George Saunders' new book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, analyzes several Russian short stories by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, and Gogol. As a Russophile, I was happy to read or reread the stories he selected, which included The Nose, The Master and the Man, The Cart, and at least one story from A Sportsman's Sketches, and other nineteenth century classics. On the other hand, I was just slightly disappointed that Saunders didn't have any special expertise in either Russian literature or history. Picking up the book felt like a case of false advertising. Yes, Saunders had taught a course in the Russian short story for several decades and knew these stories intimately. However, he was primarily concerned with the craftsmanship of the stories, rather than their Russian themes or the Russian literary contexts from which they emerged. Indeed, Saunders analyzed these short stories primarily from the point of view of a writer, or would-be writer. In some ways, Saunders could have written the same sort of book about any group of short stories. He really did not need to limit himself to Russian stories, so the book seemed a bit gimmicky. In any case, Sanders did something new by asking readers to read these stories, and then carefully deconstruct them in terms of their plot and other literary devices. And certainly it was nice to approach these classics from the point of view of a writer learning a craft. It was somewhat exciting to be asked by Saunders to think about the many choices each of these Russian authors made when creating their masterpieces. It was also interesting to see that Saunders thinks that a writer like Turgenev may have actually created something unique as result of his own creative limitations. That is to say, Saunders argues that Turgenev was not an expert at plot, but therefore turned characterization and setting and detail into something extraordinarily beautiful.
Showing posts with label Anton Chekhov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anton Chekhov. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Vladimir Nemirovitch-Dantchenko's My Life in the Theatre
Vladimir Nemirovitch-Dantchenko was a revolutionary force in the Russian theater for several decades. Although he wrote excellent plays, his role as a co-founder of the famous Moscow Art Theater, and producer of some of the best Russian and European playwrights of the first part of the twentieth century, brought him enduring fame in the history of the modern theater. His book, My Life in the Russian Theater, first published in 1936, outlines his artistic creed, but, owing to its dignified prose and gentlemanly anecdotes, seems a bit dated now. The fact that Nemirovitch-Dantchenko wrote the book on the eve of Stalin's Great Terror could not have encouraged free artistic expression or personal honesty. At any rate, Nemirovitch-Dantchenko explains the mechanics of his partnership with Constantin Stanislavsky, and also describes the origins of the Moscow Art Theater in great detail. On aesthetics, Nemirovitch-Dantchenko describes his dissatisfaction with the nineteenth century intelligentsia's narrow interest in liberalism and social problems. He also explains his resentment for playwrights who created characters for the sake of their favorite actors and subscribed to a whole set of unrealistic theatrical conventions. He insisted that great plays arose from "
familiar life" rather than the "familiar stage." Nemirovich-Dantechenko also supported literary genius and the dignity of the stage. He and Stanislavsky also opposed the idea that the audience rather than the producer were the proper masters of the aesthetic experience. For instance, the director and producer no longer permitted theatergoers to enter the play after it had begun. He also describes his enthusiasm for Chekhov, who recognized the importance of the quotidian context of his characters, avoided the deus ex machina and external effects in general, and created truthful depictions of human struggles with mortality and meaning.
Some quotes:
Grigorovitch: "He is not worthy of kissing the trail of the flea which has bitten Chekhov!"
Another Coryphaeaus of Russian literature, Boborikin, said that he gave himself the pleasure of reading every day, without fail, a tale of Chekhov's.
A certain writer said: "Talent is necessary for the writing of a play, but genius for its production."
familiar life" rather than the "familiar stage." Nemirovich-Dantechenko also supported literary genius and the dignity of the stage. He and Stanislavsky also opposed the idea that the audience rather than the producer were the proper masters of the aesthetic experience. For instance, the director and producer no longer permitted theatergoers to enter the play after it had begun. He also describes his enthusiasm for Chekhov, who recognized the importance of the quotidian context of his characters, avoided the deus ex machina and external effects in general, and created truthful depictions of human struggles with mortality and meaning.
Some quotes:
Grigorovitch: "He is not worthy of kissing the trail of the flea which has bitten Chekhov!"
Another Coryphaeaus of Russian literature, Boborikin, said that he gave himself the pleasure of reading every day, without fail, a tale of Chekhov's.
A certain writer said: "Talent is necessary for the writing of a play, but genius for its production."
Monday, December 10, 2018
Chekhov Revised
The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov, edited by Vera Gottlieb and Paul Allain, is a treasure drove of information about one of Russia's most important writers. It's got wonderful essays on each of Chekhov's major plays, as well as an essay that discusses his lesser known, but still well-made, short plays. It's also got informative essays on Chekhov's influence on acting, stagecraft, and film, and other essays on his short stories. Below are some short descriptions of just a few of the essays that I found particularly intriguing. Overall, one gets a sense of Chekhov's aesthetic genius, but also a sense that this genius may be a little less historically transcendent than we might have once believed. In other words, the essays convince us that Chekhov had something extremely important to say about the human condition in the early part of the twentieth century, but that his insight may have been particularly shocking at a particular moment in European literary history. Perhaps this is as it should be. Plays, in particular, often seem to be rooted in a particular aesthetic moment, although Greek Plays, Shakespeare, and maybe Oscar Wilde, seem to weather the passing of time rather well.
Alexander Chudakov
Chudakov's biographical essay on Chekhov emphasizes the fact that the author was always grounded in the specific, material problems of existence. This approach may have originated from the author's experience with medicine and science. At any rate, Chekhov's aesthetics always involve everyday difficulties and detailed landscapes, and the absence of authorial comment. Chedukov's approach to storytelling reminds me that I once read a critical analysis of Woody Allen's movie, Annie Hall, in which the critic pointed out that Allen had introduced the love affair in media res, with the couple spilling onto the screen in the midst of a relatively banal fight about the movie they are about to see. By the time the audience meets the two lovers, they sense the two protagonists are already deeply familiar with one another, almost to the point of boredom or annoyance. The realism of Annie Hall stems from the fact that the romanticism of their origins has been eliminated from the script. Chudakov says Chekhov always placed his characters into precise settings, and drew inspiration from the men and women he had observed in such settings.
Emma Polotskaya
Polotskaya thinks the secret of Chekhov is the metaphors he uses to describe Russia. He thinks of Russia as a desert, a plain, an abyss, or even a prison. These metaphors all seem to describe some measure of isolation as well as suffering or even oppression. Chekhov wasn't of course only inspired by his art or personal philosophy of existence to think of Russia as a place of suffering. He had worked among impoverished Russians and encountered misery in his travels to Sakhalin Island. Chekhov's attitude toward Russian misery, or human misery in general, suggests that he was a pessimist. However, Chekhov's power as an artist is related to the fact that he was ambivalent about the future. Clearly, many of his short stories and plays include characters who maintain some level of faith in the ability of individuals to work for the social improvement of Russia.
Anatoly Smeliansky
This author focuses on Chekhov's influence on theater via the Moscow Art Theater. According to Smeliansky, Chekhov wanted a drama of life rather than a drama in life. Avoiding any authorial voice, Chekhov obscured his plots and provided audiences with little consolation and no explanation for the tragic dimensions of his plays. His plays were always ensemble productions. He also placed emphasis on the psychological aspects of existence. As Chekhov once stated, his characters now shot themselves due to ennui rather than due embezzlement, as they had before.
Vera Gottlieb
Gottlieb discovers Chekhov's contributions to a modernist theater in a letter to his brother in 1886. According to the letter, a playwright should avoid political or social commentary, work toward "total objectivity," truthfully describe persons and objects, avoid prolixity and stereotypes, and cultivate compassion. Gottlieb also depicts the change in Chekhov's approach to modern tragedy thus: In conventional theater, characters aren't able to affect change in their environment for one reason or another, but in Chekhov's plays, the characters could take control of their situation, but for "complex reasons" do not elect to do so.
Patrice Pavis
For Pavis, Ivanov bears witness to the invention of a new dramaturgy. In older plays, audiences encounter well-defined conflicts, well-made plots, clearly externalized actions, dramatic structures that overshadow characters' dramatic words, and characters who acts as the author's mouthpieces. In Ivanov, we now see ambiguity, ellipsis, unspoken or implicit character motivations, and indeterminacy. The flow of plot is logical, dramatic, planned, and expected. The new dramaturgy leaves audiences unguided. New new plot, such as it is, is decentralized. With Ivanov, Chekhov is in the process of creating a theater of silences, suspension, and subtexts.
Thomas Kilroy
In the Seagull, Chekhov demonstrated a kind of Olympian detachment from his characters' lives. This detachment allowed him to be generous in his views of their everyday tragedies. From this perspective, Chekhov notes that his characters are suffering from the passage of time. And with time flowing irreversibly, no true heroism is really possible. If anything, a Chekhovian character can only hope to be persistent, to move "through and beyond" failure. In the Seagull, every character is caught up in the awkward, untidy, confusing present. While trying to see the future more clearly, Chekhov's characters often appear to be absurd. However, their absurdity is inevitable--part of the human condition.
Leonid Heifetz
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya portrays a typical Russian intellectual, incapable of achieving greatness through action. Indeed, Heifetz declares that every character in the play is a born loser. Heifetz thinks that Chekhov has somehow captured the essence of the twentieth century by depicting a man who isn't even capable of killing himself.
Alexander Chudakov
Chudakov's biographical essay on Chekhov emphasizes the fact that the author was always grounded in the specific, material problems of existence. This approach may have originated from the author's experience with medicine and science. At any rate, Chekhov's aesthetics always involve everyday difficulties and detailed landscapes, and the absence of authorial comment. Chedukov's approach to storytelling reminds me that I once read a critical analysis of Woody Allen's movie, Annie Hall, in which the critic pointed out that Allen had introduced the love affair in media res, with the couple spilling onto the screen in the midst of a relatively banal fight about the movie they are about to see. By the time the audience meets the two lovers, they sense the two protagonists are already deeply familiar with one another, almost to the point of boredom or annoyance. The realism of Annie Hall stems from the fact that the romanticism of their origins has been eliminated from the script. Chudakov says Chekhov always placed his characters into precise settings, and drew inspiration from the men and women he had observed in such settings.
Emma Polotskaya
Polotskaya thinks the secret of Chekhov is the metaphors he uses to describe Russia. He thinks of Russia as a desert, a plain, an abyss, or even a prison. These metaphors all seem to describe some measure of isolation as well as suffering or even oppression. Chekhov wasn't of course only inspired by his art or personal philosophy of existence to think of Russia as a place of suffering. He had worked among impoverished Russians and encountered misery in his travels to Sakhalin Island. Chekhov's attitude toward Russian misery, or human misery in general, suggests that he was a pessimist. However, Chekhov's power as an artist is related to the fact that he was ambivalent about the future. Clearly, many of his short stories and plays include characters who maintain some level of faith in the ability of individuals to work for the social improvement of Russia.
Anatoly Smeliansky
This author focuses on Chekhov's influence on theater via the Moscow Art Theater. According to Smeliansky, Chekhov wanted a drama of life rather than a drama in life. Avoiding any authorial voice, Chekhov obscured his plots and provided audiences with little consolation and no explanation for the tragic dimensions of his plays. His plays were always ensemble productions. He also placed emphasis on the psychological aspects of existence. As Chekhov once stated, his characters now shot themselves due to ennui rather than due embezzlement, as they had before.
Vera Gottlieb
Gottlieb discovers Chekhov's contributions to a modernist theater in a letter to his brother in 1886. According to the letter, a playwright should avoid political or social commentary, work toward "total objectivity," truthfully describe persons and objects, avoid prolixity and stereotypes, and cultivate compassion. Gottlieb also depicts the change in Chekhov's approach to modern tragedy thus: In conventional theater, characters aren't able to affect change in their environment for one reason or another, but in Chekhov's plays, the characters could take control of their situation, but for "complex reasons" do not elect to do so.
Patrice Pavis
For Pavis, Ivanov bears witness to the invention of a new dramaturgy. In older plays, audiences encounter well-defined conflicts, well-made plots, clearly externalized actions, dramatic structures that overshadow characters' dramatic words, and characters who acts as the author's mouthpieces. In Ivanov, we now see ambiguity, ellipsis, unspoken or implicit character motivations, and indeterminacy. The flow of plot is logical, dramatic, planned, and expected. The new dramaturgy leaves audiences unguided. New new plot, such as it is, is decentralized. With Ivanov, Chekhov is in the process of creating a theater of silences, suspension, and subtexts.
Thomas Kilroy
In the Seagull, Chekhov demonstrated a kind of Olympian detachment from his characters' lives. This detachment allowed him to be generous in his views of their everyday tragedies. From this perspective, Chekhov notes that his characters are suffering from the passage of time. And with time flowing irreversibly, no true heroism is really possible. If anything, a Chekhovian character can only hope to be persistent, to move "through and beyond" failure. In the Seagull, every character is caught up in the awkward, untidy, confusing present. While trying to see the future more clearly, Chekhov's characters often appear to be absurd. However, their absurdity is inevitable--part of the human condition.
Leonid Heifetz
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya portrays a typical Russian intellectual, incapable of achieving greatness through action. Indeed, Heifetz declares that every character in the play is a born loser. Heifetz thinks that Chekhov has somehow captured the essence of the twentieth century by depicting a man who isn't even capable of killing himself.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Platonov
"What does it mean to say we want to be decent? How can we be decent when we're in debt?" [Anna]
I recently posted about Chekhov in the context of an analysis of Russian attitudes toward boredom. Generally, speaking, my thoughts on the subject of Russian boredom were formed by reading Chekhov's most popular plays, including Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters. But recently I took up the less popular play, Platonov, as adapted by David Hare. Platonov also deals with turn-of-the-century boredom. Its characters also struggle with aristocratic attitudes toward work, and suffer from the absence of meaning that often pervades their lives of leisure. When Platonov arrives in town, he asserts that he has survived a winter that felt like an "eternity" and could could only be compared to an "Antarctic of boredom." Another character, Nikolai, is so bored it colors all of his other activities. "What can I say?" asks Nikolai, "We talk. We walk in the woods. Is is boredom? Is it love?"
But unlike Chekhov's other plays, Platonov sometimes reads like an Oscar Wilde play in terms of its wit, irony, and high comedy. Although Platonov ends in tragedy, its pages are filled with ferociously clever banter of the kind only found in The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan. From an historical perspective, Platonov demonstrates that Russian literary elites were clearly participating in the same aesthetic moment that English or French ones were. In Ellmann's magisterial biography of Wilde, the biographer once asserted that Wilde's genius was to make almost every received social truism seem ironic. Chekhov was obviously interested in doing something similar, at least early in his career--at least in Platonov.
Chekhov's early play also demonstrates that gender was as much on the minds of Russian writers as it was on English ones. The women who amorously pursue Platonov are, after all, expressing some form of agency by doing so. In fact, their pursuit of the relatively passive playboy almost exactly reverse the traditional gender tropes of European literature culture. While misogyny is often expressed by the plays' male protagonists, Chekhov's female characters are intelligent, active agents seeking to fulfill their own sexual and social needs, whatever the cost to traditional mores about domesticity.
The distinctively Russian elements of Platonov are revealed by the characters' obsessive guilt about their wealth, apparently stemming from some conscious or subconscious understanding that this wealth is either directly or indirectly founded on the poor. Platonov attempt to deny this guilt only emphasizes its undeniable urgency : "My life, like yours, depends on the labor of others. Yet I look working men and women in the eye and feel no shame."
Throughout the play, Chekhov's characters' guilt about wealth is transformed into anger at moneylenders, ambivalence about money, and a constant preoccupation with debt. The concern about wealth (or its absence) is both personal and national. In one scene, Anna's lender, Bugrov, tells her he "could paper the walls with her IOUs" and in another, Nikolai, asks "How many people did he swindle to mass that much?" While Nikloi loathes money-lending, his own son confesses to crass materialism. "I've lived only for possessions. I've put money before everything else." Nikloi also sees the problem of debt transcends his personal circumstances and laments "they say Russia's bankrupt." The characters also invest some of their anxiety about money into antisemitism. Abraham notes the paradox of the situation. "Jews are condemned all the time. Why? Because they are willing to lend money. Meanwhile, Russians refuse and they escape censure. Explain this to me."
One of Chekhov's characters reminds the others, "All happiness is built on the unhappiness of others." Platonov's view of Russian society is filled with references to thievery and brigandage. On one occasion Platonov asserts that the governing principle in Russian life is that "crooks dies in the forest but they prosper in the drawing room." On another occasion Platonov causally asks a guest: "By the way, just asking, but why aren't you in prison at the moment?" On a third occasion, Platonov describes the Russian archetypal man as a sort of conquistador. "Osip, the true Russian hero: The headless peasant, the fabulous warlord, up to his elbows in crime, blood, bone, gut."
Of course, Platonov's characters have many reasons to be anxious about money. Guilt is one source of anxiety, but so is economic and technological change. In turn of the century Russian, all sorts of changes are undermining the future of superfluous men and women. Porfori sees indecisive, Hamlet-like Platonov as an endangered literary type. "I see him as the hero of a Russian novel," argues Porfori. And as you know, Russian novels are the worst in the world...He's a brilliant man. But he exemplifies the modern vagueness, the modern malaise. No point, no purpose." This type of indecisiveness may not survive into the twentieth century.
Here are just a few favorite quotes from the play:
Anna: "Good for her. That pointy little nose: She'll make an excellent scientist."
Anna: "It's the local epidemic. indecisiveness. My advice would be marry her or leave her--one thing or the other--but nothing in between."
Ann: "Don't rely on your own intelligence. In your case, it's the worst mistake you could make."
Nikolai: "A man who sees it as his mission in life to tell women they're stupid."
Nikolai: "God deliver us from the curse of nostalgia!"
Platonov: " All I hope is you haven't married a stupid woman. That's the worst kind of hell."
"Platonov: "This is a man who died at peace with his own stupidity."
Sasha: "He sends his regards."
Ivan: "Really?"
Sergei: "I think she means it metaphorically."
Ivan: "May the Lord forgive me for what I say now, but emancipated women are the best. Guns in their hands, and the whiff of cordite on their flesh!"
Platonov: "Have you been drinking already, Colonel?"
Ivan: "Drinking? What else should I do?"
Nikolai: "What does the heat mean? What does it portend?"
Porfiri: "You think this garden is ravishing. Sofia, I assure you, my garden is infinitely superior. My river is deeper, and I also have exceptional horses."
Anna: "Typical Platonov. He goes nowhere, yet he known everyone."
Platonov: "Russia, you see? Everyone their own theory. Even the thieves have theories."
Platonov: "Nobody looks. Nobody thinks. Nobody sees. We go through life and we don't see."
Platonov: "Think about it: She's stupid and I'm worthless. In other words, we're perfectly matched."
Anna: "Come and eat your lunch, you lazy parasites."
Nikolai: "Did you get all that?"
Platonov: "The drift. I got the drift."
Nikolai: "And what's more--let me remind you--in theory I'm in love with her."
Platonov: "And also, let's face it, we can't altogether ignore it: I am slightly married."
Anna: "He sounds like a male novelist making love to a female novelist."
Porfiri: "I was born to admire great deeds, and yet to squander myself on a mas of trivial ones."
Porfiri: "Why does Platonov do it? And all without purpose. One day he insults them. Next day he apologizes."
Anna: "He's from the ruling class. That's what the ruling class does."
I recently posted about Chekhov in the context of an analysis of Russian attitudes toward boredom. Generally, speaking, my thoughts on the subject of Russian boredom were formed by reading Chekhov's most popular plays, including Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters. But recently I took up the less popular play, Platonov, as adapted by David Hare. Platonov also deals with turn-of-the-century boredom. Its characters also struggle with aristocratic attitudes toward work, and suffer from the absence of meaning that often pervades their lives of leisure. When Platonov arrives in town, he asserts that he has survived a winter that felt like an "eternity" and could could only be compared to an "Antarctic of boredom." Another character, Nikolai, is so bored it colors all of his other activities. "What can I say?" asks Nikolai, "We talk. We walk in the woods. Is is boredom? Is it love?"
But unlike Chekhov's other plays, Platonov sometimes reads like an Oscar Wilde play in terms of its wit, irony, and high comedy. Although Platonov ends in tragedy, its pages are filled with ferociously clever banter of the kind only found in The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan. From an historical perspective, Platonov demonstrates that Russian literary elites were clearly participating in the same aesthetic moment that English or French ones were. In Ellmann's magisterial biography of Wilde, the biographer once asserted that Wilde's genius was to make almost every received social truism seem ironic. Chekhov was obviously interested in doing something similar, at least early in his career--at least in Platonov.
Chekhov's early play also demonstrates that gender was as much on the minds of Russian writers as it was on English ones. The women who amorously pursue Platonov are, after all, expressing some form of agency by doing so. In fact, their pursuit of the relatively passive playboy almost exactly reverse the traditional gender tropes of European literature culture. While misogyny is often expressed by the plays' male protagonists, Chekhov's female characters are intelligent, active agents seeking to fulfill their own sexual and social needs, whatever the cost to traditional mores about domesticity.
The distinctively Russian elements of Platonov are revealed by the characters' obsessive guilt about their wealth, apparently stemming from some conscious or subconscious understanding that this wealth is either directly or indirectly founded on the poor. Platonov attempt to deny this guilt only emphasizes its undeniable urgency : "My life, like yours, depends on the labor of others. Yet I look working men and women in the eye and feel no shame."
Throughout the play, Chekhov's characters' guilt about wealth is transformed into anger at moneylenders, ambivalence about money, and a constant preoccupation with debt. The concern about wealth (or its absence) is both personal and national. In one scene, Anna's lender, Bugrov, tells her he "could paper the walls with her IOUs" and in another, Nikolai, asks "How many people did he swindle to mass that much?" While Nikloi loathes money-lending, his own son confesses to crass materialism. "I've lived only for possessions. I've put money before everything else." Nikloi also sees the problem of debt transcends his personal circumstances and laments "they say Russia's bankrupt." The characters also invest some of their anxiety about money into antisemitism. Abraham notes the paradox of the situation. "Jews are condemned all the time. Why? Because they are willing to lend money. Meanwhile, Russians refuse and they escape censure. Explain this to me."
One of Chekhov's characters reminds the others, "All happiness is built on the unhappiness of others." Platonov's view of Russian society is filled with references to thievery and brigandage. On one occasion Platonov asserts that the governing principle in Russian life is that "crooks dies in the forest but they prosper in the drawing room." On another occasion Platonov causally asks a guest: "By the way, just asking, but why aren't you in prison at the moment?" On a third occasion, Platonov describes the Russian archetypal man as a sort of conquistador. "Osip, the true Russian hero: The headless peasant, the fabulous warlord, up to his elbows in crime, blood, bone, gut."
Of course, Platonov's characters have many reasons to be anxious about money. Guilt is one source of anxiety, but so is economic and technological change. In turn of the century Russian, all sorts of changes are undermining the future of superfluous men and women. Porfori sees indecisive, Hamlet-like Platonov as an endangered literary type. "I see him as the hero of a Russian novel," argues Porfori. And as you know, Russian novels are the worst in the world...He's a brilliant man. But he exemplifies the modern vagueness, the modern malaise. No point, no purpose." This type of indecisiveness may not survive into the twentieth century.
Here are just a few favorite quotes from the play:
Anna: "Good for her. That pointy little nose: She'll make an excellent scientist."
Anna: "It's the local epidemic. indecisiveness. My advice would be marry her or leave her--one thing or the other--but nothing in between."
Ann: "Don't rely on your own intelligence. In your case, it's the worst mistake you could make."
Nikolai: "A man who sees it as his mission in life to tell women they're stupid."
Nikolai: "God deliver us from the curse of nostalgia!"
Platonov: " All I hope is you haven't married a stupid woman. That's the worst kind of hell."
"Platonov: "This is a man who died at peace with his own stupidity."
Sasha: "He sends his regards."
Ivan: "Really?"
Sergei: "I think she means it metaphorically."
Ivan: "May the Lord forgive me for what I say now, but emancipated women are the best. Guns in their hands, and the whiff of cordite on their flesh!"
Platonov: "Have you been drinking already, Colonel?"
Ivan: "Drinking? What else should I do?"
Nikolai: "What does the heat mean? What does it portend?"
Porfiri: "You think this garden is ravishing. Sofia, I assure you, my garden is infinitely superior. My river is deeper, and I also have exceptional horses."
Anna: "Typical Platonov. He goes nowhere, yet he known everyone."
Platonov: "Russia, you see? Everyone their own theory. Even the thieves have theories."
Platonov: "Nobody looks. Nobody thinks. Nobody sees. We go through life and we don't see."
Platonov: "Think about it: She's stupid and I'm worthless. In other words, we're perfectly matched."
Anna: "Come and eat your lunch, you lazy parasites."
Nikolai: "Did you get all that?"
Platonov: "The drift. I got the drift."
Nikolai: "And what's more--let me remind you--in theory I'm in love with her."
Platonov: "And also, let's face it, we can't altogether ignore it: I am slightly married."
Anna: "He sounds like a male novelist making love to a female novelist."
Porfiri: "I was born to admire great deeds, and yet to squander myself on a mas of trivial ones."
Porfiri: "Why does Platonov do it? And all without purpose. One day he insults them. Next day he apologizes."
Anna: "He's from the ruling class. That's what the ruling class does."
Monday, April 24, 2017
Boredom in Goncharov, Boym, Chekhov, and Platonov
Boredom is surely one of the most important motifs in both late Russian and Soviet literary history. One thinks immediately of Ivan Goncharov's treatise on the subject of boredom, Oblomov, where his protagonist can't usually think of anything compelling enough to make him leave his room or even rise from his bed. The theme of boredom is perhaps most exquisitely manifested by Anton Chekhov, whose plays seem filled with superfluous characters bemoaning their existential fate as well as their economic fate as representatives of obsolete classes. Svetlana Boym's brilliant book, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life, depicts boredom as one of the central tragedies of Russian culture. Boym's argument is that Russians mourn banal existence and all too often seem to prefer extraordinary events to what they see as the tragedy of quotidian life.
Chekhov's Three Sisters seems to capture this predilection. As, for example, when Masha and Vershinin try to decide how best to suffer the banality of small town life. "To speak three languages in this town is not an accomplishment, " mourns Masha. "It is a deformity." Vershinin has only a slightly more optimistic view of the situation. He believes that in the very distant future things will be better. "In two, three hundred years... life on earth will have become unutterably beautiful. Men need such a life. We do not have it, but we dream of it. We anticipate it. We wait. We wonder. We prepare for it." More than this, Vershinin's view of the present is that it should perhaps be thought about as a rough draft for a better life. Irina also complains, although it's not entirely clear whether her lament is a class-based complaint or an existential one. One suspects it is a mixture, or that the aristocratic life somehow symbolizes the more general human condition. "And if one does not work...that's why we are unhappy. Isn't it? Because we have nothing to do. We are born of people who despise work."
For Chekhov's characters, the melancholy of the present can only be redeemed by the splendor of the future, although his characters rarely seem certain about the extent to which that future will actually come about. "Can we not day dream, as it were, of what life will be in a hundred years?" Vershinin asks Tuzenbach. Tuzenbach begins optimistically. "People will move in hot air balloons. Fashions will change. We will see the discovery and development of the Sixth Sense." But then Tuzenbach sours even on this idyll. "But life...Life will remain the same. Dark. Full of mysteries. Dark. Difficult. Unhappy. In a thousand years, too." Vershinin retains his enthusiasm for the future. He can bear the sorrowful present only if life will change in the future. "At some time...Life will have changed. How can we think that it will not--as it is changing now? ..a happy life--a life of betterment."
Chekhov's attitude toward everyday life, and toward boredom in particular, sometimes seems to anticipate the Russian Revolution. Although we know Chekhov could not have predicated the revolution, we can see in the revolutionary impulse some desire to transcend everyday existence in favor of a radically different future. As it turned out, the Soviet future was worse than the Old Regime's dreary present, much worse. For this reason, it's interesting to pair Platonov's brilliantly absurd plays about the Soviet experience with Chekhov's more naturalistic treatment of turn-of-the-century Russian hope of radical transformation. For Platonov, post-revolutionary communist life remains supremely boring, although that boredom has become almost ideologically necessary to the Soviet state's continued existence.
In both Fourteen Little Red Huts and the Hurdy-Gurdy, Soviet citizens are supremely bored, but boredom (made more vicious by the presence of man-made famine) in the present seems to consolidate one's faith in the Soviet future. Hurdy-Gurdy opens with the theme of boredom as Miud says to Aloysha, "I've gotten bored of living in the world," and Aloysha replies: "Never mind. Soon there will be socialism--then everyone will rejoice."
In fact, Aloysha's retort shows that the Soviet state seems to have finally harnessed Russia's unending (and therefore tedious?) problem with boredom. When Serena in the Hurdy-Gurdy asks Aloysha later in the play, "Why do you look so bored on your face?" Alyosha's reply is once again ideologically sound. "Because I'm always yearning for socialism...." Of course, Alyosha's faith in the future is perhaps no less fragile than Chekhov's Vershinin's faith in the future was. When Serena shows even a hint of doubt about Aloysha's faith by asking, "And will it be wonderful?" Aloysha logically replies: "For a question like that I could kill you. Can't you see?"
In fact, the Soviet Union's principle contribution to humanity may be its putative solution to boredom. In Fourteen Little Red Huts, we see that Communism has solved the problem of suffering in the present by actually turning suffering into a positive virtue. Thus Bos says "That's good--suffer! Suffering's splendid. I'm reminding you, so you don't forget." Communism also provides citizens with a road-map to the future that justifies the present. With Marx and the Party Line, Soviet citizens "can see right through humanity to the whole of fate!" In the end, Platonov shows us that the Soviet state has developed a number of different solutions to the problem of time, which is in the end another way of labeling the problem of boredom. The Soviet state has discovered tools for defeating time. For instance, the Soviet state has five year plans that can be completed in four years, and shock workers who can do the work of multiple days in a single day.
The Soviet Union has also shown Russian citizens that they do not need to even create the future, as Chekhov's characters suggested. Rather, they can do what Platonov's Bos suggests, which is precisely nothing. This is because the Communists had showed him that it's okay to "languish without motion amid the historical current." There's a paradox here, but Platonov suggests that Soviet citizens can defeat boredom in two equally absurd ways. First, they can work twice as hard to speed up time, and second, they can do nothing and drift in the current of the proletarian future. Bos sums up the paradox of Soviet boredom this way: "I'm bored of you all with your youth and enthusiasm, your capacity for work, and your faith in the future. You stand at the beginning, but I already know the end. We can't understand each other."
Chekhov's Three Sisters seems to capture this predilection. As, for example, when Masha and Vershinin try to decide how best to suffer the banality of small town life. "To speak three languages in this town is not an accomplishment, " mourns Masha. "It is a deformity." Vershinin has only a slightly more optimistic view of the situation. He believes that in the very distant future things will be better. "In two, three hundred years... life on earth will have become unutterably beautiful. Men need such a life. We do not have it, but we dream of it. We anticipate it. We wait. We wonder. We prepare for it." More than this, Vershinin's view of the present is that it should perhaps be thought about as a rough draft for a better life. Irina also complains, although it's not entirely clear whether her lament is a class-based complaint or an existential one. One suspects it is a mixture, or that the aristocratic life somehow symbolizes the more general human condition. "And if one does not work...that's why we are unhappy. Isn't it? Because we have nothing to do. We are born of people who despise work."
For Chekhov's characters, the melancholy of the present can only be redeemed by the splendor of the future, although his characters rarely seem certain about the extent to which that future will actually come about. "Can we not day dream, as it were, of what life will be in a hundred years?" Vershinin asks Tuzenbach. Tuzenbach begins optimistically. "People will move in hot air balloons. Fashions will change. We will see the discovery and development of the Sixth Sense." But then Tuzenbach sours even on this idyll. "But life...Life will remain the same. Dark. Full of mysteries. Dark. Difficult. Unhappy. In a thousand years, too." Vershinin retains his enthusiasm for the future. He can bear the sorrowful present only if life will change in the future. "At some time...Life will have changed. How can we think that it will not--as it is changing now? ..a happy life--a life of betterment."
Chekhov's attitude toward everyday life, and toward boredom in particular, sometimes seems to anticipate the Russian Revolution. Although we know Chekhov could not have predicated the revolution, we can see in the revolutionary impulse some desire to transcend everyday existence in favor of a radically different future. As it turned out, the Soviet future was worse than the Old Regime's dreary present, much worse. For this reason, it's interesting to pair Platonov's brilliantly absurd plays about the Soviet experience with Chekhov's more naturalistic treatment of turn-of-the-century Russian hope of radical transformation. For Platonov, post-revolutionary communist life remains supremely boring, although that boredom has become almost ideologically necessary to the Soviet state's continued existence.
In both Fourteen Little Red Huts and the Hurdy-Gurdy, Soviet citizens are supremely bored, but boredom (made more vicious by the presence of man-made famine) in the present seems to consolidate one's faith in the Soviet future. Hurdy-Gurdy opens with the theme of boredom as Miud says to Aloysha, "I've gotten bored of living in the world," and Aloysha replies: "Never mind. Soon there will be socialism--then everyone will rejoice."
In fact, Aloysha's retort shows that the Soviet state seems to have finally harnessed Russia's unending (and therefore tedious?) problem with boredom. When Serena in the Hurdy-Gurdy asks Aloysha later in the play, "Why do you look so bored on your face?" Alyosha's reply is once again ideologically sound. "Because I'm always yearning for socialism...." Of course, Alyosha's faith in the future is perhaps no less fragile than Chekhov's Vershinin's faith in the future was. When Serena shows even a hint of doubt about Aloysha's faith by asking, "And will it be wonderful?" Aloysha logically replies: "For a question like that I could kill you. Can't you see?"
In fact, the Soviet Union's principle contribution to humanity may be its putative solution to boredom. In Fourteen Little Red Huts, we see that Communism has solved the problem of suffering in the present by actually turning suffering into a positive virtue. Thus Bos says "That's good--suffer! Suffering's splendid. I'm reminding you, so you don't forget." Communism also provides citizens with a road-map to the future that justifies the present. With Marx and the Party Line, Soviet citizens "can see right through humanity to the whole of fate!" In the end, Platonov shows us that the Soviet state has developed a number of different solutions to the problem of time, which is in the end another way of labeling the problem of boredom. The Soviet state has discovered tools for defeating time. For instance, the Soviet state has five year plans that can be completed in four years, and shock workers who can do the work of multiple days in a single day.
The Soviet Union has also shown Russian citizens that they do not need to even create the future, as Chekhov's characters suggested. Rather, they can do what Platonov's Bos suggests, which is precisely nothing. This is because the Communists had showed him that it's okay to "languish without motion amid the historical current." There's a paradox here, but Platonov suggests that Soviet citizens can defeat boredom in two equally absurd ways. First, they can work twice as hard to speed up time, and second, they can do nothing and drift in the current of the proletarian future. Bos sums up the paradox of Soviet boredom this way: "I'm bored of you all with your youth and enthusiasm, your capacity for work, and your faith in the future. You stand at the beginning, but I already know the end. We can't understand each other."
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