![]() Rayfield, it makes for a thick, lugubrious book devoid of analysis and insight and packed with trivia and meaningless facts. When employed by an artist of Chekhov's subtlety and genius, this technique can make for radiant, allusive fiction when employed by a heavy-handed biographer like Mr. Rayfield's apparent determination to write a Chekhovian narrative, that is, a narrative that suggests rather than shows, a narrative dependent on hints, inferences and the accumulation of tiny details. The second problem with this book also has to do with methodology: namely, Mr. Rayfield might have to offer, and that robs us as well of the opportunity to understand the alchemical process by which Chekhov transformed his life into art. It is a decision that deprives us of whatever critical insights Mr. Rayfield, a professor of Russian literature at the University of London, demonstrates an easy familiarity with his subject's work, he has perversely decided to eschew extended discussions of Chekhov's plays and stories. The book suffers from two problems that distract attention from the author's prodigious research. Rayfield has created a minutely detailed, if ultimately opaque picture of Chekhov - a portrait that depicts the writer as a womanizer and misogynist, a chilly, detached man, capable of great charm and intermittent generosity, but also willfully protective of his own freedom and often cruelly hurtful toward those who loved him. Drawing upon previously unpublished material (including many letters to Chekhov from friends and colleagues), Mr. This myth is seriously challenged by ''Anton Chekhov,'' a new biography by the scholar Donald Rayfield. Even Tolstoy called him ''a beautiful, magnificent man.'' The wisdom of his stories, his sensitivity as a writer, his plays' nuanced insights into human nature - all, we've been encouraged to assume, attest to, his own humanity and compassion. It is hard to talk about anything in Taganrog without mentioning Anton Chekhov as we experienced in the town.The popular image of Anton Chekhov that has come down to us is that of a saintly man: not only the ''nicest'' and most approachable of the great Russian writers, lacking Tolstoy's ego and Dostoyevsky's torment, but also the very model of a mensch, that rare thing, a selfless writer who expended much of the energy in his short life caring for others - for his large, importunate family and for the patients he tended to as a doctor. It was a tiny house with a green rooftop and this too was carefully preserved.Īside from these museums, many streets in the centre of Taganrog boast comical statues of Chekhov's characters from different plays and short stories. We asked the museum attendant to play his clockwork lantern and it was still working!įrom Chekhov's shop, we went to the house near the Azov Sea where Chekhov spent his childhood. There is a nursery where we saw original toys which once belonged to little Anton. We went upstairs to see the living room where guests were invited and the family played piano and sang. There is a modern teashop in one corner, and a museum in the rest of the rooms. Interestingly the shop is still there, with its dusty shelves and faded boxes once full of fragrant tea and coffee. Old uneven stairs lead to an old and heavy wooden door surrounded by the original 19th-century signboards. The building also housed the shop owned by Chekhov's family. The museum has an impressive collection of Chekhov's books in dozens of languages along with dresses and original screenplays of his dramas.Ĭhekhov's family shop and childhood houseįrom Chekhov's gymnasium, we were taken to Chekhov's shop, another museum, where Chekhov along with his family used to live. There are also a few rooms dedicated to his later life in Moscow and Crimea, his work and his characters. It even had the design of the house that Chekhov's father planned to construct but could not because of the huge expenses. ![]() The small objects used by Chekhov, his first report card, the bench in the classroom where he usually used to sit. ![]() In 1879, Chekhov passed his final exams and joined his family in Moscow where he had obtained scholarship to study medicine at the Moscow University.Ĭhekhov's story was told to us along with the demonstration of different memorabilia and objects. The future world-famous playwright survived selling off household goods and tutoring younger school students at the Boy's Gymnasium. Anton was left in Taganrog to care for himself and finish school. After his father's business failed, the whole family left for Moscow in 1875 or 1876. As an adolescent he tried his hand at writing anecdotes, amusing or funny stories, although he wrote a serious long play at this time titled "Fatherless" which he later got rid of.
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