/lit/ - Literature

Just look at this handsome russian mofo

>>8198379
I think reading Chekhov is the best thing you can do. When you get the idea and you can ''imitate'' the spirit of his descriptions, you'll be able to write correctly (5,5/10). The next step is to find your own style by reading a lot and having some juicy ideas.

umm this guy?

>>7424118
I just bought an ebup book with all the short stories of Anton Chekhov for a 2 EUR.

Most of the stories are very short (like 2-10 pages) and almost all of them contain entertaining characters and situations.

They are also "fast-paced". Not too much descriptions and almost everything in the stories has some function to the story.

I know it's rather difficult to talk about Chekhov since all the short stories sort of blend together, and there are so many. I personally don't remember the titles of them, but I do remember my favourite stories.

For example:

One of my favourites was one where there were gentlemen in a restaurant talking about boring stuff, and Chekhov made it seem like the short story was going to be about the boring gentlemen.

Then all the sudden, one of the gentleman goes into the kitchen, and sees his cook talking to one of the kitchen maids and jokes about how they are having an affair.

The cook, so neurotic laughs awkwardly and the gentleman walks away. The cook is seized with paranoia, thinking that the gentleman will blab all about it to everyone, spreading false rumours and getting him in trouble with his wife.

So the cook starts retelling the joke to everyone to "play it safe," that is to get the proper context of the joke out before the gentleman gets a chance to slander him.

The actuality of the situation is, is that the gentleman didn't care and had already forgotten about his joke, and the cook was going around telling everyone that somone jokingly implicated his adultery.

In the end, everyone started to gossip about the cook being unfaithful, and his wife left him.

Hahaha Chekhov is a genius, and his short-story craft is spectacular.

What are some of /lit/'s favourite short stories?