{"id":651,"date":"2012-01-26T23:11:34","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T23:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=651"},"modified":"2012-01-26T23:11:34","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T23:11:34","slug":"great-stories-by-chekhov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=651","title":{"rendered":"Great Stories by Chekhov"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Great<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\tauthor: Anton Chekhov
\n\t\t\tname: Paul
\n\t\t\taverage rating: 2.00
\n\t\t\tbook published: 1966
\n\t\t\trating: 2
\n\t\t\tread at: 2011\/11\/29
\n\t\t\tdate added: 2011\/11\/29
\n\t\t\tshelves: short-stories, classic
\n\t\t\treview:
Classic literature, especially classic Russian literature, vexes me. I know roughly nothing about the Russian language so I sometimes console myself as I struggle with Dostoevsky or Tolstoy (which I’ve occasionally attempted but never fully conquered) with the notion that written Russian is particularly difficult to translate into smooth reading English. But then again, I get this way about classic English lit sometimes as well, where I see words on the page and just can’t seem to get through them into that fugue state where I’m not really reading as a mechanical word-eye-brain-context-thought-idea process, but as a sort of direct input from the author’s imagination, utterly unaware of the printing or the sentence construction; it’s like drawing ideas from the page via some kind of mind vacuum.<\/p>\n

I guess there is a reason why I’m not an English major (or any kind of major for that matter). Chalk me up as just another filthy soul populating the unwashed masses.<\/p>\n

But I like stories. I love books and written words and I have enjoyed some classics, even some stuffy and difficult works, both modern and time-honored. So I don’t always know what it is that may cause me to go cross-eyed with frustrated agitation that a story just won’t seem to let me in.<\/p>\n

So consider my first foray into Anton Chekhov<\/a>. On one hand, there are moments in the fairly limited collection of Chekhov’s work included in this old paperback printing I found for a song at a used bookstore which reveal clearly why he is considered a master of the short form. “The Kiss,” for example, an early inclusion about a lonely young soldier who happens upon a stolen moment of intimacy, intended for someone else entirely, and uses that off-handed experience to construct for himself an entirely new persona, a boosted ego of imagination and possibility which has, in spite of the joy it brings him, a tragic collision with the reality of, well, reality<\/em>. Another pair of tales, “A Father” and “A Problem,” highlight a certain astonishing insight into human nature, simply revealing complex elements to relationships in a relatable way.<\/p>\n

But then you get to some of the longer works included here, such as “Ward No. 6,” and I start to hang back on the dry exposition, the deliberate pace to a character study that, too, has something interesting to say but says it in such a dull fashion that I struggled to get through the 30-some page short over the course of about four days. Again I found myself looking back on my own Russian lit crutch and saying, “Well, maybe it’s just the translation?” But maybe it isn’t. At least in the case of Chekhov, or perhaps in the case of this particular collection, the longer the story gets the harder it was for me to muddle through. I like the way I can see his mind working: his philosophy and his understanding of what makes a character interesting combined with a detailed sense of realistic arc make for living souls in the stories but at some point it’s like reading 500 pages about a grandmother spending an evening watching TV: no matter how good the writing is, the subject is bound to wear out its welcome if you linger too long.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help contrast this selection with the Raymond Carver<\/a> volume, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love<\/a> that I read earlier in the year. Carver’s direct-to-the-point simplicity doesn’t need fantastical things to happen to be compelling. The slice of life examinations are reminiscent to Chekhov’s, in spite of being separated by nearly one hundred years and half a planet. But Carver (or his editor) never let those tales overstay their welcome, stripping them down to their barest necessities leaving only that which absolutely must<\/em> be revealed. They both traffic in sadness and irony and the bitter pill that is life, but where I could not put down What We Talk About, I couldn’t wait to<\/em> set down Great Stories. I can attribute this fact to the editors, to the translators, to the authors or to myself but in any case, what I cannot escape is that I didn’t much care for enough of this<\/em> book to recommend it or even like it. At best I can say it was okay and I’m intrigued to know more about the author’s work, but when I dive in again, I’ll be sure to be more selective about which volume I choose and not let a bargain make my decision for me.<\/p>\n

\nfrom Paul's bookshelf: read<\/a> \u2014 November 29, 2011 at 02:51PM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

author: Anton Chekhov name: Paul average rating: 2.00 book published: 1966 rating: 2 read at: 2011\/11\/29 date added: 2011\/11\/29 shelves: short-stories, classic review: Classic literature, especially classic Russian literature, vexes me. I know roughly nothing about the Russian language so I sometimes console myself as I struggle with Dostoevsky or Tolstoy (which I’ve occasionally attempted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}