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A review by chris_chester
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
4.0
I've read many of the great Russian masters, but this was my introduction to Chekhov. My wife and I have a long-standing joke about Chekhov's guns being all over the place, so it seemed appropriate to at least become familiar with the man, even if the number of guns in his short fiction is scanty.
Reading ~120 year old Russian fiction is kind of a funny thing. You constantly run into little things you don't understand and it's rarely clear if that is because 1) It's a weird particular sociological thing specific to Russia in a previous century 2) The translation just isn't communicating something to the modern English audience 3) The author is just doing something weird to make a point. This is certainly not exclusive to Chekhov, but it's more obvious I think because short fiction has more of a penchant for being strange.
In a certain sense, a lot of the stories are modern. A recurring theme is disaffection with middle class life brought on by modernity. (The number of people who were zemstvo officials was notable!) The serfs are depicted with a mixture of that middle class contempt and a kind of atavism for their simpler lives with shorter horizons.
Even with the barriers of language and culture, it's still clear that you're dealing with a master of the form. He is able to evoke such haunting and singular imagery. The fog-strapped ferry boat in "Easter Night" for example. Or the malevolent presence of exploitation in the factories in "A medical case." Or the haunting images of sleeping next to a dead body, then being lost in the snow, then being embraced by light and life in "On official business."
I'm sure the mental images will fade with time, but they're sticking with me for now.
Reading ~120 year old Russian fiction is kind of a funny thing. You constantly run into little things you don't understand and it's rarely clear if that is because 1) It's a weird particular sociological thing specific to Russia in a previous century 2) The translation just isn't communicating something to the modern English audience 3) The author is just doing something weird to make a point. This is certainly not exclusive to Chekhov, but it's more obvious I think because short fiction has more of a penchant for being strange.
In a certain sense, a lot of the stories are modern. A recurring theme is disaffection with middle class life brought on by modernity. (The number of people who were zemstvo officials was notable!) The serfs are depicted with a mixture of that middle class contempt and a kind of atavism for their simpler lives with shorter horizons.
Even with the barriers of language and culture, it's still clear that you're dealing with a master of the form. He is able to evoke such haunting and singular imagery. The fog-strapped ferry boat in "Easter Night" for example. Or the malevolent presence of exploitation in the factories in "A medical case." Or the haunting images of sleeping next to a dead body, then being lost in the snow, then being embraced by light and life in "On official business."
I'm sure the mental images will fade with time, but they're sticking with me for now.