chekhov

On Chekhov's Death of a Clerk

April 20, 2019 in literature, psychology

I have two different translations of Chekhov's July 1883 story The Death of a Clerk: one in the collection Stories, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky [P&V], and the other in the collection Forty Stories, by Robert Payne. I prefer the former, but I'll be sharing excerpts from each. Preference aside, as I always tell people, I try to read as many translations of my favorite works as possible—especially when it comes to Russian literature. That's the only way to gain as complete an understanding of the text in question as possible, if you cannot read it in the original language.

Sadness: Hemingway and Chekhov

March 24, 2019 in literature

While reading Islands in the Stream, the last book that Hemingway wrote before he died, I am struck by the sadness that runs throughout the novel. Hemingway controversially considered Turgenev the greatest writer there ever was. While I love Turgenev's writing—from the sentimental First Love across the melancholy Diary of a Superfluous Man to the masterpiece that is Sketches from a Hunter's Album—it takes a certain kind of passionate partiality to call him the greatest writer there was.