/lit/ - Literature

His short story The Kiss hit a bit too close to home

What makes him so good? Is he really on the same level as Shakespeare?

So why do people think he's good?
His understanding of what his own art should be seems to be: describe situations that instill complex negative feelings. His stories usually make a melancholic impression on me, but it's not enjoyable reading. It's more interesting how observational he is than it is cathartic or gripping literature.

>>20592315
le happy russian guy

What do you guys think of him? I'm reading the penis and vagina translation of his short stories right now. I love the short little character portraits and the stripped down prose. Where do I go from here, if anywhere?

Never mind opening lines. What are the best final passages in literature?

I just finished A Dreary Story and it left me with a pit in my stomach like most of his work does. For my money, he is the most melancholic writer. Any thoughts or opinions on him?

>and my gun

wtf why is chekhov so underrated here he's almost as good as tolstoy

Does /lit/ like him?

>>14439009
He's underrated beyond Moby Dick, but even then his quality is inconsistent. This is coming from someone who likes Pierre (his most controversial work).

>>14439058
He was unironically a fanfic writer. Going so far as to write about winning the girl he was madly in love with, but with whom he never spoke. I'd argue he only got away with The Divine Comedy because there was nothing else like it when it was written. He'd come off as cringy of he was writing today.

>>14439165
Him trying to maintain good relations with the Medicis whilst exalting Cesare Borgia made his philosophy come off as inconsistent. He's simultaneously a liberal and an authoritarian, and that kind of duality ultimately inspired the cutthroat and hypocritical nature of modern neoliberalism. It's so easy to roll your eyes at politicians, business people and lawyers who consider Machiavelli an idol.

>>14376663
This is the part I'm talking about:

TREPLIEFF. [Pulling a flower to pieces] She loves me, loves me not; loves—loves me not; loves—loves me not! [Laughing] You see, she doesn’t love me, and why should she? She likes life and love and gay clothes, and I am already twenty-five years old; a sufficient reminder to her that she is no longer young. When I am away she is only thirty-two, in my presence she is forty-three, and she hates me for it. She knows, too, that I despise the modern stage. She adores it, and imagines that she is working on it for the benefit of humanity and her sacred art, but to me the theatre is merely the vehicle of convention and prejudice. When the curtain rises on that little three-walled room, when those mighty geniuses, those high-priests of art, show us people in the act of eating, drinking, loving, walking, and wearing their coats, and attempt to extract a moral from their insipid talk; when playwrights give us under a thousand different guises the same, same, same old stuff, then I must needs run from it, as Maupassant ran from the Eiffel Tower that was about to crush him by its vulgarity.

SORIN. But we can’t do without a theatre.

TREPLIEFF. No, but we must have it under a new form. If we can’t do that, let us rather not have it at all. [Looking at his watch] I love my mother, I love her devotedly, but I think she leads a stupid life. She always has this man of letters of hers on her mind, and the newspapers are always frightening her to death, and I am tired of it. Plain, human egoism sometimes speaks in my heart, and I regret that my mother is a famous actress. If she were an ordinary woman I think I should be a happier man. What could be more intolerable and foolish than my position, Uncle, when I find myself the only nonentity among a crowd of her guests, all celebrated authors and artists? I feel that they only endure me because I am her son. Personally I am nothing, nobody. I pulled through my third year at college by the skin of my teeth, as they say. I have neither money nor brains, and on my passport you may read that I am simply a citizen of Kiev. So was my father, but he was a well-known actor. When the celebrities that frequent my mother’s drawing-room deign to notice me at all, I know they only look at me to measure my insignificance; I read their thoughts, and suffer from humiliation.

I love how this guy looks like without his glasses?

Agreed?

What's your favourite short story by Chekhov?

I was told today that you have to be a certain age to truly appreciate Chekhov. Do you agree with this line of thinking?

Any books on the history of atheism? I'm interested in its social and religious beginnings and can't find much on this

Was Chekov a hack?

nothing ever happens in his short stories, he tells instead of shows and appears to just tell stories with no meaning, his plays are good but jeez. Can't expect good fiction from a doctor I suppose

Are his short stories really so good? The first couple times I tried reading them they put me to sleep. The writing style seemed pedestrian and all he had to write about was malnourished Russian peasants going about their day bartering for bread and vodka with loose coat buttons and bits of string.

>>9971046
The goatee is definately patrician tier

I love Chekhov, could anyone recommend me similar writers?

What does /lit/ think of Chekhov?

>grew up in poor home with abusive father
>put himself through medical school by writing
>full-time doctor, who treated poor patients for free, while still writing god-tier work
>disciplined, humorous, unpretentious, humble, and extremely talented

Aside from being a brilliant write, I think he's a great role model for aspiring writers.

Where do I start with Chekhov and which translation?

Best translation of his works?
>inb4 P&V
>inb4 learn Russian

>>8352267
>putting those literally whos up against Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov