Ahh….Chekhov, the main man! It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in him, and it’s so good to swim around in the pool of his stories once more, especially when the 29th of this month marks the 150th anniversary of his birth. I’m going to be reading a lot more of his stories around that time, but more immediately, today I set about ticking off two more of his short stories, for my ongoing Checkin’ Off the Chekhov Shorts challenge.
The first story up was short ‘n’ sweet, A Blunder, which focuses one a couple of parents trying to ensnare a desirable teacher for their daughter. Poor fellow! The shame of it! Thankfully though it doesn’t all go according to plan. That’s all I’m going to say, because with a story so short it’s hard to say any more without giving away too much. If you’re thirsty for a bit more info however, then check out my afterthoughts post for the story.
The second tale – Children, is a bit longer than the first but sadly not quite as good. It’s a story about a quintet of young ‘uns playing loto – a game similar to bingo, and they’re playing for money. Aghast!, I hear you cry. What is the Russian world of the later nineteenth-century coming too? I know, I know. Or rather I don’t know. Try as I might I couldn’t pick out any singular reason for the story, so I just decided there was any number of reasons. Check out my afterthoughts on that story too for a bit more on that.
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Onwards with playwright extraordinaire Arthur Miller and his gathering of short stories in Presence: Collected Stories (Bloomsbury), and phewww..what a mammoth session – and I only read one story. The story in question though is 46-pager called The Prophecy. Now I don’t know if it’s turning out to be a day of reading disappointment, but I wasn’t at all taken by this story either. Miller gets all metaphysical, and I don’t really appreciate him for doing that to me.
It all starts off well enough – a ‘no spring chicken’ architect (Stowey Rummel) heads off to Florida for an exhibition leaving his equally ‘no spring chicken’ wife (Cleota) to host a dinner party on her own, at their remote house (which to be honest with you is the way she’d rather have it). But the guests arrive, and aside from a few instances of character interaction genius from Miller (Cleota vs. her sister Alice; Cleota vs. Eve Saint Blue – to name but two), it all descends into a trippy, I-can-sense-what-you’re-thinking, I-can-see-into-the-future, kind of affair. That said Miller pulls it back at the end to deliver a rather sublime reading experience, but this is after 30+ pages, and by that time I have to be poked awake again.
Am I being harsh? Most probably because the story is undoubtedly pitched at readers with a higher intelligence than me. I read somewhere that the story is more about the ‘impermanence of relationships’, and I can really see that in this story. I just Miller could have explored that theme in a less ‘trippy’ way. But then again, could he?
The real highlight of The Prophecy for me though, is, rather childishly, Miller’s rather unkind description of Madame Manisette-Lhevine, which goes a little something like this:
[Cleo] liked this ugly woman who was so small she had to sit on a cushion at the table. She had the face of a man, the skin of a mulatto, with a blob of a nose that seemed to have been deboned, it hung so unsupported and unshaped. Her eyes were black like her kinky hair, which was bobbed high and showed her manly ears, which stuck out from her head. She had a large mouth and well-filled teeth. Her hands were bulb-knuckled and veined, and when she laughed, which she did often, deep creases cut parentheses into her tight cheeks. She had asked permission to remove the jacket of her gray suit, exposing her skinny, muscular arms, which sprouted from a sleeveless blouse like the twisted branches of an old apple tree.
A superbly painted description I’m sure you’ll agree. But if this is a character that Miller has modelled on somebody, I sincerely hope that they’ve never read this story. Story Rating: 
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So what about my daily progress through Anna Shevchenko’s rather wonderful (so far) Bequest (Headline)? Well I’m a little red-faced in telling you that I dropped off to sleep mid-way through the next chapter I picked up on. Absolutely nothing to do with Shevchenko’s writing (honestly), and all to do with me making the fatal decision of settling down to read it, late at night, on the sofa, surrounded by cushions, with Steinbeck (the dog) snoring away beside me. He has this incredible gift of hypnosis. Simply tune in to the rhythm of his breathing, and Pow! Lights Out Vienna!
So I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve stalled with Bequest at the same mid-way point as yesterday, albeit with a lowly half-a-dozen more pages turned. Yep I know – shame on me! 
::Monday’s reading plans::
- Arthur Miller short story #7, and one rather interestingly titled Fame
- I absolutely MUST return to reading Shevchenko’s Bequest, and absolutely nowhere near my dog
- So today was the Chekhov, what about I tick off a couple (hopefully) of Maupassant shorts, to get back on track with my Devouring de Maupassant challenge
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