The Portable Chekhov (Viking Portable Library)

Rating:
Summary: Chekhov - Chekhov - Chekhov
Review: If you like Chekhov you will love this book. Chekhov's ability to speak from the point of view of such diverse characters is remarkable. This book features a detailed introduction including a biography of Chekhov's life filled with some of his memorable quotes. The last section of the book offers a collection of Chekhov's personal letters. I enjoyed these aspects of the book almost as much as the stories, or perhaps I enjoyed them because I so enjoyed the stories. Some may feel that the entire of Chekhov's work cannot be adequately edited due to enormity of the task. In the introduction, the editor has this to say about the task, "He was an uneven writer, and many pieces were omitted from the present volume without regret." I couldn't agree more, the stories in this book total 594 pages the letters add nearly 40 more. I was not in the least disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Vast...
Review: Like so many Russian writers, Anton Chekov was very prolific, with a literary output seemingly designed to match the vastness of the country of his origin. Chekov was indeed born the son of a serf, whose grandfather managed to the redeem the family into freedom; Chekov himself was largely a self-made man, valuing education if not the particular educators he was exposed to a child, and learned the aspects of the different levels of Russian society, as well as a good deal about foreign societies, most particularly the Greeks. Chekov's family moved to Moscow (so his father could avoid debtor's prison in his hometown), where Chekov became a medical student; once, to buy food for the family, he wrote a small piece for a local weekly paper. The rest, as one might say, is history. He did in fact finish medical school, but his life was set on a different path.

Chekov is perhaps best known for his short stories and his plays. He wrote literally hundreds of short stories. He was admired in St. Petersburg, the intellectual centre of the country, and won critical prizes and made a nice living from his writing. Chekov spent time in various pursuits that might seem rather strange -- traveling to the Siberian plains and to Sakhalin, to see the prison conditions; he headed a hospital, but found this interfered with his writing. He revered Tolstoy, but could not become an ardent disciple. Always in ill health, he traveled abroad to France, returning to Russia to live in the south, near Yalta, which he always considered no better than a warm Siberia. In all, Chekov lived a varied life, and was convinced that, within a year or so of his death, no one would be reading him any more. He died in 1904, at the age of 44. His writing career spanned some twenty-five years. While his reputation was eclipsed briefly during the Russian Revolutionary period, his reputation remains stronger than ever.

Chekov's short story career was always strong, which is somewhat surprising to modern Western readers. His stories tend to lack strong narrative plots and strong characters. Almost universally they are set in Russia, dealing with the various peoples he encountered in his life, incorporating the feelings and spirit of the place. Many of the stories seem somewhat desperate and desolate, with a quiet resignation as big as the country. Chekov's career as a playwright got off to a relatively slow start, but by the end of his life, his plays were greatly admired and regularly performed in Russia and beyond. Indeed, his 44th birthday was an occasion of the opening of his last play, 'The Cherry Orchard', included in this anthology.

Editor and translator Avrahm Yarmolinsky has an introductory essay, in which he describes Chekov as the 'knell of old Russia' rather than a leader into the new Russia. When reading his stories and plays, one gets a sense for the pre-Revolutionary Russia, the old guard. Never one to go in for novels, which he considered required far more development than he thought he had, Chekov is the scene crafter for late imperial Russia. Interesting, stimulating -- it is hard to anthologise Chekov, and I take a star off here because some of my favourite stories and my favourite play ('The Seagull') are not here, but I can understand the difficulty in deciding.

This anthology includes 40 pages of correspondence; Chekov's correspondence was vast (he wrote his wife nearly every day in the last several years of his life, for example), so again, any representative sample must needs be selective.

This is a good, one-volume introduction to a great Russian writer, one whose influence continues to grow.

Rating:
Summary: Vast...
Review: Like so many Russian writers, Anton Chekov was very prolific, with a literary output seemingly designed to match the vastness of the country of his origin. Chekov was indeed born the son of a serf, whose grandfather managed to the redeem the family into freedom; Chekov himself was largely a self-made man, valuing education if not the particular educators he was exposed to a child, and learned the aspects of the different levels of Russian society, as well as a good deal about foreign societies, most particularly the Greeks. Chekov's family moved to Moscow (so his father could avoid debtor's prison in his hometown), where Chekov became a medical student; once, to buy food for the family, he wrote a small piece for a local weekly paper. The rest, as one might say, is history. He did in fact finish medical school, but his life was set on a different path.

Chekov is perhaps best known for his short stories and his plays. He wrote literally hundreds of short stories. He was admired in St. Petersburg, the intellectual centre of the country, and won critical prizes and made a nice living from his writing. Chekov spent time in various pursuits that might seem rather strange -- traveling to the Siberian plains and to Sakhalin, to see the prison conditions; he headed a hospital, but found this interfered with his writing. He revered Tolstoy, but could not become an ardent disciple. Always in ill health, he traveled abroad to France, returning to Russia to live in the south, near Yalta, which he always considered no better than a warm Siberia. In all, Chekov lived a varied life, and was convinced that, within a year or so of his death, no one would be reading him any more. He died in 1904, at the age of 44. His writing career spanned some twenty-five years. While his reputation was eclipsed briefly during the Russian Revolutionary period, his reputation remains stronger than ever.

Chekov's short story career was always strong, which is somewhat surprising to modern Western readers. His stories tend to lack strong narrative plots and strong characters. Almost universally they are set in Russia, dealing with the various peoples he encountered in his life, incorporating the feelings and spirit of the place. Many of the stories seem somewhat desperate and desolate, with a quiet resignation as big as the country. Chekov's career as a playwright got off to a relatively slow start, but by the end of his life, his plays were greatly admired and regularly performed in Russia and beyond. Indeed, his 44th birthday was an occasion of the opening of his last play, 'The Cherry Orchard', included in this anthology.

Editor and translator Avrahm Yarmolinsky has an introductory essay, in which he describes Chekov as the 'knell of old Russia' rather than a leader into the new Russia. When reading his stories and plays, one gets a sense for the pre-Revolutionary Russia, the old guard. Never one to go in for novels, which he considered required far more development than he thought he had, Chekov is the scene crafter for late imperial Russia. Interesting, stimulating -- it is hard to anthologise Chekov, and I take a star off here because some of my favourite stories and my favourite play ('The Seagull') are not here, but I can understand the difficulty in deciding.

This anthology includes 40 pages of correspondence; Chekov's correspondence was vast (he wrote his wife nearly every day in the last several years of his life, for example), so again, any representative sample must needs be selective.

This is a good, one-volume introduction to a great Russian writer, one whose influence continues to grow.

Rating:
Summary: Checkhov good - Translation, Not so good
Review: Three 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.