
How Chekhov invented the modern short story - swibbler
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/08/how-chekhov-invented-modern-short-story
======
acabal
You can download a free high quality ebook of his entire short story corpus at
Standard Ebooks: [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov/short-
fictio...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov/short-
fiction/constance-garnett)

Warning, it's very long! But, many of the stories are incredible. Constance
Garnett is a very capable Chekhov translator, and her Chekhov translations
were praised by writers including Hemingway.

~~~
tines
+1 for Constance Garnett, she was by far my favorite translator for Crime and
Punishment.

~~~
robin_reala
I put together Garnett’s Crime and Punishment translation for SE at
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-
an...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-and-
punishment/constance-garnett) if anyone wants to read it.

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azundo
I've been reading some Chekov via
[https://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/jr/](https://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/jr/)
recently. I also enjoyed George Saunders commentary on Gooseberries to be a
good intro if you haven't read much Chekov before:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/ge...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/george-
saunders-on-chekhovs-different-visions-of-happiness/516798/)

I've been thinking a lot about that man with the hammer from Gooseberries
lately given the state of the world and my privileged position to ignore much
of it when I choose to.

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ogurechny
> Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s new translation of 52 Chekhov
> stories

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Their “method” absolutely disagrees with any author with
a tight writing style, and Chekhov's tired narration with a tiny drop of irony
is tight.

[https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-
pevearsion-o...](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-pevearsion-
of-russian-literature/)

[http://www.thinkaloud.ru/feature/berdy-lan-
PandV-e.html](http://www.thinkaloud.ru/feature/berdy-lan-PandV-e.html)

[https://www.librarything.com/topic/260074](https://www.librarything.com/topic/260074)

[https://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/the-art-
of-...](https://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/the-art-of-
translation/#comment-206)

[http://languagehat.com/the-translation-wars/](http://languagehat.com/the-
translation-wars/)

[http://languagehat.com/more-translation-wars/](http://languagehat.com/more-
translation-wars/)

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/06/23/socks-
translating...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/06/23/socks-translating-
anna-karenina/)

[http://languagehat.com/janet-malcolm-vs-pv/](http://languagehat.com/janet-
malcolm-vs-pv/)

[https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/why...](https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/why-
i-dont-read-pevear-and-volokhonsky-vtranslations/)

[https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-...](https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-
pevearvolokhonsky-hype-machine-and-how-it-could-have-been-stopped-or-at-least-
slowed-down/)

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libraryofbabel
I do love Chekhov’s stories, but many years of humanities education has left
me pretty jaded about “X invented the modern Y” claims. It’s a lazy formula
and relies on the complete slipperiness of the term “modern” (oh and
“invented” is kinda vague too).

Examples, based on ones I’ve heard: “Shakespeare invented the modern self”
“Napoleon invented the modern state” “Newton invented modern science” (Or was
it Galileo?) “Picasso invented modern painting”

Note that these examples span about 1600-1900. Perhaps we should just engage
with the work on its own terms.

~~~
inopinatus
_" Bastard asked me to understudy Konstantin in The Seagull. I'm not going to
understudy anybody. Especially that pimp! Anyway, I loathe those Russian
plays. Always full of women staring out of windows, whining about ducks going
to Moscow"_

― Withnail & I (1987)

~~~
BelleOfTheBall
Plays in general are probably the easiest form of writing to distill into
stereotypes since they rely heavily on dialogue and that's bound to get
repetitive when thousands of works are written. I can think of a dozen plays
right now where there were similar moments of young adults arguing with
relatives (usually not parents but aunts or grandmas) or someone monologuing
about a death that happened offscreen but in a vague way. All of these moments
can be deconstructed and I do find them repetitive if I read a few plays in a
row... but I still feel like it's wholly a matter of preference. If you like
those elements - sad women staring out of windows, for example - you'll like
the plays.

~~~
pradn
The great thing about plays is that they can be interpreted and reinterpreted
again and again by different directors, set designers, composers, and actors.
It's possible to bring the play into our own time or to subvert its ostensible
message or to add new layers and nuances. It's wonderful that the text of the
play is only the skeleton which to hang the body of the performance.

------
soperj
And Gordon Lish invented Raymond Carver.

~~~
cafard
And don't forget that Jef Raskin invented Burrell:
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=I_Invented_Burrell.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date&characters=Burrell+Smith)

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toolslive
Wasn't Edgar Allen Poe earlier?

~~~
LoSboccacc
Aesop beats both readily, and even then he wasn't probably the inventor

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mikekhusid
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are fucking terrible. Read any other
translation

~~~
localhost8000
That’s surprising to hear. I’ve found P&V’s Dostoevsky translations very
readable, and my understanding from reading reviews online was that P&V’s
translations are well regarded in general.

Which translation did you read/would you recommend?

Edit: I did some reading online and found some criticism of P&V, such as:

[https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/gary-
morson/the-...](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/gary-morson/the-
pevearsion-of-russian-literature/)

[https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-...](https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-
pevearvolokhonsky-hype-machine-and-how-it-could-have-been-stopped-or-at-least-
slowed-down)

Interesting to see the comparisons!

~~~
pvg
They are not without their detractors - part of it is they take on difficult
work, some of which hasn't seen serious translator attention for a while.
Personally, I find the results poor but obviously lots of people like them.

Chekhov's short stories are an English translator's nightmare though - there's
a reason he's much more famous as a playwright in the English-speaking world.

~~~
petre
I've always liked his plays more than the short stories and I haven't read
them in English. Maybe his plays are just better?

~~~
pvg
I don't mean the reason is one aspect of his work is 'better' than the other,
just that the difficulty translating his short stories makes them much less
accessible to English readers than the plays.

I think the reverse is the case for Russian - Жалобная книга (The Complaints
Book) is part of Russian idiom, the famous play Чайка (The Seagull) is not.
Chekhov just occupies a different part of the English-speaking cultural
taxonomy.

A (maybe more than a little over the top) way to put it is, it's like if in
Russia, Newton was primarily known as a great theologian and alchemist.

~~~
billfruit
May be like Victor Hugo is known to English readers as a novelist, while I
have heard that French regard him more for his poetry.

~~~
sjcsjc
Somewhat off topic, but interestingly Victor Hugo is regarded as a saint in
the Cao Dai religion of Vietnam.

[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cao-
Dai](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cao-Dai)

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Meic
Modern short story? Russian inwention!

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abnry
If you invent the modern short story, I sure as heck expect you to use it.

