The Shooting Party Book

On Youtube, I came across on the fragment of the movie I knew since my childhood with breathtaking Waltz music. It is the one of the best waltz i know, including Strauss or Shostakovich. The movie is loosely based on Chekhov's short novel. I've seen it many year ago, but, I've realised, I've never read the novel. So I've read it now. It is wonderful. It is the one of longer works by Chekhov (he did not leave any proper novel and preferred the short form). It feels surprisingly modern: it is structured as a longish novella packed within a short story. And I did not know anyone used the footnotes meaningfully in fiction before David Foster Wallace 100 years later. Chekhov does it here. Also it reminded me Nabokov's "Pale Fire". May be some people would find the comparison a bit far-fetched, but Nabokov loved Chekhov (while he hated Dostoyevsky and many others Russian writers).

I would not talk here about the plot, or the characters, or the language. Suffice to say, it is Chekhov at his best plus a bit of a twist, which I think is not usual for him. I do not know why they translate the title as "Shooting party". In Russian it literary means " A drama during the hunting". It is quite a bit of a difference. So I am not sure how well the rest is translated. But I really recommend it if you like Russian literature.

Btw, this is the Waltz:



По-русски

Удивительно, насколько Чехов умеет создать второстепенные персонажи! Поликарп, Франц, Сычиха делают это повесть просто гениальной. И еще атмосфера - такого русского беспробудного пьяно-разгильдяйства и неприкаянности. Я забыла про ee существование. Надо будет еще его позднего почитать.