The Comic Stories by Anton s> Chekhov Harvey Pitcher (review)

Abstract

738 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 Young'sbook developsan originalapproachto narrativeand, on the whole, applies it convincingly to Idiot.Her argument builds on the work of Roblin Feuer Miller, Gary Saul Morson, and other English-language critics, and shows true familiarity with the Russian secondary sources not least, of course, Bakhtin,whose influence hangs over this book. There is more lit-crit jargon than some readerswill enjoy (thoughless than found in other, weaker studies of narrative). But, given Young's radical conclusions, those with an interest in theories of the novel, Dostoevskii'spoetics, or enthusiasm for his mysteriousIdiotwill welcome thisbook. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies DEREK BROWER University College London Chekhov, Anton. TheComic Stories. Chosen and translatedby Harvey Pitcher. Andre Deutsch, London, 2004. 2I8 pp. Introduction. Notes. ?7.99 (paperback). HARVEY PITCHER is one of our leading Chekhov specialists and his monographs and translations are highly regarded both in the English-speaking world and in Russia.The presentvolume containsfiftystories,as againstforty in thefirstedition, publishedin I998. There is a new introductionandthirteen newly translatedstories.Three longer storieshave been excluded. The majorityof these storieswere writtenbetween I884 and I886, that is, during the Antosha Chekhonte period; four were published in I887, one in I888. The collection containswell-knownpieces, for example 'The Daughter ofAlbion', 'The Death of a Civil Servant','The Chameleon' and theintriguing 'Romance withDouble-Bass'.More importantly,thereaderishereintroduced to less well-known ironic and mischievous pieces like 'ADreadful Night', 'A Woman without Prejudices', 'Revenge', 'How I Entered into Lawful Matrimony ', 'He Quarrelled with his Wife', 'The Burbot' ('Nalim', a fisherman's tale and a tough challenge for the translator) and 'In the Dark' with its Gogolian opening sentence: 'Amedium-sized fly had found its way into the nose of deputyprosecutor(civilservice,grade 7) Gagin' (p. 82). Pitcher had the formidable task of selecting the fifty 'best' of Chekhov's early stories out of a total of 528. Rightly, he does not treat as sacrosanctall and everythingChekhov had written. 'I needed to likea story [... .]; to reckon that it was good enough to be worth translating;and to feel a translator'sitch to find out how it would readin English'(p. 2). The targets of Chekhov'sprose are greed, envy, petty ambitions, servility, pompous language and behaviour all the shortcomings appropriately described by Vladimir Nabokov as 'poshlust'.A good example is the ministory 'From the Diary of an Assistant Book-keeper' (i 883), which records a junior official'sobsession with promotion. For this to happen, his senior has either to retire or to die, preferably and probably the latter. The diarist is delightedwhen the newspapersreportan outbreakof plague (cholera):it may spreadto Moscow and finishhis superioroff. Inevitably,there is a twistin t;he tail.Afterthe book-keeper'sdeath the coveted post goes to somebody else, 'po blatu'. We also receive an insight into the diarist'shum-drum vision of t;he REVIEWS 739 worldaroundhim. 'Grabsky[Kleshchevin the original]took PrivyCouncillor Lirman'sgaloshes instead of his own. What a to-do!' (p. 23). He boasts that '[I'll] buy myself a racoon coat and a dressing-gown once I'm book-keeper' (p. 22) -further evidence that Dostoevskii was not alone in owing a debt to Gogol'. A translatorworth his salt has an impeccable command of both languages and is familiarwith stylisticand linguisticregisters.Pitcherpossessesthis gift, writingin a contemporaryand naturalidiom, without sacrificingthe essential Russiannessof Chekhov'sprose. This is demonstratedby a randomlyselected passage in another diary story, 'Fromthe Diary of a Young Maiden' (1883). 'Nakonets-to i na moei ulitse prazdnik! Gliazhu i ne veriu svoim glazam. Peredmoimi oknamivzad i vpered khoditvysokii,statnyibriunets glubokimi glazami. Usy - prelest'!'(PSSiP,2, p. 267). Pitcher:'My luck'sin at last!I can scarcelybelieve my eyes. This man's been pacing up and down in frontof my windows. He's tall and well-built,with darkhair, deep blackeyes, and a super moustache!'(p. 97). PeterConstantine,whereas,a relativelynew translatorof Chekhov, rendersthe opening sentence thus:'Finallysomething is happening on my street!',revealinghis ignorance of its colloquial usage (TheUndiscovered Chekhov. Fifty-One NewlyTranslated Stories, London, 200I, P. 97). The stories are peppered with curious personal names. A case in point is 'Loshadinaiafamiliia' ('AHorsy Name', I885). The story was translatedby MarianFellin 1915, but it has generallybeen regardedas untranslatable...