The Collected Short Stories of Maxim Gorky

A Russian Steinbeck! Excellent writing even if it is a bit "dark". Clearly one of the works underpinning any real understanding of "the Russian Soul".

This is the first time I have read anything by Maxim Gorky. I just wish that I could write like that. He writes about working class people in Russia. They drink and fight and work. And this is like so many other stories except Gorky does it so much better .

Gorky is quite unlike the other Russian writers that I've read. His works do exude the common pessimism, but that's clearly a by-product of the dreadful living conditions they all underwent. Beginning with detailed descriptions of place (even down to the nicks on a wooden lath or the odd drop of paint) that would do justice to Henry James, Gorky always delineates his characters so very painstakingly that we have not the least difficulty picturing them and vicariously living through their adventures. Gorky is a master of the gamut of human emotion. As glorious as I find his understressed paean to nature in "Birth of a Man," equally profoundly disturbing do I find his narration of the kitten's fate in "Notch." Not even the most barely supraliminal aberration of human behavior escapes his notice and caustic commentary. Yet, the sarcasm that perpetually lies beneath the surface--so often indicative of the jaded writer--does not come across as such in Gorky: indeed, he is arguably one of the most human writers I've ever countenanced.