Elliot's Reading September 2023
You don’t or shouldn’t or maybe can’t read Anton Chekhov’s early first novel, The Steppe (tr. Pevear and Volokhonsky, Complete Short Novels) for its plot - there isn’t much of that - a business man dealing in wool fabrics traveling to make some trades and some $ takes with him his young nephew who is on his way to enroll in school, far from home, and is understandably anxious about the journey away from his family. The uncle is extremely unsympathetic, and pushes his nephew off onto a wagon caravan, no place for a timid young man leaving home for the first time. Many adventures, tales, and characters in the caravan ensued, all of them exciting, and in particular AC’s descriptions of the landscape, the sky, the feeling and misery of being drenched, boiled, traveling my night - all good, but all seem like sketches, though of the highest order. The plot such as it is begins to unfold in the last 20 or so pages, as we see how cruel and selfish the so-called benefactor can be, and the short novel ends on a plaintive note such as we rarely see in modern literature - except maybe in Chekhov’s plays. So this work is a try out; and he makes the team. The there’s The Duel and Story of an Unknown Man. The Duel is apparently the longest work of fiction from AC, and it’s a good place for him to stop - this short novel consists largely of philosophical debate among the major characters - we don’t get to the duel itself until approx 100 pp and there’s not much drama to it, after all - but the value of this short novel is that it anticipates AC’s plays: as P&V notes, this short novel is notably polyphonic, that is, of many voices - and AC went too far with the polyphony here but good foretell that the technique would work better in drama form, with each of the voices establishing a distinct personality, or character. And yet, his much shorter short novel, The Story of an Unknown Man (1892) works particularly well as it’s a first-person narrative, somewhat unusual for AC : the narrator surprisingly is a house servant, who reports on the misdeeds and misdoing of his boss/owner; eventually the narrator spirits away with the master’s latest crush and sets up household in central Europe; the woman, however, is pregnant and upon delivery of the child she goes into post party depression (the term did not exist at that time) and ends her relationship with the narrator. A good guy at least in his re-telling he tries to ensure the well-being of the young girl, w/ the novel ending on a mysterious and ambivalent note, quite typical of the mood established in AC’s great dramas. Three Years, on the other hand, is more direct and accessible, the sad account of an unfashionable, awkward, and homely young man who marries a whom he know does not love him in return, and of course sad consequences ensue; it’s a good but not a great example of AC’s fiction - the story of an outsider - except for the fact that AC seems to have given up on the novel and ended not on a mysterious and resonant note but suddenly, abruptly. And the 6th and final of Chekhov’s short novels (P&V ed and tr - Everyman’s Library - and don’t you think they could change that to “Everyone’s”? - My Life (1896) does not appear at all to be auto fiction despite the title, it’s the life story first-person narrated about a young man from a family in the nobility who believes that the only honest work is with his hands - building, construction, roofing, etc. - to the horror and chagrin of his stubborn father; the narrator reflects on the abusive childhood he and his sister endured - and over the course of the short novel he marries another member of the nobility but the marriage falls apart and the narrator leaves his small-town home bound for nowhere. Was it a wasted life? From his father’s view, yes, but the narrator seems to feel otherwise - the only surprise is that he doesn’t seem politically active - it’s just a personal code that he follows.
