/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4965570]

Chekhov is arguably the greatest short story writer of all time. He is in my opinion.

Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is how Chekhov's stories are perhaps the greatest and most realistic embodiment of 19th century Russian culture--only matched by Gogol's Dead Souls (yes yes I know, Gogol came before Chekhov).

Anyway, I'm kinda of sad there hasn't been a short story writer in the west that has so well captured the "ethnic essence" of their corresponding cultures/ethno-identity.

Or perhaps I'm wrong?

Please, share what authors you think might constitute to be as proficient as encapsulating culture and ethnicity in short story writing as Chekhov.

[Anonymous No.4965580]

>>4965570

[Anonymous No.4965878]

>>4965580

[Anonymous No.4966826]

Flannery O'Connor with American southeners.
Though it's in a cartoony and surreal way, not realistic.

[Anonymous No.4966861]

>>4965570
> there hasn't been a short story writer in the west that has so well captured the "ethnic essence"

I agree with you on Chekov (if he's not the greatest short story writer of all times, he's surely at least one of the very best). But I think this idea of "ethnic essence" is more about our perception of Russia as some barbarian semi-european continent, and about Russia long-lasting inferiority complex with Europe. Chekov was a physician, he spent a lot of time in the Russian countryside and could observe the way of living of people there. So the substance of his short story is much more akin to a moral diagnosis of Russian peasanry and little nobility than to an attempt at capturing the "ethnic essence" of Russia. Chekov is terribly of his time, definitely anchored in the actuality of his century. We can still read him today because we share a lot more with nineteenth century Russian peasants that we might admit.

Also, Chekov lived in that century where Russia started to stop considering itself as a cultural underdog to France, Germany and England and started to assert its right to an original literary tradition of its own. This idea of "essential ethnicity" is a product of this effort: the great Russian authors where coming to terms with what made Russia's sense of inferiority with "civilisated" Europe. They offered different answers, but in any case they had to look in what made Russians specifically Russian (and not European-savage-living-in-snow as they were perhaps considered in Europe at the time).

For those reasons, I'd say that the only authors that will compare to Chekov in terms of "provincial realism" are those who wrote in countries that were used to consider themselves inferior to some admired cultural model , and who had to learn to put themselves on euqal foot with that model. The most obvious example here is the US. It's no wonder, in this respect, that Russian /lit is so well-considered among American literati. Another example is Rome who had trouble get off its admiration for the Greeks (in a way Virgil is to Rome what Pushkin is to Russia). Realism wasn't part of the game back in the Roman Empire, so we got a Roman epic instead of Roman realist short stories, but in the case of the US the parallel applies rather well.

If you're searching, more broadly, for detailed accounts of day-to-day life in a given country, there are plenty authors (from the Romans Petrone and Juvenal to Chekov himself) who qualify.

[Anonymous No.4966896]

sorry OP i prefer Salinger

[Anonymous No.4966915]

>>4965570
Gogol is better than Chekhov

Chekhov a shit

[Anonymous No.4967016]

>>4965570
Richard Yates' short stories are often ignored, but they are great. There's a very domestic feel to them.

[Anonymous No.4968253]

>>4966826

Flannery says hi.