Thanks for writing, "AP". I learned Russian the hard way -- in graduate school, then on to the University of Leningrad.
As a follow-on to looking for other media for The Lady with the Dog, I found the DVD of the Soviet movie on Amazon, in Russian with subtitles. Excellent. Look for Director: Iosif Heifitz, 1960.
Someone commented somewhere that Gurov calls Anne pitiful. That's been bothering me. I would translate the word as "pitiable" and not "pitiful". A big difference in emotion, don't you think?
Not sure this is the right place to ask, but I can't seem to find a place to generate a query. Using a new computer. I'm just wondering if my subscription will automatically renew or if I need to take any steps. I don't want to miss anything.
“And, as we’ve discussed here, that’s the question the story might ultimately be asking: “What is the deepest form of love of which we’re capable?”’ This is my first post, and it is to thank you for the column and this luminous question. I am reading Tenth of December and Raymond Carver’s work to learn to write short stories. Now I know (but did not before) I want those stories to explore the question you articulate above.
Too often I reject the voice of an author without questioning why, what it is bringing up within myself. Similar to how certain people with their behaviors and attitudes remind us of parts of ourselves we’ve tried to rout or forget or not allow to become something. Seems like you are pointing to how mature readers are able to mine the depths of the feelings incurred by certain stories instead of instantly setting them aside. This is something I need to grow in this year, this season of my life. Asking why before rejecting .
Back when I taught 2nd-year Russian, I used to assign Lady with the Dog (in the original of course). The students had a bit of a difficult time with it, but the excellent translation has a good glossary. As has been said here, the sentence structure is fairly straight-forward. I used the story not only to teach grammar, but also to introduce them to French-style explication de textes -- detailed look at language -- to show them connections between changing verb tense, etc. to show the change in mindset of the characters.
Back then, it was very difficult to obtain Russian / Soviet books, but I managed to get enough for my classes. The edition we used (you may be lucky enough to find it) was reprinted in 1970 by Bradda Books Ltd. I mention this because there is "an excellent" film of this story, and the line drawings in the book are taken after the actors and sets. There apparently is also a "complete recording of the story", though I haven't found it (yet)!
Can you please share some essays/stories (perhaps unpublished) about this period of reawakening to your new reality of balancing work/family/writing, while keeping yourself open and eager to write?
Thank you for this, George. You said the answer to the question (what changed that made you love the story?) “was really just time” but I would push back a bit on that. It wasn’t “just time,” it seems to me; it was your openness to moving beyond wanting to just read about “adventurers, rebels, outcasts,” and coming to appreciate that the lives of “regular people” could be the stuff of art. You tell a story of personal growth. I take your answer to the question as a demonstration that reading fiction can lead to greater openness, compassion and generosity. That, I think, takes not just time, but some doing
I myself am not there yet (I hope “yet” is the appropriate word here) with “The Lady and the Dog.” My problem, mostly, is Gurov. I just don’t like him. The ONLY problem he seems to have (as I see it) is, in your excellent formulation: how to “move through superficiality and selfishness to the deepest form of love of all.” That’s staggeringly HUGE of course, (and I’m not proud of reacting this way) but that’s not enough to get me past the aversion I feel to characters who are NOT, in my view, “regular people.” Gurov’s story doesn’t move me in large part because he’s so well off that he doesn’t seem to have problems like, e.g., how to pay the rent, i.e., the problems of regular people making their way in the world, coping with “ongoing struggles with money and class and work and all of that.” Without that, I can’t seem to work up all that much sympathy for Gurov and he remains, for me, just a jerk. Not a very generous view of a fellow human, I know, but I have hard time getting past it.
But I think what your piece says to me is that with time and openness it’s possible to move past/come to terms with one’s “aversions” and arrive at a better place. I don’t know if others have this problem but I just find it a real challenge to get to such a place through stories of characters I find unlikeable.
Paul, for much of my life I too judged stories largely based on whether I liked or empathized or identified with the characters. Stories that were far removed from my realm of my experience, regardless of their literary reputation, left me unsatisfied. Based on others’ posts, reactions from participants in my ongoing short story discussion group here in Boston and writings by literary critics my evaluation approach is not uncommon.
Lately, however, I’ve concluded that I need to rethink and expand the variety of performance metric(s) I use to judge literature. For example, having read close to 90 shorts stories since the beginning of the pandemic in our short story group, we realize that some of the most interesting discussions grew out of stories many of us did not like (often for different reasons). Conversely some enjoyable tales, like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story Red-Headed League, are too “self contained” (as one member of group put it) to stimulate much reader involvement.
I did not particularly identify with any of the characters in James Baldwin s Sonny’s Blues. My life trajectory so far has not intersected with either drug addiction or jazz. But even though I could not identify with the story and did not find myself particularly liking any of the characters I did find it a worthwhile read because Baldwin managed to expand my perception of the variety of ways human beings live their lives.
Ramona Ausebel’s Safe Passage doesn’t have much of a plot or character development. It does beautifully convey and give material form to fragments of ideas and emotions related to aging. I’d have a tough time telling you what it’s about, but I admire the writer’s originality and craftsmanship.
My point is that there are a variety of ways of judging a story. A piece that rates well on one metric may not perform as well against another. Indicators that may have been important at one point in your life may get shoved aside as you age. Personally I’m less focused on judging stories nowadays based on whether I can identify with them than when I was younger. I think that is because as I get older (now 74) I no longer need to “validate” my own experiences. Instead I tend to prefer and judge stories based on whether they are able to extend my understanding of the variety of human experience, beyond that of my own cocoon.
One problem, I find, is that often one doesn’t know in advance what’s the right performance metric to apply to judge a piece of literature. That’s why I usually find my first reading of a story to be somewhat muddled mess. By the second or third reading the text tells me how it wants to be evaluated (well, really, I’m telling the text how I want to evaluate it) and then the game begins.
Thanks, Gerard, for this thoughtful engagement with my post. Your statement that you “prefer to judge stories based on whether they are able to extend my understanding of the variety of human experience, beyond that of my own cocoon” really resonated with me. You’ve helped me refine my thinking about just what it is that moves me in a story so that I can now, in my mind, draw a distinction that seems important to me. There are stories that depict worlds “removed from my realm of experience” and “beyond that of my own cocoon” (in your very apt phrasing) and there are stories at the center of which is a character I just don’t like. (And of course some stories contain both elements.) But I am all in on the former and not so much on the latter. For example, I’ve never lived in a world where it was possible and, indeed, okay to purchase young women and string them up as decorations in one’s yard, but to my mind George’s “The Semplica Girls” is a great story. Way beyond my (well, anyone’s) realm of experience, but I feel for the father. And in some weird way it’s the beyond-my-experience part that lets me/makes me feel that way. But I distinguish that kind of reading experience from reading about characters like Gurov. As I said before, I don’t like (and for that reason, I think) don’t feel for him and don’t much like the story. (Again, not proud of this, but that’s the way it is/I am. For now, at least.)
Thanks for mentioning 'The Dead' by James Joyce. Here's the last paragraph. The last sentence is impossibly beautiful and true.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Thank you Kate, for mentioning 'The Dead.' Awesome short story. Specially the ending, last three paragraphs or so, is truly amazing. Your post made me go read it again. :-)
I agree, Kate. Best short story ever. There was a big & interesting discussion about it a post or so ago, if you want to go back. Like you, the story is on my all-time fave list. For western Christians, today is also the Epiphany--can't get any more Joycean than that! For the Orthodox, today is Christmas Eve & so to those of us who observe: Mir Bozi!
"Just look at the text," George advises, "and see what it did to you." In the case of the Barthelme it didn't do much. Never has, multiple times with his stuff though I've tried. But so what? Liking or not liking may not be the point, although, same as anyone else, I'd much prefer to like. George urges an honest reaction to the experience & to know the cause, "the exact instant & flavor of the offense." To this I couldn't agree more. I know exactly what I like & dislike & why, where & which, as he has it, "flavor". (None of which is interesting enough to include here.) That we're not reading, "to judge, but to improve" is a distinction not so much fine, I don't think, as often overlooked & discarded & in much need of being repeatedly pointed out. And for this I give a yay & thanks, George!, for the reminder. So what if I'm not big on Barthelme, so what. I don't think I'm alone in that. But that isn't the question. Have I, or anyone else, improved by way of the experience? Well, that might depend on the definition of improved. But thanks to you, George, and to some of my friends & colleagues here at SC (I'm thinking esp of Nan's exhaustive researching & Stephen Hunter's insights) I may be creeping, however reluctantly, toward enlightenment.
While reading this, a few pieces of media came to mind.
"No offense, story – I bet I’ll be back later. Just…wait here for me." This reminded me of the last line in the song "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes: "And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf / I'll get back to you someday soon, myself." One of the most mysterious lines in an otherwise straightforward song, I always took this line to be Robin Pecknold (or even more directly, the song itself) speaking directly to the listener, predicting that the song will get "shelved" and forgotten, but later return to the listener. I like the idea of the stories and books we don't connect with the first time being aware of the situation and patiently waiting for us to return.
"No trout fishing in Spain necessary," reminded me of Richard Brautigan's novel Trout Fishing in America, a book that mixes the surreal and the mundane in a way I found mesmerizing and entertaining.
Lastly, the question posed at the end of the post made me think of George's story "My House," the last one in Liberation Day. I don't want to say much else about that. I just hope it will maybe encourage a few Story Clubbers to read it if they haven't already.
I was thinking about going to Portland for the Portland Book Festival (I wanted to see George! And so many others!) and saw Pecknold on the program. At first--I thought he'd written a book of poetry. I was so excited! Turns out it's a collection of all Fleet Foxes' song lyrics (still very much poetry) with his notes . . . I've been meaning to pick up a copy. It sounds awesome.
I think if you take a look back through the Archive you' find quite a lot of illuminating discussion relating to 'Translation' AP.
The thread on the stories 'An Incident' and 'My First Goose' would be good places to start.
I think the comment I recently made was 'a placeholder not to self' to go back and check out something I happened to notice in reflecting on different translations I had come across in reading 'The Lady and the Dog'.
I don't think it is reasonable, or too sensible, to expect translators to offer detailed comments on every aspect of their translations ... not least because, I suspect, there are things that readers may notice which translators may not actually have been consciously intended.
Good luck with learning Russian: you will I think find reading Chekov different again.
Every time I read this story, I feel like I am looking deeper into it. As I approach the end of my life (I am 83 and in good health but know that my time gets shorter and shorter), I feel its sadness deepen. How short our lives are and how sad but how lovely these short lives are. I think of the two characters spending a white night in Yalta and the beauty of the sunrise they experience together. And yet he does not even recognize what is happening to him. Just another fling! But then he is caught up in love, or something he recognizes is love.
As a new member of Story Club, I thank you for your biweekly posts. They are nourishing we at the deepest darkness of winter.
Double dipping here, having just finished the story on my lunch hour. I read recently that all great stories are about Death. So to me this represented Gurov's love affair with Death and his shadow self. The color grey is used repeatedly at the seaside, in the town and finally in her dress. Gurov feels his secret life is "the very essence of his life", his true self. But his actions belie his thoughts in the way he disregards his daughter. In the final scene, while Anna cries bitterly, he looks not at her but at himself in the mirror (going grey) and wonders how he is still so darn attractive. In spite of his "bitter" experience in multiple affairs, with every new encounter this experience was forgotten. So he begins again on a journey with an ending far, far away and cheats Death once again. This is a timeless story and reminds me of the movie Moonstruck. Sorry, this is rushed.
Thank you George for your honesty in writing how you felt about Lady with dog over the years. A persons likes and dislikes change over time like liking candy as a child and not liking it much as an adult. I find that with every decade I find myself sympathizing with problems of that decade as well as the earlier ones. A jaded man in his forties finds falls in love with a younger woman is the story, but in Chekhov’s hands this mundane event becomes humane.
You, in your analysis, read a lot into Chekhov’s literary techniques, his ability to create mood by describing surroundings, but I think he simply wrote in flow with full sympathy for the character as if he was himself experiencing it. Remarkable indeed.
What I find amazing is that after a 100+ years, reading a culture that is Russian and foreign to me, his story still feels current and so easily applicable anywhere any time. As do Dickens stories and Jane Austens Pride and prejudice.
There is that quality to Chekhov and other Russian masters that makes it everlasting.
I remember that when I first read it a few years ago my initial thought was, this reads as though it was written yesterday. My next impression was, I think I know these people. One of the fantastic things about Anton Chekhov is how he sees the surface and also what lives beneath it. Sympathy and empathy.
https://www.youtube.com/@Pumlovecp999
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Thanks for writing, "AP". I learned Russian the hard way -- in graduate school, then on to the University of Leningrad.
As a follow-on to looking for other media for The Lady with the Dog, I found the DVD of the Soviet movie on Amazon, in Russian with subtitles. Excellent. Look for Director: Iosif Heifitz, 1960.
Someone commented somewhere that Gurov calls Anne pitiful. That's been bothering me. I would translate the word as "pitiable" and not "pitiful". A big difference in emotion, don't you think?
Not sure this is the right place to ask, but I can't seem to find a place to generate a query. Using a new computer. I'm just wondering if my subscription will automatically renew or if I need to take any steps. I don't want to miss anything.
This was really insightful. Thank you 🙏
“And, as we’ve discussed here, that’s the question the story might ultimately be asking: “What is the deepest form of love of which we’re capable?”’ This is my first post, and it is to thank you for the column and this luminous question. I am reading Tenth of December and Raymond Carver’s work to learn to write short stories. Now I know (but did not before) I want those stories to explore the question you articulate above.
Too often I reject the voice of an author without questioning why, what it is bringing up within myself. Similar to how certain people with their behaviors and attitudes remind us of parts of ourselves we’ve tried to rout or forget or not allow to become something. Seems like you are pointing to how mature readers are able to mine the depths of the feelings incurred by certain stories instead of instantly setting them aside. This is something I need to grow in this year, this season of my life. Asking why before rejecting .
Back when I taught 2nd-year Russian, I used to assign Lady with the Dog (in the original of course). The students had a bit of a difficult time with it, but the excellent translation has a good glossary. As has been said here, the sentence structure is fairly straight-forward. I used the story not only to teach grammar, but also to introduce them to French-style explication de textes -- detailed look at language -- to show them connections between changing verb tense, etc. to show the change in mindset of the characters.
Back then, it was very difficult to obtain Russian / Soviet books, but I managed to get enough for my classes. The edition we used (you may be lucky enough to find it) was reprinted in 1970 by Bradda Books Ltd. I mention this because there is "an excellent" film of this story, and the line drawings in the book are taken after the actors and sets. There apparently is also a "complete recording of the story", though I haven't found it (yet)!
Can you please share some essays/stories (perhaps unpublished) about this period of reawakening to your new reality of balancing work/family/writing, while keeping yourself open and eager to write?
Thank you for this, George. You said the answer to the question (what changed that made you love the story?) “was really just time” but I would push back a bit on that. It wasn’t “just time,” it seems to me; it was your openness to moving beyond wanting to just read about “adventurers, rebels, outcasts,” and coming to appreciate that the lives of “regular people” could be the stuff of art. You tell a story of personal growth. I take your answer to the question as a demonstration that reading fiction can lead to greater openness, compassion and generosity. That, I think, takes not just time, but some doing
I myself am not there yet (I hope “yet” is the appropriate word here) with “The Lady and the Dog.” My problem, mostly, is Gurov. I just don’t like him. The ONLY problem he seems to have (as I see it) is, in your excellent formulation: how to “move through superficiality and selfishness to the deepest form of love of all.” That’s staggeringly HUGE of course, (and I’m not proud of reacting this way) but that’s not enough to get me past the aversion I feel to characters who are NOT, in my view, “regular people.” Gurov’s story doesn’t move me in large part because he’s so well off that he doesn’t seem to have problems like, e.g., how to pay the rent, i.e., the problems of regular people making their way in the world, coping with “ongoing struggles with money and class and work and all of that.” Without that, I can’t seem to work up all that much sympathy for Gurov and he remains, for me, just a jerk. Not a very generous view of a fellow human, I know, but I have hard time getting past it.
But I think what your piece says to me is that with time and openness it’s possible to move past/come to terms with one’s “aversions” and arrive at a better place. I don’t know if others have this problem but I just find it a real challenge to get to such a place through stories of characters I find unlikeable.
Paul, for much of my life I too judged stories largely based on whether I liked or empathized or identified with the characters. Stories that were far removed from my realm of my experience, regardless of their literary reputation, left me unsatisfied. Based on others’ posts, reactions from participants in my ongoing short story discussion group here in Boston and writings by literary critics my evaluation approach is not uncommon.
Lately, however, I’ve concluded that I need to rethink and expand the variety of performance metric(s) I use to judge literature. For example, having read close to 90 shorts stories since the beginning of the pandemic in our short story group, we realize that some of the most interesting discussions grew out of stories many of us did not like (often for different reasons). Conversely some enjoyable tales, like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story Red-Headed League, are too “self contained” (as one member of group put it) to stimulate much reader involvement.
I did not particularly identify with any of the characters in James Baldwin s Sonny’s Blues. My life trajectory so far has not intersected with either drug addiction or jazz. But even though I could not identify with the story and did not find myself particularly liking any of the characters I did find it a worthwhile read because Baldwin managed to expand my perception of the variety of ways human beings live their lives.
Ramona Ausebel’s Safe Passage doesn’t have much of a plot or character development. It does beautifully convey and give material form to fragments of ideas and emotions related to aging. I’d have a tough time telling you what it’s about, but I admire the writer’s originality and craftsmanship.
My point is that there are a variety of ways of judging a story. A piece that rates well on one metric may not perform as well against another. Indicators that may have been important at one point in your life may get shoved aside as you age. Personally I’m less focused on judging stories nowadays based on whether I can identify with them than when I was younger. I think that is because as I get older (now 74) I no longer need to “validate” my own experiences. Instead I tend to prefer and judge stories based on whether they are able to extend my understanding of the variety of human experience, beyond that of my own cocoon.
One problem, I find, is that often one doesn’t know in advance what’s the right performance metric to apply to judge a piece of literature. That’s why I usually find my first reading of a story to be somewhat muddled mess. By the second or third reading the text tells me how it wants to be evaluated (well, really, I’m telling the text how I want to evaluate it) and then the game begins.
Thanks, Gerard, for this thoughtful engagement with my post. Your statement that you “prefer to judge stories based on whether they are able to extend my understanding of the variety of human experience, beyond that of my own cocoon” really resonated with me. You’ve helped me refine my thinking about just what it is that moves me in a story so that I can now, in my mind, draw a distinction that seems important to me. There are stories that depict worlds “removed from my realm of experience” and “beyond that of my own cocoon” (in your very apt phrasing) and there are stories at the center of which is a character I just don’t like. (And of course some stories contain both elements.) But I am all in on the former and not so much on the latter. For example, I’ve never lived in a world where it was possible and, indeed, okay to purchase young women and string them up as decorations in one’s yard, but to my mind George’s “The Semplica Girls” is a great story. Way beyond my (well, anyone’s) realm of experience, but I feel for the father. And in some weird way it’s the beyond-my-experience part that lets me/makes me feel that way. But I distinguish that kind of reading experience from reading about characters like Gurov. As I said before, I don’t like (and for that reason, I think) don’t feel for him and don’t much like the story. (Again, not proud of this, but that’s the way it is/I am. For now, at least.)
This is unrelated to George’s post re ‘The Lady with the Dog’ - apologies.
One of the best short stories ever, ‘The Dead’ by James Joyce is set in Dublin on January 6th.
It’s the last story in ‘The Dubliners’(1914).
Brilliant story...one of my all-time favorites
Thanks Kate for mentioning this story. I ran out of time yesterday but was able to read it this morning.
Thanks for mentioning 'The Dead' by James Joyce. Here's the last paragraph. The last sentence is impossibly beautiful and true.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Sorry the story collection is called ‘Dubliners’ and not The Dubliners as I said in last post.
Thank you Kate, for mentioning 'The Dead.' Awesome short story. Specially the ending, last three paragraphs or so, is truly amazing. Your post made me go read it again. :-)
I agree, Kate. Best short story ever. There was a big & interesting discussion about it a post or so ago, if you want to go back. Like you, the story is on my all-time fave list. For western Christians, today is also the Epiphany--can't get any more Joycean than that! For the Orthodox, today is Christmas Eve & so to those of us who observe: Mir Bozi!
I missed the discussion you mentioned. Do you remember the title of the post?
"Just look at the text," George advises, "and see what it did to you." In the case of the Barthelme it didn't do much. Never has, multiple times with his stuff though I've tried. But so what? Liking or not liking may not be the point, although, same as anyone else, I'd much prefer to like. George urges an honest reaction to the experience & to know the cause, "the exact instant & flavor of the offense." To this I couldn't agree more. I know exactly what I like & dislike & why, where & which, as he has it, "flavor". (None of which is interesting enough to include here.) That we're not reading, "to judge, but to improve" is a distinction not so much fine, I don't think, as often overlooked & discarded & in much need of being repeatedly pointed out. And for this I give a yay & thanks, George!, for the reminder. So what if I'm not big on Barthelme, so what. I don't think I'm alone in that. But that isn't the question. Have I, or anyone else, improved by way of the experience? Well, that might depend on the definition of improved. But thanks to you, George, and to some of my friends & colleagues here at SC (I'm thinking esp of Nan's exhaustive researching & Stephen Hunter's insights) I may be creeping, however reluctantly, toward enlightenment.
While reading this, a few pieces of media came to mind.
"No offense, story – I bet I’ll be back later. Just…wait here for me." This reminded me of the last line in the song "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes: "And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf / I'll get back to you someday soon, myself." One of the most mysterious lines in an otherwise straightforward song, I always took this line to be Robin Pecknold (or even more directly, the song itself) speaking directly to the listener, predicting that the song will get "shelved" and forgotten, but later return to the listener. I like the idea of the stories and books we don't connect with the first time being aware of the situation and patiently waiting for us to return.
"No trout fishing in Spain necessary," reminded me of Richard Brautigan's novel Trout Fishing in America, a book that mixes the surreal and the mundane in a way I found mesmerizing and entertaining.
Lastly, the question posed at the end of the post made me think of George's story "My House," the last one in Liberation Day. I don't want to say much else about that. I just hope it will maybe encourage a few Story Clubbers to read it if they haven't already.
I love Fleet Floxes. Love that song! Have you checked out the book yet (Wading in Waist-High Water)?
I have not! Didn't even know it existed!
I was thinking about going to Portland for the Portland Book Festival (I wanted to see George! And so many others!) and saw Pecknold on the program. At first--I thought he'd written a book of poetry. I was so excited! Turns out it's a collection of all Fleet Foxes' song lyrics (still very much poetry) with his notes . . . I've been meaning to pick up a copy. It sounds awesome.
I think if you take a look back through the Archive you' find quite a lot of illuminating discussion relating to 'Translation' AP.
The thread on the stories 'An Incident' and 'My First Goose' would be good places to start.
I think the comment I recently made was 'a placeholder not to self' to go back and check out something I happened to notice in reflecting on different translations I had come across in reading 'The Lady and the Dog'.
I don't think it is reasonable, or too sensible, to expect translators to offer detailed comments on every aspect of their translations ... not least because, I suspect, there are things that readers may notice which translators may not actually have been consciously intended.
Good luck with learning Russian: you will I think find reading Chekov different again.
Every time I read this story, I feel like I am looking deeper into it. As I approach the end of my life (I am 83 and in good health but know that my time gets shorter and shorter), I feel its sadness deepen. How short our lives are and how sad but how lovely these short lives are. I think of the two characters spending a white night in Yalta and the beauty of the sunrise they experience together. And yet he does not even recognize what is happening to him. Just another fling! But then he is caught up in love, or something he recognizes is love.
As a new member of Story Club, I thank you for your biweekly posts. They are nourishing we at the deepest darkness of winter.
Double dipping here, having just finished the story on my lunch hour. I read recently that all great stories are about Death. So to me this represented Gurov's love affair with Death and his shadow self. The color grey is used repeatedly at the seaside, in the town and finally in her dress. Gurov feels his secret life is "the very essence of his life", his true self. But his actions belie his thoughts in the way he disregards his daughter. In the final scene, while Anna cries bitterly, he looks not at her but at himself in the mirror (going grey) and wonders how he is still so darn attractive. In spite of his "bitter" experience in multiple affairs, with every new encounter this experience was forgotten. So he begins again on a journey with an ending far, far away and cheats Death once again. This is a timeless story and reminds me of the movie Moonstruck. Sorry, this is rushed.
Moonstruck!
“Ma, why do men cheat?”
“Because they’re afraid of death”
Great lines. Great movie.
Thank you George for your honesty in writing how you felt about Lady with dog over the years. A persons likes and dislikes change over time like liking candy as a child and not liking it much as an adult. I find that with every decade I find myself sympathizing with problems of that decade as well as the earlier ones. A jaded man in his forties finds falls in love with a younger woman is the story, but in Chekhov’s hands this mundane event becomes humane.
You, in your analysis, read a lot into Chekhov’s literary techniques, his ability to create mood by describing surroundings, but I think he simply wrote in flow with full sympathy for the character as if he was himself experiencing it. Remarkable indeed.
What I find amazing is that after a 100+ years, reading a culture that is Russian and foreign to me, his story still feels current and so easily applicable anywhere any time. As do Dickens stories and Jane Austens Pride and prejudice.
There is that quality to Chekhov and other Russian masters that makes it everlasting.
I remember that when I first read it a few years ago my initial thought was, this reads as though it was written yesterday. My next impression was, I think I know these people. One of the fantastic things about Anton Chekhov is how he sees the surface and also what lives beneath it. Sympathy and empathy.
I agree David, and I think great art is timeless and worthy of re-visiting throughout our lives.
Yes, the surface and what is below... I also like that his language is so clear and simple., I almost dont notice it, like just inhaling his thoughts!
"inhaling his thoughts" - what a great image KG
Yes!