Devouring De Maupassant: Our Chum Patience

Title: Our Chum Patience (also known as Friend Patience/em>)
Date Read: 15th March 2010
Available Online?: YES (although read for this review was the David Coward translation of the story in A Day in the Country and Other Stories (Oxford University Press)).
Briefly: Government official Gontran Lardois is in an unfamiliar bar in an unfamiliar town when [...]

Devouring De Maupassant: A Railway Story

Title: A Railway Story (also known as On The Journey)
Date Read: 15th March 2010
Available Online?: YES (although read for this review was the David Coward translation of the story in A Day in the Country and Other Stories (Oxford University Press)).
Briefly: While on a train from Cannes, a doctor recounts the tale of Russian [...]

Chekhov Shorts: Grisha

Title: Grisha
Date Read: 9th March 2010
Briefly: Venturing out into the big wide world for the first time, toddler Grisha tries to make sense of all that he sees. As he looks to his nurse for some reassurance and guidance, the world seems a discouraging place for someone so small. And it’s made all the [...]

Chekhov Shorts: A Nightmare

Title: A Nightmare
Date Read: 9th March 2010
Briefly: The proposed opening of a church parish school in Sinkino brings cause for Kunin – a well-to-do member of the Rural Board for the Borisovo district – to invite the local priest Father Yakov Smirnov, to his home. Finding Father Yakov completely disheveled and without any air [...]

Devouring De Maupassant: In the Spring

Title: In The Spring
Date Read: 8th March 2010
Available Online?: YES.
Briefly: Full of the joys of Spring the young narrator sets off on a walk. He soon finds himself aboard a steamer on the Siene, facing an attractive woman. Just as he is about to strike up a conversation with the amiable and quietly flirtatious [...]

Devouring De Maupassant: Idyll

Title: Idyll (also known as Midsummer Idyll)
Date Read: 8th March 2010
Available Online?: No (?) (In the collection that I read, the story is titled Idyll. However I can’t seem to be able to trace the story online, under this title or any other. Anyone?).
Briefly: Two unnamed Italian peasants – a man and a woman [...]

Chekhov Shorts: Agafya

Title: Agafya
Date Read: 16th February 2010
Word Count: 4047
Briefly: Agafya is the young wife of the village signalman and she’s taken to sneaking off in the night to visit the desirable Savka, who is the watchman for the kitchen gardens of Dubovo. On the night that this story is set Agafya turns up in the [...]

Chekhov Shorts: A Joke

Title: A Joke
Date Read: 16th February 2010
Word Count: 1637
Briefly: Poor old Nadenka is trying to come to terms with her aversion towards cascading down a steep, icy hill on a sledge. She’s coaxed into it however, and after going down a first time she is keen to repeat the ordeal again. Not because she [...]

Devouring De Maupassant: Country Living

Title: Country Living (also known as The Adopted Son)
Date Read: 15th February 2010
Available Online?: YES (although read for this review was the David Coward translation of the story in A Day in the Country and Other Stories (Oxford University Press)).
Briefly: Two peasant families – Vallins and the Tuvaches – live on the edge of [...]

Devouring De Maupassant: A Day in the Country

Title: A Day in the Country (also known as A Country Excursion)
Date Read: 8th February 2010
Available Online?: YES (although read for this review was the David Coward translation of the story in A Day in the Country and Other Stories (Oxford University Press)).
Briefly: It’s Madame Dufour’s birthday and the family are heading off on [...]

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