FT-Chekhov

I came to appreciate Chekhov relatively late in my life. The plays with their somewhat distracted and bored characters, their emphasis on 'atmosphere' and a kind of slow-motion poetic of human character and feeling never struck me. But the stories especially as I have read them in the past couple of years strike me as among the very greatest in world- literature. Here of course I am echoing what I suspect is the general consensus among readers of great literature. Troyat the skilled biographer of Tolstoy, Pushkin and others here does a very competent job telling of the life of a genius who from beginning to end knew many disappointments, much cruelty, and yet much joy also. He tells the story of a literary genius , beaten as a child, raised in poverty who came to be the responsible one of the family. He tells of someone who knew cruelty early and yet devoted himself to caring for others, for the poor and sick. He also speaks of the development of the writer from one who wrote humorous, off - the cuff sketches to earn money, and who with the years would write great literary masterpieces. Chekhov was at the very top of his art in two major genres, in drama and in the short- story. He was one of those who dying young nonetheless blazed in his years of creation with such intensity that his work promises to live down the generations. Reading of his suffering, his last years, his relation to the wife circumstances and work separated him from, and to whom he longed to be with reminds how frail and filled with sufferings even the most 'useful' lives may be.