Reviews for A Life in Letters (Penguin Classics Series)

The average rating for A Life in Letters (Penguin Classics Series) based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-06 00:00:00 Robert Varady Chekhov. He's one of those guys most everybody likes. And if you read 500 pages of his letters, you can see why. Just kind to the core. Talented. And afflicted, poor guy. I speak of course of his short life, dying of consumption (TB) at age 44 in 1904. This after only getting married to the actress Olga Knipper three years earlier and living separately much of that time as he chased health-enhancing locations and she performed in Moscow. This after only writing The Cherry Orchard in 1903, making one wonder how many more wonderful plays he had with him if he lived as long as...oh, Tolstoy. Most of the letters here are to fellow writers and family, and although he visits Tolstoy and writes about it more than once, none of the letters he wrote actually went to Tolstoy. Ironically, in a few letters, Chekhov (also a doctor by training) comments on how old Tolstoy is looking and worries about the guy living much longer. Turns out, Tolstoy would go on to live but two months shy of 1911, outliving Chekhov by six plus years. Of course there are weird little things, too, like how he addressed his wife in letters as "doggie" and himself as "your holy father" until she asked that he stop (the "holy father" part, not the "doggie" part). Chekhov loved dogs. And gardening. And fishing. And, of course, reading. He even reached out to me in 2020. I've been thinking about reading that copy of Goncharov's Oblomov that I own. Then I came across this (Chekhov to Alexey Suvorin): "As I have no new books I'm going over old ground rereading things I have read before. I'm reading Goncharov by the way, and am surprised: why did I ever think him a first-class writer? His Oblomov is really not good at all. Ilya Ilyich as a character is overdone; he is simply not strong enough to sustain a whole book. He is just a flabby layabout like hundreds of others, he's not a complex character, but a commonplace and trivial one; making a social type out of such a person is to elevate him way above his status." Maybe, then, the layabout Oblomov can lay about (on my bookshelf) even longer. If anyone asks, I'll simply say, "Chekhov." Speaking of fellow Russkies, Chekhov also wagered that 90% of Turgenev would be forgotten in 40 years. He might have whiffed on that one, but it made me wish he had identified the 10% he considered classical gas. Last note. I love his short story "The Bishop," and was shocked to read, when he told his wife that he this while working on it: "It's a subject that has been knocking around in my head for about fifteen years." Chekhov in a nutshell, that. A five-page story fifteen years in the making. And, when you read it, like a premonition of his own death.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-09-12 00:00:00 Kevin Gravina "You complain that my characters are gloomy. Alas, this is not my fault! They come out like that without my necessarily wanting them to, and when I am writing I don't feel as though I am writing gloomily. In any case, I'm always in a good mood when I'm writing. It is a well-documented fact that pessimists and melancholics always write in a very upbeat way, whereas cheerful writers generally manage to depress their readers. My temperament is inclined to be cheerful; at least for the first thirty years of my life I have lived, as they say, content with my lot." (Letter to Lidia Avilova, 6 October 1897) A complete delight. Anton Pavlovich, uncensored! Chekhov is as profound and fun and pleasant in his letters as he is in his stories and plays. He expounds on literature, art, politics, relationships, sex, other famous writers, his work as a physician, Russia, among other things, and always with his characteristic wit and emotional gravity. His letters from his travels in Continental Europe and Asia are especially enjoyable, even as he is trying to remain healthy and stable while battling tuberculosis. And I loved his pet names/greetings for his wife ("Dearest little colt!" "My own true doggie!" "Hello, my incomparable little horse!" "My dearest chaffinch!"). Reading his letters from 1904 are heartbreaking, knowing that he is so close to death. I almost wish that the letters had been grouped by correspondent, instead of chronologically, but perhaps that is never done in published books of letters. It would have been nice to have been able to read his entire correspondence with one person (as it was often difficult to remember the identities of the various recipients); but as it is, this collection is a rollicking insight into the life of one of the greatest writers we've ever known. Highly recommended to Russian literature aficionados and, naturally, vociferous Chekhov admirers like myself.