafka about not finishing his stories, open endings. If we look closely, not the themes of Chekhov, but the form he deals with the short stories, he is very attuned with Poe, Borges, Kafka, Cortazar and other names more famous for the short stories. The carefull choice of a frame, the description of what is necessary, etc.

Ah, now this is gettin' interesting. Characteristics of short stories... or their evolution... because really, when Chekhov is writing, it's the beginning of a more "serious" use of the form.

In Wikipedia (more eloquent than anything I could scratch out) it talks about the beginnings of the short story being in journals and magazines in the early 19th century, and how the "best" ones led to popular novels of the time. Which in itself is kind of an interesting commentary on how long it takes a new genre to mature to the point where masters work with it, because it's not until late 19th century that we start to see "real" master works in the form, like Poe, Chekhov, Hawthorne, Gogol, Maupassant. Also, the page notes that ancient oral traditions and fables count among the short story's predecessors, as well as The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron. (I guess I'm ok with that. I'm not sure I totally agree.)

You can check out the page for yourself, and I'm sure there are more insightful sources, but the characteristics area says:
Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually a short story focuses on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a short period of time.

--snip--

Because of their length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern [of a typical novel:]. Some do not follow patterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action (in medias res). As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by author.

When short stories intend to convey a specific ethical or moral perspective, they fall into a more specific sub-category called Parables (or Fables). This specific kind of short story has been used by spiritual and religious leaders worldwide to inspire, enlighten, entertain, and educate their followers.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story

Oh, and the other thing I want to know is - what happened to the dog?

Or, maybe a more relevant thing to say. The title of the story is interesting in relation to the story that's told, isn't it?

At first she's just some lady with a little dog. By the end she is the love of his life. I wonder what the thoughts behind that title were...

poochie was last seen exiting the lady's house in Moscow with the old woman.

Recently, I am a bit tired with the exploits of romances and novels, mostly because I find tiresome to find so much stuff that could be removed, it looks clumsy IF compared with guys like Chekhov or Borges. Obviously, it is just a phase, it will pass, but the truth is that tradition of romance or novel seems a little bit uncreative.
I feel bored with the number of impossibilities needed to allow a long story to happen. But it does seems to have a house in the fables/parables tradition. I would say they are re-discovering it, because from a point on, the Persians discovered they could fill a big story with smaller, the Europeans learnt it, Cervates showed the way and the XIX mastered it. I would have no doubt, short stories are there way before the XIX century, it is only a modern version and the XIX century to claim originality, but break the kettle and the pot at same time.
One of the best texts about the structure of the short stories I have read belongs to Julio Cortazar. I suggest the reading of this material, it is in his critical work, second volume. Not nearby right now, I will late see if I can figure the Spanish title.

Maybe Gurov is the dog.

I thought the same thing about the dog Shel! When you last see the dog it's when Gurov is lurking outside Anna's house and sees the servant or whaoever taking it out for a walk and I thought maybe Anna's love for Gurov usurped her love for her little dog so she lost interest in it. It's kind of sad really. Poor dog.

Martha wrote: "I'm still mulling this story over (after reading it last night), and I think I could take or leave the lovey-dovey, soap opera, are-they-in-love-or-is-it-just-a-passing-fling aspect of the story...."

Quite. Even Chekov says about our heroine “Gurov felt bored already, listening to her.” And the reader can identify. Gurov muses to himself once back in Moscow, “Had there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in his relations with Anna Sergeyevna?” (italics mine) I wondered the same thing.

Oh, boo-hoo. My bourgeous life is boring There is “no escaping or getting away from it – just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.” A madhouse I say!

How “stupid and worrying it is” declaims our hero. Indeed.

But give Chekov his props: the frame in which he works is (was) original and as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, highly imitated. He is a craftsman and an artist. Note the description of the Crimea; the lilac and gold weather, the mists and dews, the “monotonous hollow sound”.

Note also: “As in all provincial theatres, there was a fog above the chandelier.”

And my personal favorite line, ““She was sitting, he was standing, frightened by her confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. The violins and the flute began tuning up.”

Angularity, precision, Anton.

So he has no trouble beleiving other men are haveing secret lives like him but he doesnt beleive other women are the same as his wife. Or do I mean he doesnt beleive women also have other lives. Except the one he thinks he's in love with. Is he just in love with the idea of being in love and haveing something special. Just thinking.

Opinion... he loves the intrigue and newness. I think that eventually the secrecy actually does get to him. Or maybe not that. He doesn't seem to have a lot of guilt over previous affairs.

Maybe it's the quandary of how to make this new love of his life open and real. In which case one has to wonder - once the love is fulfilled, does it die? Does Anna age as quickly as his wife did?

I really want to know if you all think he changes or not. Does he go from the bourgeois gentilhomme with his bourgeois problems to a man who really is in love?

I think he really believes he loves her. I'm just not sure he knows what that is or means.

I guess I dont think he knows what he's feeling or what to do about it. I dont think he changed so much as he's feeling a bit of panic. Mid life crisis?

That's what I was thinking too, Margaret, that he likes the idea of being in love. He'll always want that intrigue and newness whether its with Anna or, if the relationship fails, then with another mysterious woman.

I did love his way with words much more than I loved the story itself.

Michael wrote: And my personal favorite line, “She was sitting, he was standing, frightened by her confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. The violins and the flute began tuning up.”

Angularity, precision, Anton.

Yes!

Bonita wrote: "

Michael wrote: Angularity, precision, Anton.

Yes!
"

I noted that Chekov twice calls Anna's naiveté a youthful "angularity". Sweet.

Don't get me wrong; I was bored with the whole love story here (and maybe that was intentionally done), but I have nothing but the hightest respect for Anton's ability with the short story form. Maybe we should read another?

Oooh, Michael, I love the idea of INTENTIONALITY with regard to the love story...a device to lure the reader into some sort of comfortable familiarity before sticking us with the thornier, more troublesome message of the story, perhaps? Another tribute to his craft, I'd say.

If we do read another, I've always been partial to "The Beggar." It's simple, clean, and perfectly wrought.

Michael wrote: "Don't get me wrong; I was bored with the whole love story here (and maybe that was intentionally done), but I have nothing but the hightest respect for Anton's ability with the short story form."

i agree. chekhov is always pretty much perfect, story-wise. and all the words are in place. moves inexorably along. but the whole thing just kind of bores me. nothing really seems to come alive except that fence outside the lady's house, that moment when he confronts it. which makes sense, seeing how it's the catastrophe that ends the second act (if you will pardon a screenwriterism), but still... i need more than one scene. most of the time i felt like i couldn't see anything, like i was just swimming in a bunch of thinking. all the emotions were so staid and underplayed. this is of course just a matter of personal preference; i like being beaten and wrung dry. or maybe it has something to do with the translation, i don't know. the whole thing was just so brown. light brown, cardboard brown, not a nice rich chocolatey brown. i like orange stories, and black ones. and sometimes blue and green.

but i'm always up to read more chekhov. just say the word.

I can add one to the list and make sure it's not about love. :-).

I picked that one because it was a fairly well-known work of his and it would be way too predictable for me to start with O. Henry or The Dead.

Part of what I'm trying to get out of this, too, is a starting point for all kinds of writers I (and others) haven't read or seriously considered -- so that I can better understand them in a group setting and then move on to read more of their stuff.

Hence the Roald Dahl story in the list, called The Bitch. I had previously thought of him as a most excellent children's book writer, because that's how he was introduced to me. And Murakami - so many have sung his praises that I thought it would be a good intro into his work.

Now, along with the preponderance of excellent commentary, I have to agree that this story is not so much about love, but ... maybe about living and how we choose to do it. Accidents. Choices, false and true.

Shel wrote: " I have to agree that this story is not so much about love, but ... maybe about living and how we choose to do it. "

I was reading a letter that Chekov wrote in which he said that Medicine was his wife, and writing was his mistress. I felt that it shed a lot of light on this story.

Ben wrote: "most of the time i felt like i couldn't see anything, like i was just swimming in a bunch of thinking. all the emotions were so staid and underplayed."

I was interested in how the character "thought" his feelings instead of feeling them, but I attributed it more to the difference between men and women...at least that's what it seems like between my husband and I. I feel, he thinks.

I have to believe I'm still missing something about the dog. Isn't it Chekhov who said that you don't introduce a gun into the beginning of a story if it isn't going to go off in act two? Or something to that effect. Seems to me that the dog should be more important.

he wrote a different version where the dog went off at the end and killed everybody, but his editor made him change it. too predictable.

And Stephen King found the original manuscript and thus was born Cujo...

I thought the dog was a device to give the woman anonymity, or at least a lack of specificity, in the beginning, and the fact that she isn't attached to the dog at all toward the end of the story almost seems to say something like - the dog represents her former life that she is now seeking to shed...

And the title - I mean, the dog is in the title. With the medium of the short story, the title always means more (in my opinion). She starts out as the lady with the little dog. But supposedly she doesn't end up that way. Or does she?

Esther wrote: "Ben wrote: "most of the time i felt like i couldn't see anything, like i was just swimming in a bunch of thinking. all the emotions were so staid and underplayed."

I was interested in how the character "thought" his feelings instead of feeling them, but I attributed it more to the difference between men and women...at least that's what it seems like between my husband and I. I feel, he thinks."

I thought that Gurov's sort of casual way of thinking (women are pathetic. women are boring. all these Muscovites are repugnant, etc.) and coming to his own self-serving conclusions was a way of showing that he was alienated from true emotion, and that one of the effects of the 'secret' life he was leading was that he couldn't necessarily be anything other than solitary in his thoughts or feelings. When you can't talk about it with anyone, for whatever reason, of course you come to self-serving conclusions... like Frank and April Wheeler...

I haven't found that men and women are all that different in my experience, but I do think we use different vocabularies to describe thoughts and feelings, and we do seem to process things a bit differently.

(Maybe I think that because I read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus too thoroughly.)

I was glad to read this story, especially after it played a prominent role in "The Reader" (book & movie). I understand why it was specifically mentioned there, because of the parallel love story.

On its own, "The Lady and the Dog" didn't strike me as so much of a love story, but as a statement about the dullness of life and the desperate need for people to fill their time with something, anything. Dogs help. Jobs help. Marriages help. Chidren help. Restaurants help. Affairs help.

But the desire for intrigue in order to pass the time before death also creates tedious repercussions. If only humans could stop this constant need for diversion, for new experiences, then we could all sit in Buddha-like contemplation and be happy. Instead we manufacture more plot-lines and then hold our heads in angst, trying to figure out how to finish writing this most recent headache.

Well, that was bleak. Sorry to be such a downer.

Charlaralotte wrote: "On its own, "The Lady and the Dog" didn't strike me as so much of a love story, but as a statement about the dullness of life and the desperate need for people to fill their time with something, anything. Dogs help. Jobs help. Marriages help. Chidren help. Restaurants help. Affairs help.

But the desire for intrigue in order to pass the time before death also creates tedious repercussions. If only humans could stop this constant need for diversion, for new experiences, then we could all sit in Buddha-like contemplation and be happy. Instead we manufacture more plot-lines and then hold our heads in angst, trying to figure out how to finish writing this most recent headache.

Well, that was bleak. Sorry to be such a downer. "

truth can sometimes be bleak -- i don't think that's your fault.. :)

and clearly, i think you've nailed this one. the lady with a dog was never more to me than a title. the dog was not a gun at all. shel said something similar above that hinted at my feeling on it: the dog was a distinguishing feature, to differentiate her from everyone else -- she was like a tabloid headline at first: representing something new and interesting, a person of intrigue.

this story is told by a jaded person, who can't come to life on his own. he needs the drama that he perpetuates to feel alive. and should he and the lady with the dog have ever found a way to be together, there is no doubt in my mind he would soon find a way to become bored and unhappy with his lot.

Aw. Poor Gurov and Anna.

Not that I'm disagreeing totally...

But I do think the end is not that cut and dry. I think our response to him is one of frustration. What about Anna? Was anyone pissed at her? Or is she just a victim? Poor, helpless little Anna.

I think the end leaves room for growth/change at the edge of the page. See, right there, bottom left.

Charlaralotte wrote: "Dogs help. Jobs help. Marriages help. Chidren help. Restaurants help. Affairs help.
"

Great depressing post. My pet peeve: crisis helps, small wars help. I am just constantly surprised at people's need for problems.

But might I add, "Fiction Files helps" and maybe leave this post on a lighter note. re!
mm

You know, I've been waiting for someone (I mean anyone, not this discussion) to adequately define what this blanket statement means... people say things to me all the time like "oh, she just needs a crisis/problem/drama all the time to be happy." Or the one leveled at me - some version of: "You think too much. You make yourself unhappy and create problems."

I don't really understand what's meant by this accusation... and it is an accusation.

Do most people go around just doing things and not thinking about what they're doing/saying/feeling?

In a way, we are all living in our own drama/comedy/tragedy depending on the day. They may be small, but they are usually there, sometimes in the background, sometimes the forefront. It's not as though I understand my life in scenes or stories in a movie, but there is an aspect of life that is like that.

Is that what we mean?

Or... are we talking about people who are complainers about how rotten their lives are? Or are we talking about people who need to create problems for themselves -- like procrastinating on work, sleeping through class, and therefore flunking out of school? Or are we talking about people who need to blow up their lives over and over again?

I'm just saying, I don't really understand what the words really mean... When people start using catch phrases like "she has to live in a constant state of crisis to be happy" to talk about anyone and everyone, I grow suspicious.