It’s been nearly three years since I last wrote an alphabet post but I’ve been thinking about Chekhov so much lately that it’s time to finally move on from Х to Ч, fill in another letter, and mention a few Ч-named writers I’ve particularly enjoyed reading.
I always seem to reminisce a fair bit about Anton Pavlovich Chekhov because his “The Bet” (“Пари”) was the first piece of Russian literature (other than Baba Yaga stories) that I ever read. In sixth grade. (I went down Memory Lane on “The Bet” back in 2010, for Chekhov’s hundred and fiftieth birthday, here.) I went on to take a Chekhov course in college and, rather predictably, most enjoyed longer stories, with “Ward Number Six” (in Ronald Hingley’s translation) my big favorite. “Дама с собачкой” (“The Lady With the Dog” (oops, almost “God”!)) was the first Chekhov I read in Russian, in that same era. I’ve gone on to (re)read lots of other short Chekhov stories, particularly when a collection from Restless Books – Chekhov: Stories for Our Time, with an introduction by Boris Fishman – brought me back to A.P. back in 2018 (previous post) and got me thinking I needed to do better justice to the modest Russian-language collections of long and short stories I’d purchased a few years earlier.
One of the works in one of those collections is Моя жизнь (My Life), which I started reading last year, in preparation for a visit to Duke University in March 2020. Of course the visit didn’t happen. And, predictably, I didn’t finish My Life, which Carol Apollonio’s Chekhov class was going to be discussing during my visit. I had a hard time concentrating on my reading in the early pandemic months but am plotting a reattempt at My Life and some other Chekhov reading. I’m especially motivated because Carol sent me a copy of her book, Simply Chekhov, which examines A.P.’s life and work. I love talking with Carol about Russian literature, so who better to guide me? I have two other longer works – “Степь” (“The Steppe”) and “Дуэль” (“The Duel”) – that we didn’t get around to in college, so there’s plenty of new material to go along with old favorites like “Gooseberries.”
Now, a confession: I don’t have many other real, true favorite Ч writers. But there are some interesting books to mention. I read and enjoyed a shortened version of N.G. Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done? (Benjamin R. Tucker’s translation, revised and abridged by Ludmilla B. Turkevich, in a Vintage edition with an Edward Gorey cover design) back in grad school and have happy memories of that experience simply because I was reading at the ocean. I remember very little (meaning: pretty much nothing at all) about the novel, but oh my, my marginalia tell me the book thoroughly engaged me at the time. I sometimes feel guilty for not remembering even a basic plot, though I’m not sure I feel guilty enough for an imminent reread.
Lidia Chukovskaya’s Sofia Petrovna, however, has long been a genuine favorite: I’ve read it several times, always appreciating the simplicity of the form and language, which leave so much room for Chukovskaya to offer a close-up of the devastating effects of totalitarianism (previous post). It was a lovely surprise to look at my Chukovskaya book today and find that the afterword I actually read and enjoyed (marginalia tell all!) back in 2011 was written by Olga Zilberbourg, a writer I met in 2016 at a translator conference. I wrote about her Like Water story collection last year (previous post). My book with Sofia Petrovna also includes Спуск под воду (Going Under), which I haven’t yet read, though I’ll put the book in my trolley and consider it to soon.
Contemporary fiction wouldn’t have given me a favorite Ч-named writer if Evgeny Chizhov hadn’t decided to use a pseudonym. His Translation from a Literal Translation (previous post), which I thought was very, very good, is plenty to put him on the list even if it’s his only novel that I’ve finished.
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| Charskaya, reading at the dacha |
My pandemic book buying binges b(r)ought me two other books (new acquisitions already in the trolley, unread, so not yet favorites) by Ч-named writers: a book containing Lidia Charskaya’s Записки институтки (something like: Notes of a [Female] College/Institute Student) and Княжна Джаваха (Princess Dzhavakha, a.k.a. Little Princess Nina, I believe, in Hana Mus̆ková’s translation?), which both look promising. And then there’s Anton Chizh’s Машина страха (maybe The Fear Machine?), a retro detective novel set in 1898 Petersburg. Of course I love detective novels. Who knows how this one will be, but, yes, I’m still rather stuck in the past – or in various alternate, often futuristic, realities – and having difficulty reading fiction about this century since characters are rarely masked up, vaccinated against COVID-19, or staying far, far away from each other. Fortunately, Russian fiction offers plenty of fantasy, mysticism, and other twists on what we conventionally consider reality.
Up Next: Ksenia Buksha’s Advent and Eugene Vodolazkin’s History of Island.
Disclaimers and Disclosures: The usual.
Carol Apollonio is a friend and colleague. As is Olga Zilberbourg, though
we’ve only met once in person; she has reviewed a couple of my translations.
Photo by M.G. Nikitin, public domain, obtained through Wikipedia.
