Russian Short Stories Part 6: Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov 1860-1904

Another blog post in this series, another master Russian short story author to Chekhov our list. Don't worry--that's the worst of the bad puns I'm likely to use on this blog.

In truth, we could devote a whole series of essays to Chekhov alone. His prose is constructed like a star: dense, full of gravity, tending to draw you in. His writing is underscored by a mature, highly concentrated realism--detailed, yet with a keen economy of words. The stories themselves use plain language and on first glance appear to be straightforward in terms of premise and plot (where there is one to be found), but within these compact pieces can be found a depth and complexity that rivals the very best--and much longer--novels. These stories bear the watermark of the dramatist, drawing our attention to setting, mood, appearance and proxemics, giving us an inside view of the thoughts and motivations of his characters. In prose and drama, Chekhov is a master, and these stories represent a perfect combination of his talents.

Project Gutenberg has a thirteen volume set of stories available that represent some of the very best of Chekhov's five hundred sixty eight stories written before his untimely death in 1904 at the age of forty four. This is the first one, which is plenty to get you started.

The Darling and Other Stories (1917) by Anton Chekhov

English novelist and essayist E.M. Forster said that the five factors of human life are "birth, food, sleep, love and death". While Russian literature as a whole is keenly preoccupied with the last two, for Chekhov, love and death act as an ample springboard for exploring fundamentally human existential themes.

"The Darling" (1899) ss a famous story that is said to be the author's favorite in his sizable canon. Olenka is a woman who takes on the attitudes and opinions of the men in her life. When married to a theater owner, she works tirelessly to help her husband run his business and shoulders his concerns, repeating his words and taking on his view of life. After his death, she takes up with a man who runs a lumber business and after that, a veterinarian, always the backbone of support and always taking on their concerns and ideas for her own. When paired with someone, she feels a sense of purpose and when she finds herself between beaus, she feels empty and rudderless. While this is certainly a portrait that rings true with our perceptions of a nineteenth century woman, I think Chekhov says more about human nature and the longing for love and identity than he does about women in particular. Her chameleonic ways help her to cling to love in the persistent shadow of death.

In "Ariadne" (1895), we find another recurring theme in Chekhov's work---that of love that is overly idealized by one who loves with more intensity than the other. In Chekhov, regretful, unevenly reciprocal pairings result and inequities of feeling bring unhappiness and frustration. This story tells of a man whose standards and longing for an unrealized, unrealistic love leads to bitterness when his expectations aren't realized. Interestingly, in "Three Years" (1895) the novella that takes up the entire second half of this collection, the inequity of feeling between a married couple at the beginning of their relationship leads to a familiarity and negotiation of love that takes place over time. More about that later.

"Polinka" (1887) is a story that lacks plot and resolution, giving us a sketch of a moment in life that is full of the dramatist's craft. We witness a lover's quarrel played out in a busy fabric shop. A young salesman is visited by the woman he loves, and the two engage in a double conversation--one full-voiced about the sale of fabrics for the sake of propriety, and one in hushed tones about the state of things between them. There quarrel concerns Polinka's dalliance with a young student who is trying to woo her and whom her jealous lover fears is only after her money. Amidst the shelves and talk of women's garments, in tones muted but harsh, he gives her a good dressing down for her infidelity and her naïveté. At the crux of their conflict is a struggle between gentility and commonness, both as the subject of their disagreement and in the way they navigate their very private conflict in a public place. One can easily envision this scene on a stage, which is why the story works so well.

In "Anyuta" (1886) a medical student wants to ditch his lover and caretaker at the end of the academic term. We learn a great deal about his feeling toward her in one instance when he draws the outline of her ribs on her skin as an aid to his study, treating her in essence like a cadaver. Chekhov also draws our attention to how physically cold she is and the fact that her lips are turning blue like a corpse. The student even lends her out to an artist upstairs who needs a model for his work. We learn that living in the apartments of medical students as a lover is a way of life for her, and although she is allowed to stay after a tearful protest, we can find the resolution only a temporary one. This is the kind of deftly wielded symbolism for which the author is known. We also get a glimpse of a typically Chekhovian woman who is brunette, pale, 5' 5'', with large eyes, deep sadness, possible neurosis, unbearable longing and often a fatal flaw or at least an unfortunate circumstance.

A woman finds herself torn between the man she loves and the man she marries in "The Two Volodyas" (1893). After an outing with these two men ends up in a few too many drinks, the conflicted and unhappy Olga, once a socialite given to parties and courting, considers her miserable fate. She orders the carriage to stop at a church to visit her sister who has become an orthodox nun. After the visit, she ponders the possibility of finding a deeper meaning in life to escape from her present situation. She seeks self abnegation, yet revels in the very forces of life that constrain her and supplicates herself to the advances and attentions of her lover with the same sense of desperation with which she supplicates herself to the inevitability of God, or at least the attainment of a higher moral purpose, although the latter is a hopelessly large chasm to cross. Another unhappy Chekhovian pairing that leads to misery and self recrimination.

When hope becomes its own heaviest burden, life tends to stand still as time slips by. Such is the case in the story, "The Trousseau" (1883), in which a man on an errand discovers a curious house with equally curious inhabitants--a plump, forty-ish mother, her plain daughter and an uncle who, ruined by drink and excluded from joining a monastery, lives in seclusion. The details of the structure of the house gives us a great deal of information about its inhabitants; It is cloaked by beautiful surrounding foliage and closed off from the outside world. Here, the mother and daughter sew garments for the daughter's trousseau or hope chest. The visitor's return to the same house reveals that little has changed, and the inhabitants have merely grown older and living in perpetual stasis. Such is also the case in "Talent" (18??), a story of three painters whose ambitions and dreams eclipse their output, and their dreams of success become an obstacle to their growth.

The title of "The Helpmate" (18??) refers to a solution to a theoretical chess problem in which both sides cooperate to checkmate Black. Here again we see a mismatched couple. A man marries for passion, but his joy fades soon after and he later contracts tuberculosis. A found telegram confirms his suspicions that his wife is cheating on him. He confronts her and she confesses. He offers her money and to let her go to her lover, but she refuses to leave him. A short while later, she accepts the money but stays. The husband is ruined in any case, brought down by mutual effort.

"An Artist's Story" (1896) is about a fairly well known painter who befriends a mother and two daughters. The younger daughter is lovely, sweet and demure, the older bold and opinionated, especially about social justice. The painter blows his chance with the younger daughter by criticizing the older daughter's involvement in local government and in her work helping to provide necessary services for the poor. She criticizes him for being a fine artist whose work lacks social relevance and fails to benefit society. He questions her motivations, claiming that such efforts will do no lasting good and will further hold the working people in bondage. In retaliation, the older daughter packs off her sister and mother to where she is out of the artist's reach. By asserting himself to the one,  he has lost the other. 

I loved "Three Years" (1895). the novella that concludes this collection. It is about a man whose family runs a successful dry goods business and who has a passionate unrequited love for Yulia, the daughter of a doctor who is treating his sister who is dying of cancer. Yulia agrees to marry him out of fear of ending up alone and lured by the promise of living a good life in Moscow. Both soon realize their mistake and are plunged into misery. The rest of the story is partially about the negotiative process that leads to the flowering of affection between the two. In truth, this is a much more complex story that could easily merit its own essay. Love and death figure prominently in these characters' motivations. We get intimate portraits of their backgrounds and family relations in a way that points toward themes fully explored in twentieth century fiction. Just trust me; read it for yourself. It's good stuff.

Download The Darling and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg

Next time, we'll finish our series on the Russian short story with a couple of anthologies and a few books about Russian literature.

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Russian Short Stories Part 5: The Hirsute Prose of Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1821-1881

In this series, we've been looking at major Russian authors through the lens of the short story. My initial idea was to use the medium of the short story to introduce the works of these authors in a way that was less intimidating than some of their major, hefty, door-stopping novels. The stories we've read so far have given us fairly accurate impressions of each author's style and themes expressed in their longer works. We've encountered the mannered and measured hesitance of Turgenev (whose white whiskers were neat and close-cropped), the humane passion and moral gravity of Tolstoy (perhaps the greatest of all the Russian bearded novelists), and the funny, surreal yet realistic social criticism of Gogol (who, as it happened, sported only a mustache). But what of Dostoyevsky, easily one of the hairiest and most prolific novelists of the nineteenth century? Here we are presented with a challenge.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's cups tended to overflow with a wealth of ideas that were often difficult to contain, even within the confines of a sprawling novel, much less so a short story. Combing through his work can be frustrating to new readers. In his novels, he sometimes tended to overwrite and his digressive tendencies can interrupt the flow of his narratives, leading us to conclude that he visited his editor about as often as he visited his barber. His characters are odd and quirky--and by that I mean, "erratic, impossibly neurotic, sometimes insanely paranoid and often completely dysfunctional". His output is uneven; the best of his works ranking among the very best in literature, and the rest, like unkempt facial hair, a jumbled mess.

This collection certainly gives us oodles of his style, warts and all, but his short stories only hint at what he would accomplish in the larger medium of the novel. This anthology collects stories from throughout Dostoyevsky's career. Here, we encounter the young, clean shaven writer of the late 1840s trying to find his way in the long shadow of the relatively hairless Gogol, and the author in his more hirsute years in which his works and talents, like his luxuriant, flowing beard, grew longer, richer and fuller. 

Short Stories (18??) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When a bachelor takes in a lodger at the insistence of his housekeeper, he gains a companion and a master storyteller in "An Honest Thief" (1848). After an incident in which his benefactor's greatcoat has been stolen, the lodger, Astafy Ivanovitch, tells a story about Emelyan Illyitch. an indigent alcoholic whom Astafy once took in despite his own considerable poverty, and whose tendency to pilfer personal property to buy his vodka became a catalyst for conflict and ultimately, redemption. This story is a psychological profile of a man whose criminal deeds conflict with his moral nature--a theme that would be more extensively explored in Crime and Punishment (1866). This is one of the best of the bunch.

"A Novel in Nine Letters" (1847) is a Gogol-like satire of St. Petersburg society that follows the correspondence of two apparently refined and educated men, but their gentile, mannered language gradually reveals the sinister, unscrupulous deeds of two card sharps, their dupe, and their squabbles over money. The sound premise and the highly condensed epistolary twists make it worth reading, although it seems a trifle too clever. It is said that Dostoyevsky wrote this condensed novel in one night. It shows.

"An Unpleasant Incident" (aka "A Nasty Story") (1862), is supreme, muscular satire written at a time in Russia's history when the serfs had been emancipated and social and political reforms were hotly debated. Ivan Ilyich Pralinsky, a young civil servant of high rank who gives lip service to lofty progressive social ideals while boozing it up with his skeptical peers puts his philosophy to the test for motives that fall considerably short of altruistic. After leaving the gathering late in the evening, he discovers that his driver is nowhere to be found and sets off on foot for home, relishing the chance to punish his servant in doing so. While walking home, he hears music and laughter coming from a modest house and asks a policeman who lives there. Pralinsky is informed that the party is a wedding celebration for one of the men who works under him.

Our protagonist seizes upon the opportunity to show his inferiors how benevolent and enlightened he is by crashing the party, imagining that everyone will be thrilled by such a magnanimous gesture. From this point on, a worst case scenario is played out in which his presence causes a considerable disruption, making the guests feel uncomfortable and resentful of his presence. As the evening goes on, Pralinsky veers out of control, wanting to leave but instead staying longer and drinking himself into a stupor. 

"An Unpleasant Incident" is the tale of one man's journey into a drunken state of cognitive dissonance. His actions, rather than endearing him in the eyes of his inferiors, make him appear to be the transparent, self important fool that he really is. The best targets for satire are people who can't bear the thought of being laughed at. Consequently, the laughs found here are painful and full of gravitas--the very best kind of laughs a satirist can evoke. This story is one of Dostoyevsky's most effective pieces of writing.

It's a pity the same can't be said for "Another Man's Wife" (1848), a rather hollow story of infidelity and jealousy taken to ridiculous extremes. This piece combines two such stories under one heading with rapid-fire dialogue and silly, stagey comedy more appropriately suited for Vaudeville than for a work of prose. This is the stuff of bedroom comedy. If Woody Allen had written it, it would actually be funny. but as it is, it comes off as corny and mindlessly broad. This is pure farce from a writer who could do infinitely better. All that yammering gave me a headache.

"The Heavenly Christmas Tree" (1876) is just odd, managing to combine metafiction with stark realism and sickly sweet sentimentality. A young boy leaves the side of his mother who has died from hunger and illness, only to succumb to death himself in the freezing cold and find his soul among the spirits of other children who dance gaily around Jesus' own Christmas tree. The bipolar contrast of grim reality and maudlin, treacly, greeting card grade sentiment is hard to take seriously. Puhl-eeeeze! But considering the fact that he often wrote just to put food in his mouth, we'll cut him some slack. A brief, pastoral sketch of the loving compassion of a serf for a frightened young boy follows in "The Peasant Marey" (1876). A bit sentimental, but the author portrays the peasant with dignity and humanity.

"The Crocodile" (1865) though silly, packs a satirical wallop. An educated, middle class couple go and their friend go to a public exhibit to see a real live crocodile. Somewhat disappointed by the animal's placidity and inertia, the husband teases and is consequently swallowed whole by the enormous reptile. His wife cries for the animal to be cut open to save her husband, but his voice is suddenly heard from within, describing what his new environment is like and asking his friend to elicit the help and advice of an elder mentor concerning what to do. The German owner of the crocodile refuses to slice open his animal for fear of financial ruin, and an ideological battle that pits capitalist versus socialist ideas ensues as all parties engage in high-minded dialogue rather than taking concrete action. The satire is laid on pretty thick, but the story is well wrought.

"Bobok" (1873) is an imaginative story of a young writer in search of new ideas who finds himself in a church graveyard after he idly follows a funeral procession. To his astonishment, he hears the voices of the graveyard's inhabitants talking, joking, gossiping and often irritating each other as they would have when they were alive, with their social and economic statuses, as well as their prejudices, intact. Great premise, great dialogue and very funny. 

The very last story is "Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (1877), a tale in which a sullen, depressive man, convinced of the meaninglessness of life, decides to commit suicide. He has purchased a revolver, but has not yet found the courage to pull the trigger. One day, while out walking and the emptiness of life and planning to finally commit the deed, he is accosted by a frightened little girl who him to help her mother who is in grave danger. Although he refuses, upon his return to his apartment for yet another go at killing himself, he is unable to do so because his pity for another human being has been aroused by the little girl's suffering--an indication that life may not be meaningless after all. He then falls asleep and has an intense dream, or perhaps a vision.

In his dream, he actually shoots himself in the heart and is then whisked away by a mysterious being to a parallel Earth where mankind lives in perfect harmony, inspiring awe and reverence in our protagonist. He tells them tales of the Earth he knows, in which sorrow is prevalent and mankind treats one another with hatred, suspicion and selfishness. In so doing, he infects the inhabitants of this pristine world until they display all the worst human behaviors. He awakens aglow with spiritual revelation, eager to tell the world of the importance of doing good.

This is existentialism incarnate--a story in which moral behavior has to be incentivized by the promise of heavenly reward--a viewpoint that disavows altruism and reduces man to the level of maintaining moral order merely for the sake of self interest rather than for its own sake, making morality a choice rather than a mandate for beings endowed with free will. Heavy stuff, well ahead of its time. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, this is definitely food for thought, and so thoroughly written and filled with vivid images.

I'm sure you have a friend or family member whom you love dearly despite the fact that he or she often drives you completely crazy. That's how I feel about Dostoyevsky. But his work reflects the kind of guy he was, and he was truly brilliant, weird, inconsistent and a little nuts. But those flashes of brilliance and humanity are what make it impossible to dismiss him. His voice is passionate, challenging and alive, and that's what keeps me coming back.

Download Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky from Project Gutenberg

Next time, we'll look at Russia's preeminent short story writer, Anton Chekhov.

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