What we thought of Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories

At our meeting on Thursday 19th January we considered a selection of 25 short stories by Anton Chekhov.

I think that even those of us who don’t enjoy the short story form found something to appreciate. As usual we started by asking everyone for three words to describe their response to the book:

• Immediacy, attention-popping, sitcom
• Preferred older stories
• Natural, illuminating, interesting
• Unfinished? Suspense, pictorial
• Descriptive, dialogue, drama
• Delightful, melancholy, quiet
• Human, atmospheric, probing
• Realistic, informative, Readable
• Well-written, unsatisfying

Some of us preferred the earlier stories for their immediacy and description of Russian peasant life at the end of the 19th century. Others preferred the later stories for the greater quality of the writing and the greater length, allowing the story to feel more completely developed.

Universally we loved the descriptions, both of the urban and rural locations, and of the way that that the sense of loneliness was evoked.

The 25 stories in the edition we discussed were:

• At the Barber’s (1883)
• Fat and Thin (1883)
• A Malefactor (1885)
• The Cook’s Wedding (1885)
• Oh! The Public (1885)
• Children (1886)
• Misery (1886)
• Ladies (1886)
• The Chorus Girl (1886)
• In the Court (1886)
• Vanka (1886)
• Champagne: A Wayfarer’s Story (1887)
• Darkness (1887)
• Home (1887)
• A Play (1887)
• The Runaway (1887)
• Boys (1887)
• Sleepy (1888)
• Rothschild’s Fiddle (1894)
• The Head Gardener’s Story (1894)
• The Helpmate (1895)
• The man in a case (1898)
• Gooseberries (1898)
• About Love (1898)
• The Lady with a Dog (1899)

At our next meeting on Thursday 16th February we’ll be discussing “Pincher Martin” by William Golding.