Chekhov had such an influence on me as a young, hyper-insecure teen. Chekhov's craft is powerful and widely taught but it's his thematic elements that I really loved. he made a habit of setting up a deeply unlikeable character in the first act, slowly revealing their tragedies and traumas that led them to their insecurity, and the selective love they put into the world so by the final act you're weeping for someone who you scoffed at at first impression. for someone who was so convinced that people disliked or hated him, it was a real balm to know that there were those advocating for the strongest form of compassion as the default mode and not just an occasional, extraordinary act

Well, I can only quote Pushkin's letter to Vyazemsky (used Google AI to translate; in the letter Pushkin wrote about Lord Byron's lost personal memoirs):

"The crowd greedily reads confessions, memoirs, etc., because in its baseness it rejoices at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of every vice it is in raptures: 'He is small like us, he is vile like us!' You lie, you scoundrels! He may be small and vile—but not like you—differently!"

It is a funny quote, and probably true. But I imagine that few people who are willing to read a serious article about Anton Chekhov these days actually have much interest in rejoicing in seeing his weaknesses.

I think it is important to separate the artist's life from their works of art.Their lives are in some way immaterial to the enjoyment of their work, which even they themselves may not fully comprehend.

Also life is messy:

“You know how you’re always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it’s real difficult in life"

Woody Allen in Annie Hall

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't seem to think that way. Which is made more unfortunate by targeted character assassination attempts intended to discredit everything a person has said. Not saying that is what's going on here at all, but it's always at the top of my mind when I see something that looks like a hit piece: "What's the intent of the authors?"

A lot of self described artists seem to believe that the artist is the entire value of works of art. At least, that’s what they’ve claimed since AI hit the scene. I can’t tell if they’ve always felt that way or if they adopted it in order to discredit the use of AI - “if it has no artist then it has no value.”

Marshall McLuhan: I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work! You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!

Alvy Singer: Boy, if life were only like this!

Do watch Romance with a double bass (1975) [0]. Wonderful, not very well-known short film adaptation of a Chekhov story featuring John Cleese.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1U42izMOjs

Thanks for sharing! Will definitely watch.

I am the webmaster for WASHU (rebranding from WUSTL). Happy to see one of those sites on the front page of HN without getting as much as an alert!

(Hosting hundreds of WordPress sites at scale has its challenges).

go bears!

As a person, unfortunately accursed with an ability to read Chekhov in original, I just say that you should take Chekhov and Gogol and leave tolstoevsky at it's honorary doorstop place.

Also, communist-era science fiction in the accursed language reads much better than anything written in English in the same period (and beyond), if only for the fact that it doesn't suffer from the apocalyptic framing and general doom and gloom. Also, whoever posted the starfish here a few weeks ago, thanks, I wish I could unread it.

You liked “Roadside Picnic” by the Strugatsky brothers, I take it…

Which accursed language? Didn’t you just write that you can’t read them in the originals?

They are someone who lets present day politics dictate their whole life. They probably don't think German is an accursed language and wouldn't despair at reading Faust in the original. Neither would they think twice about reading Hemingway in the original - despite Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They only get outraged by $latest_conflict.

Thank you so much for this comment. I’m a part of the nation who suffers a lot from this, and never thought it would be happening in 21st century

Chekhov's plays more than his stories are instructive here. His masterwork, The Cherry Orchard turns in large part on the intentions of Lophahkin the merchant upstart and whether he loves Varya who is attached to a higher social eshelon. In the scene where Lopahkin, is supposed to propose to Varya, he stalls until he is called away, a reflection of the playwright's and the character's ambivalence towards romantic love. In the early one act The Bear, the Widow claims to be "in morning for my life" and has vowed never again to marry. Within the span of 45 minutes she has surrendered to the Bear who has come to her door.

Reading Chekhov's 'Ionych' really feels like it strikes something hard, his ability to find these feelings in words and put them in the "Russian pragma[tism]" is a just so.

This article sent me to Joyce's letters to his wife (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/02/james-joyces-...) which are ... dirty. Amazingly so. Inspiring use of English.

Now I'm just wondering if wustl is still running any excellent FTP servers.