![]() ![]() “So many hereditary negatives were turned into positives,” Michael C. ![]() His imagination and professional knowledge allowed him to depict passions he did not act upon. He himself didn’t do most of that his fiction was where he streamed into other consciousnesses and cut loose, fell apart, ambled like a shepherd, or strode like a wife on her way to or from an assignation. He describes what it feels like to fall in love, to be pregnant and to miscarry, to bully one’s children, to flutter about helplessly while seeking someone to love, to have typhus, to cringe with embarrassment over a bespattering sneeze, to blather like a professor, to be struck dumb by love, to beg for sympathy, to grieve, to menace the innocent, to be conscious of but prey to one’s weaknesses, to be overworked to the point of hallucinating, to be ruthless. Even as he imagined the agitations and disruptions and occasional explosions of his characters, he was always also a doctor. Chekhov began his professional career as a writer while in medical school. We observe more than judge his characters’ actions we detect their mental and emotional states through their physical symptoms. ![]() He shows us how to read him he quietly attunes us to place and situation. CHEKHOV IS EASIER to know and read than the other Russian giants. ![]()
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