Whenever writers and critics attempt to define the mysterious art of the short story, the work of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is evoked. No single influence is more pervasive. No claims to complete mastery of the form are greater than his, based as they are on a diverse canon of more than 220 stories written in a short life which also produced the four major plays on which his reputation as an international dramatist rests.
The American writer Richard Ford, himself a modern master, has chosen well in this vibrant selection of rich, dense tales which includes The Lady with the Dog, Enemies, Peasants, On Official Duty, Ward No 6, The Kiss, Neighbours and Gooseberries, which not only testify to Chekhov's genius as an astute and humane observer as well as inspired chronicler of Russian life, but also leaves the reader greedy for more. Be warned: acquire this book and it will be with you for life. These are stories to read and re-read and remember forever.
How to define the magic of Chekhov? Part of it lies in his elusiveness, subtlety, adroit dialogue, precise description and confident belief in understatement. Unlike Dostoevsky or Tolstoy he avoided sermonising and bold generalisation. Indeed, there is little action in his work. Mood and atmosphere interest him as valuable devices in exploring emotions and dilemmas which at times border on the abstract. The aim of art for him is the depiction of unconditional truth, and he invariably exposes hypocrisy and deception.
In a perceptive and candid introduction to his selection Ford writes that "for all of their surface plainness, their apparent accessibility and clarity, Chekhov's stories - especially the greatest ones - still do not seem so easily penetrable by the unexceptional young. Rather Chekhov seems to me a writer for adults . . . Chekhov's wish is to complicate and compromise our view of characters we might mistakenly suppose we could understand with only a glance."
Ford is right. In Chekhov, there are no types. His characters, many of whom live lives of delusion and futility, are individuals. Nor is there a typical Chekhov story.
Trained as a doctor, Chekhov once declared that a writer must possess the objectivity of a chemist while stressing that such objectivity should not be confused with or mistaken for indifference. "When I write," Chekhov declared, "I rely fully on the reader, presuming that he himself will add the subjective elements missing in my story." Considering the intellectual and, indeed, moral deliberation which underpins his art, the grace, spontaneity and humour of stories which so often exist in the suspended animation of the respective protagonists are all the more remarkable.
Added to this is his ability to limit description, and frequently not only to downplay plot but to reject it. along with the need for a conventional denouement. Small wonder Tolstoy described his work as "impressionist".
His place in a great tradition, beginning with Pushkin and extending through Gogol and Dostoyevsky and on to Bulgakov and Platonov, is obvious. The inspired chaos of Peasants, in which the waiter Nikolay Tchikildyeev is forced home by illness from Moscow to his native village, not only showcases Chekhov's subtle humanity but also his black humour, which co-exists with controlled pathos: A Zemstvo insurance agent arrives in a village, " and ordering the samovar in the hut, had shot himself, to the great surprise of everyone . . ." The doctor who arrives to examine the body has little sympathy: "To shoot oneself in the Zemstvo hut, how tactless! If one does want to put a bullet through one's brains, one ought to do it at home in some outhouse."
One of Chekhov's finest creations, Dr Andrey Yefimitch in Ward No 6, is a huge man, his body that of "an overfed, intemperate and harsh innkeeper on the highroad . . . but his step is soft, and his walk cautious and insinuating; when he meets anyone in a narrow passage he is always the first to stop and make way". The account of Yefimitch's squalid but magnificent descent into despair is among Chekhov's greatest achievements.
Tormented love is a favourite Chekhovian theme. When a mistress abandons her husband in An Anonymous Story and moves in with Orlov, her half-hearted lover, her humiliation is well documented by the narrator, a revolutionary working as a footman. The strength of the story lies in the characterisation of Orlov's sidekicks. One of them, Kukushkin, is described as having "the manners of a lizard. He did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering . . . for the sake of having his name mentioned in the newspapers . . . was ready to submit to any kind of humiliation, to beg, to flatter, to promise."
In About Love a man recalls the love of his life and the days spent pondering the unfairness of it all. "I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman's marrying someone so uninteresting, almost an old man . . . I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened."
The Lady and the Dog remains his most famous tale and is a wonderful and realistic love story. In it, a chance holiday encounter in Yalta between a couple, each of whom is already married, immediately upsets the life of the young woman who admits to being torn by shame and desire. "My husband is a flunkey . . . I was 20 when I married him, I have been tormented by curiosity; I wanted something better . . . and now I have become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom anyone may despise."
Gurov, her lover, is much older and is used to brief affairs. On returning to Moscow and his routine, he has no regrets. "In another month, he fancies, the image of Anna Sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his memory . . . but more than a month passed . . . and his memories glowed more and more vividly . . ." The two come to see themselves as "a pair of birds of passage, caught and forced to live in different cages. They forgave each other for what they were ashamed of in their past . . . and felt that this love of theirs had changed them both." Everyone has favourites, some of which may not be here - such as My Life or In Exile. One thing is certain, however: few of his stories, and certainly none of these, are dated or old-fashioned. As Ford points out, they could be written today, "appear in the New Yorker, and be read for their insight with avidity and delight".
The only possible criticism of this seductive book is that it is, at 362 pages, too small. Chekhov at any size outweighs most writers, but if ever a selection could happily be twice or ten times its length, it is this one. What we really need is the Complete Works - its bulk would be well justified.
Eileen Battersby is an Irish Times journalist and critic
