![]() Would Chekhov like to join him? The two men stripped and climbed in they splashed about under the warm sun and talked as if they had known each other intimately for years… Tolstoy took the visitor along the Tula road to look at people cycling.” (242) Tolstoy in 1898 / Photo: Sofia Tolstaya The craggy white-bearded sage of seventy-seven was walking from the house along an avenue of beeches, wearing a peasant’s smock, a towel slung over his shoulder. I had never read Philip Callow’s Chekhov: The Hidden Ground(1998), so I opened it it didn’t take a minute to find this account: In the stacks of Butler Library at Columbia, I stood and poked around in the Russian and English biographies. Simmons’ Chekhov: A Biography (1962), I became curious to learn more about Chekhov and Tolstoy’s first meeting. He then spent a day and half there.Īt thirty-five, Chekhov had been reading Tolstoy forever, and Tolstoy, sixty-seven, had great admiration for the younger man ’ s art, feeling, and perhaps most of all his humor, which Tolstoy believed was one of the rarest of gifts a writer could have.Ī few weeks ago, rereading Ernest J. Chekhov knew that Tolstoy admired his stories, and had for several years suggested to mutual acquaintances such a meeting.Ĭhekhov took a train to Tolstoy ’ s estate, Yasnaya Polyana. On August 7, Chekhov had been at his estate, Melikhovo, about 40 miles south of Moscow, where a friend of Tolstoy’s, Ivan Gorbunov-Posadov, had encouraged him to finally go see Tolstoy. Thanks for the opportunity to let me host about this very funny Russian author.It was August 8, 1895. ![]() For more information about this tour or upcoming events, visit their website. This post is part of The Classics Circuit Imperial Russian Tour. ![]() This short collection is available to read via Google Books. If you haven’t read any of Chekhov’s short stories, I recommend them. None of these characters are especially deep, but they do tell some nice vignettes about life in Russia and situations where characters don’t understand each other, to humorous results. In another, an old colonel tells a potentially racy haunted house story to a group of young ladies. In one, Chekhov writes about a vain prostitute just out of jail trying to dupe her previous “gentlemen friends” out of some money for new and fashionable clothes. Still, the stories are much more about plot and situation than they are about in-depth characters. The narrator’s voice was wry and sarcastic, which keeps otherwise simple stories from being boring. The rest of the collection was a little bit more serious, but only in the sense that there wasn’t some sort of twist near the end. What I liked about these two was the sense of playfulness they had. Determined to make the man look like a fool, Savvitch comes up with a plan he believes will get the man arrested. The second story, “Vengance,” is about a man name Savvitch who overhears his wife and friend plotting an affair. Henry-esque twist, but I can’t tell you that! Convinced he cannot have such a lewd object in his home, the Doctor passes the gift to a friend who in turn passes it on. The Doctor tries to refuse the gift, but Sasha insists. ![]() “smiling coquettishly and in general gave one the impression that, were it not for the fact that they were obliged to support the candle-stick, they would leap down from their pedestal and exhibit a performance which… my dear read, I am even ashamed to think of it!” The gift is “a low candelabrum of antique bronze” with two figures that were, Of the nine stories, the first two were my favorites. In “A Work of Art,” a young man named Sasha offers a gift to a doctor as a thank you for saving his life. Henry and my thoughts on the collection quite succinctly. But from what I remember, I think that sums up my impressions of Chekhov versus O. Henry, even if I haven’t read as much of him as I’d like to. Henry may be called the American Chekov with a ‘punch,’ Chekhov may be equally termed the Russian O. “They are told with that same breeziness, that same crispness, and end with that same ‘punch’ as characterize the America’s work. Henry, particularly the first two stories in the collection: “A Work of Art” and “Vengeance.” As the introduction explains: In the introduction, Chekhov is compared to American short story writer O. The nine stories are all quite short – the book is only 67 pages online – and don’t take much time to get through. I decided on Nine Humorous Tales, a book I could get for free on my nook via Google Books. Turns out he was also considered a master of the short story, so when he came up on The Classics Circuit I decided to try a collection of those. Before reading Nine Humorous Tales I mostly knew Russian writer Anton Chekov from his plays like The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard.
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