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Feb. 19th, 2011 03:48 amB. Longer Stories from the Last Decade
Just the few of these that weren't in Complete Short Novels. I saved "Peasants" for last because it's the first of Chekhov's I remember reading. I'm finally about burnt out on Chekhov, but I'm coming away admiring him immensely. By its showing most directly the poverty everyone in the other stories is ignoring, causing, or being driven mad trying to stop, "Peasants" is one of the cornerstones of his late sequence - the one I keep nattering about that's just as unified, and maybe as great, and all told about as long, as War and Peace despite there being no plot connections among the stories and its not mattering all that much what order you read them in. If I could I'd republish it as Things Enraging Me, by Anton Chekhov, with the understanding that his rage has the best taste on record.
Other cornerstones? "The Teacher of Literature" looks forward to his last story, "The Fiancee" - and these aren't far off from his sequence of first person stories, "Boring Story," "The Wife," "Anonymous Story" and "My Life." Those are the stories clustered around the What-Should-Be-Done pole; "Peasants" and probably "In the Ravine" are at the extreme end, Why-We-Need-to-Do-It. In between is the gallery of obstacles, instructive failures, particular symptoms of the great disease. "The Duel" is actually rather close to my reading of Julius Caesar, where the failure of different kinds of good people to realize they're on the same side, hence act successfully in concert, prevents the purifying flame from quite catching. There are a few genuinely affirmative stories, like "The Student" and the beautiful "Head Gardener's Story" - and of course a lot of positive moments scattered throughout the others. On the surface "The Bishop" isn't about the struggle, or the need for it, but it represents a side of Chekhov himself, describes what it's like to be winding down after giving himself not quite to any recognizable cause so much as the cause of reminding others to have causes. The "Boring Story" protagonist is revised into someone whose truth to himself permits a death that's a peaceful shading away, almost like Stevens' Santayana, who similarly restores what religion's usurped using religion's own apparatus. A dying farewell, an affirmation from the personal side of why all this and only this is worth it, troublesome as it still can be until one's utmost instant, to complement the story bearing his final instructions to his readers, "The Betrothed." There his self-representation is fittingly quite modest - the reader is the new hero, the only one left or possible, whatever that will prove to mean.
I'm less sure when this sequence starts, looking back over the dates, though I'd say the last story that doesn't belong in it comes from c. 1894, and stories that could plausibly fit pop up by '87 or so - but I'm not yet terribly familiar with his early stories, some of which may count. Maybe I'll want to tackle those before the year's out, maybe even next week; I kept thinking I was done with Borges and Calvino long before I was. If I even am now.
Just the few of these that weren't in Complete Short Novels. I saved "Peasants" for last because it's the first of Chekhov's I remember reading. I'm finally about burnt out on Chekhov, but I'm coming away admiring him immensely. By its showing most directly the poverty everyone in the other stories is ignoring, causing, or being driven mad trying to stop, "Peasants" is one of the cornerstones of his late sequence - the one I keep nattering about that's just as unified, and maybe as great, and all told about as long, as War and Peace despite there being no plot connections among the stories and its not mattering all that much what order you read them in. If I could I'd republish it as Things Enraging Me, by Anton Chekhov, with the understanding that his rage has the best taste on record.
Other cornerstones? "The Teacher of Literature" looks forward to his last story, "The Fiancee" - and these aren't far off from his sequence of first person stories, "Boring Story," "The Wife," "Anonymous Story" and "My Life." Those are the stories clustered around the What-Should-Be-Done pole; "Peasants" and probably "In the Ravine" are at the extreme end, Why-We-Need-to-Do-It. In between is the gallery of obstacles, instructive failures, particular symptoms of the great disease. "The Duel" is actually rather close to my reading of Julius Caesar, where the failure of different kinds of good people to realize they're on the same side, hence act successfully in concert, prevents the purifying flame from quite catching. There are a few genuinely affirmative stories, like "The Student" and the beautiful "Head Gardener's Story" - and of course a lot of positive moments scattered throughout the others. On the surface "The Bishop" isn't about the struggle, or the need for it, but it represents a side of Chekhov himself, describes what it's like to be winding down after giving himself not quite to any recognizable cause so much as the cause of reminding others to have causes. The "Boring Story" protagonist is revised into someone whose truth to himself permits a death that's a peaceful shading away, almost like Stevens' Santayana, who similarly restores what religion's usurped using religion's own apparatus. A dying farewell, an affirmation from the personal side of why all this and only this is worth it, troublesome as it still can be until one's utmost instant, to complement the story bearing his final instructions to his readers, "The Betrothed." There his self-representation is fittingly quite modest - the reader is the new hero, the only one left or possible, whatever that will prove to mean.
I'm less sure when this sequence starts, looking back over the dates, though I'd say the last story that doesn't belong in it comes from c. 1894, and stories that could plausibly fit pop up by '87 or so - but I'm not yet terribly familiar with his early stories, some of which may count. Maybe I'll want to tackle those before the year's out, maybe even next week; I kept thinking I was done with Borges and Calvino long before I was. If I even am now.
