Classics and the Western Canon discussion

"Gooseberries" ends with Burkin and Alekhin feeling unsatisfied with Ivan's story -- the narrator says that it would have been much more interesting to hear a tale about elegant gentlemen and lovely women, like the ones whose portraits hang in Alekhin's drawing room. The next day, Alekhin tries to liven things up with a story along those lines.

"About Love" begins with Alekhin expressing wonder at the relationship between his housekeeper, the fair Pelagea, and the vile cook, Nikanor. How can such a beautiful, sweet woman love a drunken "snout" like Nikanor? Alekhin goes on to relate the story of his infatuation with Anna Alekseevna, the wife of his friend Luganovich. It is a complex and morally problematic story. I think it also makes the reader question the objectivity of the storyteller, Alekhin. Was this really a relationship between two people, or did most of it take place in Alekhin's head?

How do you think "About Love" relates back to the previous two stories in the trilogy? And does the trilogy hold together as a whole?

"About Love" is story #191 on the Eldritch Press site: http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/19...

Oops..the above is the link to "Work of Art", at least for me.

Sue wrote: "Oops..the above is the link to "Work of Art", at least for me."

Fixed it. Thanks, Sue!

Since the first two stories portray examples of delusional behavior or maybe wishful thinking would be a better term, it's hard not to see Alekhin's love story in that same light. It's interesting how the progression of the stories moves closer to the narrators, from someone the narrator knew in the first story, to the narrator's brother in the second story, to Alekhin's own story in the final tale.

Susan wrote: " It's interesting how the progression of the stories moves closer to the narrators, from someone the narrator knew in the first story, to the narrator's brother in the second story, to Alekhin's own story in the final tale.

Nice observation. I hadn't noticed that. All three stories seem to be about men who have trouble seeing the world objectively, and as the trilogy progresses the narrative point of view becomes more subjective. Interesting!

Thomas wrote: "All three stories seem to be about men who have trouble seeing the world objectively..."

Your comment got me thinking that several of the stories we read seem to be about men having trouble seeing the world objectively. I'm thinking of Fat and Thin, The Darling, In the Dark, The Student, The Swedish Match.

Ah, this story of the subtle romance seems to me something that may occur with some relative frequency in society...at least in one's mind (as suggested by Thomas above). That this feeling of attraction or love is only allowed in one's mind for to allow it expression would certainly discombobulate reality and disrupt the comfort of the known or create deceit with its attendant risks and woes. Alekhin was a friend with the husband and there was that too. Alas Anna became bitter over time due to the inertia. Rather sad but certainly seemed a bit realistic to me: the incompletes, the what ifs.

Perhaps the lack of bravery to put emotion into action is based upon the fear of shattering a dream....the illusion of happiness might in fact be unattainable in reality and thus best kept as the illusion.

Besides just telling a story of his life, Alehin makes a philosophical statement about love in general, as a phenomenon. So in this sense, it does not matter whether his story is laced with wishful dreams or presents real events from beginning to end.
He starts presenting his statement early in the story, in the paragraph that goes:

“We Russians… have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered… decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select most uninteresting of them, too… When we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves: whether it is honorable or dishonorable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on…”

Then Alehin tells his story and almost in the end, generalizing his personal broken heart experience to a sort of a dictum, he states:

“… with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I UNDERSTOOD that when you love you must either, in your reasoning about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.”

And, of course, if one takes his words seriously, one wonders, what are those more important categories than happiness-unhappiness, sin-virtue pairs, etc ? Are they expressible in words at all? If not, then, according to Alehin, we should just shut up reasoning and love… or collapse in the corner? Yeh, yeh?

I think Chekhov felt somewhat encased by his medical profession. It would make much sense to me. I always remeber this quote: "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress;" and since we read Excellent People, the protagonists of which have law (and medicine) for profession and literature for passion, I read the other stories with an eye for another sign of this idea.

Remember, for instance, The Encased Man: "Isn't our living in town, airless and crowded, our writing useless papers, our playing vint -- isn't that all a sort of case for us?" This is said by Ivan, whom we see, later in Goseberries, enjoying himself "in the middle of the pond, turning his face to the rain...swimming and diving. 'Oh, my goodness! . . .,' [saying,] 'Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!'" I think Ivan is tired of living encased in a city; that's why he enjoys so much swimming freely. Next, still in Gooseberries, we hear him say this about him and his brother: "Whoever has once in his life caught perch or has seen the migrating of the thrushes in autumn, watched how they float in flocks over the village on bright, cool days, he will never be a real townsman, and will have a yearning for freedom to the day of his death. My brother was miserable in the government office." He also, I think, was miserable in the city, just as Alehin, in About Love, was miserable working at Sofino.

The big thing, though, that reassured me of the supposed encasement of Chekhov, was reading this magnificent statement by Alehin: "When you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness...or you must not reason at all." This statement, combined with this one from Gooseberries: "I saw a happy man whose cherished dream was so obviously fulfilled, who had attained his object in life, who had gained what he wanted, who was satisfied with his fate and himself. There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair;" the combination of these statements tells me that Chekhov, albeit being happy and satisfied with his work as writer and medical doctor, knew very well how can a person feel encased or oppressed even by these feelings of happiness if the person is not expressing authentically themselves; if, in other words, they're not loving themselves, because maybe love has little to do with feeling an amount of happiness, which, for example, Anna Alexyevna felt, but it has more to do with freedom (remember the Darling) and authenticity. That Chekhov loved himself I can't say; I'm just saying that this definition of love is well founded in his life as a medical doctor AND a writer of fiction.

Iván wrote: "I think Chekhov felt somewhat encased by his medical profession. It would make much sense to me. I always remeber this quote: "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress;" and since ..."

Maybe it's impossible to escape encasement. Every decision is a kind of encasement, at least if one makes committed decisions. Chekhov spoke of literature as a "mistress," which sounds like he was betraying his wife. Perhaps he was, but to betray his "wife" was the only way he could be true to his passion, his love. (And he did eventually give up medicine for literature.)

In this story, according to Alekhin, he and Anna didn't have the courage to be true to their love. The price was too high, or as Belikov might say, "something may come of it." There is a great deal of moral ambiguity here -- we want Chekhov's characters to be honest and courageous. We don't want them to be like Belikov, the encased man. On the other hand, we can't applaud immorality and betrayal, and Alekhin would be guilty of this if he had the courage to steal Anna away. Chekhov never resolves this ambiguity, which I think is brilliant. Ambiguity is what makes his stories resonate.

Iván wrote: "I think Chekhov felt somewhat encased by his medical profession. It would make much sense to me. I always remeber this quote: "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress;" and since ..."

Thanks for that post and helpful analysis. I also agree with Thomas when he says, Maybe it's impossible to escape encasement...Chekhov never resolves this ambiguity.

If Anna and Alekhin had pursued their love, they would have possibly ended up with an Anna Kerenina situation. If, on the other hand, they don't pursue it, they are haunted by what might have been.

In typical Chekhov fashion, we are left with a situation of you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

It's interesting that you mentioned Anna Karenina because I thought of that, too. As a result, I wasn't at all convinced that we should read according to Alekhin's "lesson." Ivan's framing of these stories with the medicine/writing, marriage/mistress idea shed some light on this for me. I also noticed, like Sue, that in this third story of the trilogy the narrator was telling his own story, but I had a slightly different take on it than Sue and Thomas. My reaction was that this was also the most selfish story. Burkin is concerned with the problem of living "in a case" and Ivanich is concerned about the selfishness of happiness, but Alekhin is concerned mostly with his own loss. We saw a hint of this in "Gooseberries." The other two men seem troubled by that story, but Alekhin "could not be sure whether what Ivan Ivanich had just told them was wise or just, but his visitors talked of other things besides grain, hay, or tar, of things which had no direct bearing on his daily life, and he liked this..." Now that I'm typing this, it seems a strange comment in light of this story.

Sorry, like Susan, not Sue. (I'm in the phone app and it won't let me edit the comment. Plus it's taking me a hundred times longer to type! Argh!)