Richard Luckett on Chekhov's sense of decency

It was Chekhov's friend Ivan Bunin who recorded of him that "he would make the most amusing remarks without a suspicion of

a smile he loved mystifying people." But Chekhov's enthusiasm for creating puzzlement only went so far: the distorted views of his character and work current in his lifetime caused him considerable distress, and it would hardly have pleased him to know that after his death these misunderstandings, far from diminishing, hardened into rigid — though often incompatible — orthodoxies. When Tolstoy told Chekhov, "You know I can't stand Shakespeare, but your plays are even worse than his", Chekhov, whose enormous admiration for Totstoy was kept this side idolatry by an awareness of his eccentricities and imperiousness, was almost gleeful. But when Stanislavsky mounted productions of his plays that revealed a total failure to comprehend his intentions, Chekhov was understandably bitter. In due course the Stanislavsky/Moscow Art Theatre performances were to be accepted as the definitive readings of Chekhov's plays, and the view of life that these gloomy, slow-paced interpretations proposed was foisted by his biographers onto the studiously misrepresented playwright. Thus in one view he became the melancholy elegiast of an enfeebled intelligentsia doomed by the coming revolution whilst at the same time the heirs of that revolution made him out to be one of them, an adherent of the Marxist view of social progress whose writings offered a definitive critique of the ruling classes and the bourgeoisie. At his Crimean home, preserved as a museum, strange alterations took place, portraits of Gorky appearing on the walls and the works of Lenin manifesting themselves on his bookshelves; abroad, by mutations no less peculiar the disinherited Oinigrds attempted to show that this courteous unbeliever had been, in his last years, a loyal member of the Russian Church. Meanwhile foreign readers of Chekhov had to make the best of it, and whilst some saw through the obfuscations. with a perceptivity denied to native critics others — notably whose who had the temerity to write about him or translate him — added

to the confusion. • Such, at least, is the contention of Simon Karlinsky, who in presenting a new selection of Chekhov's letters* in fact offers a fresh view of Chekhov himself. The translation is more accurate than any hitherto published, the edition takes account of recent Soviet scholarship whilst restoring those passages excised from the Soviet editions for political reasons and the annotations are extensive and helpful. But what gives this edition its particular value is the biographical and critical frame provided by Professor Karlinsky. This scaffolding is in itself something of a literary feat, for Professor Karlinsky, rather than simply assert another view of Chekhov, has set himself the task of explaining the reasons

for the existence of the principal orthodoxies. In his introduction he demonstrates how the two most influential Russian literary critics ofthe mid-nineteenth century, Belinsky and Chemyshevsky, perverted their art by using it as a means of outwitting the censorship. Lenin's description of Chernyshevsky's analysis of On the Etc as "a genuine revolutionary manifesto, written in such a way that remains unforgotten to this day" tells us all we need to know. The purpose of writing about a work of literature became the reformation of society and the criticism of the existing order. Precisely because they were writing about politics rather than literature the critics achieved a large and credulous audience; their power became formidable, writers kept in line and a narrow concern with whatever was 'relevant' and utilitarian became the order of the day. Dmitry Pisarev achieved the dubious distinction of being the first literary critic openly to express his conviction that imaginative literature was a waste of time. Poetry became widely suspect, and the whole complexion of literature

became ideological. Into this world Chekhov came as though by stealth, surfacing amongst the giants of the 'thick' (i.e. serious) journals from the submerged levels of the humour magazines and popular dailies, like a nuclear submarine emerging through a flaw in the polar ice. What was to be done?

The only reasonable answer was — nothing at all. Literary critics should learn their place. But Russian sloth, though continually enlarged on by Russian writers, has never stilled their pens, and the game of labelling Chekhov was soon under way. Professor Karlinsky charts its progress and its consequences, and in so doing establishes that being tagged was the one thing Chekhov most hated, not through any atavistic fear of being

named and known, but because he,disbelieved entirely in the whole apparatus of tags and

labels. As he expressed it in one of the letters

which Professor Karlinsky prints, to him the). were simply prejudices: "My holy of holies 15

the human body, health, intelligence, talent.

inspiration, love and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence

and lies, no matter what form the two latter take." People had to accept his writings foe what they were, not to try to fit them into anY

predetermined pattern; equality, in his writ.

ings he was concerned with representing people as they really were, not in presenting

literary stereotypes such as ' the superfIcan

man' or the God-fearing peasant.' But when he presented some character who did not ill

the available gallery of types, that characret was interpreted in such a way as to tailor hinl to the conventional form; Dr Lvov, in 1vall01; was seen by the audience not as a cruel. ill.; sensitive and dogmatic, but as a debonair ann, liberal hero. The public's expectations ban become procrustean, and Chekhov had t abjure even his friends: "If someone servesel you coffee don't try to look t'or beer in it."

Professor Karlinsky's commentary is tended to stop readers looking for beer, he has used the same criterion in making In' choice of letters. He is not unique in his vie"'

of Chekhov; in 1914 Harold Williams. tlije Russian correspondent of the Times, observe' that the important thing about Chekhov vin5 that he had no predetermined attitude save an aversion from theory, and that he was P°S; sessed of a "reverence for the bare facts life" which was connected with his choice 0' a medical career.Professor Karlinsky is 9)0A concerned to establish this association, anu,

develops the theme of Chekhov's medic interests, stressing that he never whol!Y

abandoned his profession, and printing irl support of this a number of letters connectel with his work during the cholera epidemic 0 1892. He establishes what amounts to ' counterpoint between Chekhov's medical and literary activities: after graduating as a doctnt

Chekhov turned to writing until, having

achieved publication in the 'thick' journals and success on the stage with /canoe, he sett. out on his journey to the penal colony °I Sakhalin. His travels enabled him to exercise his medical skills, his interest in natural his" tory and also his literary ability; they gave him the inner resources to sustain his powers during the next decade of intense activitY,

during which he was writing, looking after hiS parents and his brothers, organising philanthropic work, leading a full social life and fighting the onset of tuberculosis. At the

time when The Seagull was in production Chekhov, characteristically, was also buSY looking for a backer for an influential but inadequately supported medical magazine which was in danger of having to close. When Professor Karlinsky rebukes the carelessnese, of his predecessors in translating the names 01 the plants and animals that appear in the; letters he does so not out of pedantry, bO from the conviction that precision of obsee; vation and expression are at the root ot Chekhov's character and achievement. The consequence of this is an edition of Chelthov's letters that not only supersedes On: existing English versions (though in fairne5'. an exception must be macie for a selection Abraham Yarmolinsky, p9blished recently ill the United States but not at present available in Britain) but also supersedes the existing biographies. This is a large claim yet there call be no doubt that Karlinsky has made this nn essential corrective to all the popular ne'

counts. If his work falls short of perfection.; then it is for an interesting reason. There cn,l'

be little doubt that his great inspiration 15 Vladimir Nabokov; the view of Russian literary history he propounds is fundamentallYt that enunciated by Nabokov in his novel. Cot which Russian literature is the hero") Dot (The Gitt), and the method he adopts in this . . edition reflects, in a modest way, the extravagant example of Nabokov's Eugene Onegin. Karlinsky's digressions, on Gorky, Meyerhold, Stanislavsky and his very amusing note on Bryusov, are miniatures of what Nabokov does in his two volumes of annotation, and perform the same task of illuminating the central matter by establishing a context. But Karlinsky attempts to follow Nabokov in his knowing use of American colloquialisms and his crushing asides, and the result is not always happy. Summary Judgements — Gorky's later output an " unreadable bore today", Chekhov's The New villa' a "profound little story", Tolstoy a ' complex, towering writer" — may well be accurate, but they are devalued when expressed in the language of arbitrary pedagogy. Nabokov can carry off this language, even when dismissing Dostoevsky, but Professor Karlinsky, who has less of a talent for self-caricature, lacks the qualifications. This is not a de-recommendation, but a warning; it would be a pity if anyone was dissuaded from reading this splendid volume by lighting at random on one of his less felicitous parentheses. in the main his opinions are remarkable both for their shrewdness and for the conviction they carry.

Great writers are not necessarily great letter writers, but there can be no doubt of Chekhov's standing. Soon after his death Bunin remarked that his letters had "perfection of form", and in this he was perfectly correct. Unlike previous editors Professor Karlinsky prints each letter in its entirety, with the result that it is soon apparent that each epistle has a rhythm and shape of its own, conveying a sense not just of its writer but of the person destined to receive it. There was nothing costive about Chekhov as a letter writer; anything that he dealt with he discussed fully, and he never disguised his own feelings or failed to give his reasons for thinking and acting as he did. The letters don't elucidate his literary work, because he was not interested in writing in ways that demanded elucidation. When he explains a Point it is generally connected with his plays, and the object of the explanation is to prevent an erroneous interpretation. And, for all that he hated much that happened to his work on the stage, even then he would not explain overmuch, since what he had to offer was in the play itself. But the letters do tell us about Chekhov the man, and this can help us, as Professor Karlinsky demonstrates, to a proper understanding of his work. He emerges as remarkably catholic in his friendships, and always ready to respond with affection to affection. His feeling for Suvorin, the publisher Who helped him in his early years, persisted even when the latter had become, for his reactionary opinions, one of the most unPopular men in Russia. At the same time he Was able to offer Gorky help and guidance, to campaign against corporal punishment and the maltreatment of national minorities, to express his joy at the beauty of wild animals, of Plants and the seasons, and to help his family in their numerous troubles. His assistance to his family is a saga in itself; one brother led a life so chaotic that he could remember neither the date nor year of his son's birth, and he naturally appealed ao Anton to help resolve the problem. The consistent thing in all this is Chekhov's sense of decency, his endeavour to face the facts and then to see that the right thing was done, without superfluous heat, indignation or dramatics.

There are clues here, also, to the' solution of .large problems. Few people would doubt that Chekhov was amongst the greatest in the Pantheon of Russian literature, and waverers might, well be convinced by Professor Karlinsky's arguments. At the same time, if we compare him with Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoievsky we may become aware of a slight hesitation. Robert Graves has a story of how he showed the work of a poet whom he admired to Yeats, who said that it was "too truthful", a comment which Graves regarded as "devilish". The poems in question were not more than minor, but Yeats's comment, properly understood, is relevant here. It is possible to feel that Chekhov, in his most' serious work, is perhaps too cold, too detached, too dispassionate — lacking in passion, in fact. The feeling is far from overwhelming, but lurks on the margins of our consciousness. Translations, which inevitable take the edge off the sharpness of language and observation, do not help matters. Possibly the most significant thing that the letters do is to give us a check on this sensation, a momentary finger on the doctor's pulse. They tell us when he reacted and when he did not — and Chekhovstayed in control.