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3.5 

My Life

By Anton Chekhov & Constance Garnett
My Life by Anton Chekhov & Constance Garnett digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

...perhaps I was not living as I ought.

Renowned as the greatest short story writer ever, Anton Chekhov was also a master of the novella, and perhaps his most overlooked is this gem, My Life—the tale of a rebellious young man so disgusted with bourgeois society that he drops out to live amongst the working classes, only to find himself confronted by the morally and mentally deadening effects of provincialism.

The 1896 tale is partly a commentary on Tolstoyan philosophy, and partly an autobiographical reflection on Chekhov's own small-town background. But it is, more importantly, Chekhov in his prime, displaying all his famous strengths—vivid characters, restrained but telling details, and brilliant psychological observation—and one of his most stirring themes: the youthful struggle to maintain idealism against growing isolation.

The Art of The Novella Series

Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

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12 Reviews

3.5
“The last of Chekhov's short novels published in 1896. Seems after this book he focused more of his attention on his plays. Based on an upperclass person, 25-year old Misail Poloznev, living in the 1890s who decides to get a working class job. The city is confused with his decision, but he enjoys painting houses. Eventually he meets a girl (from a wealthy family) and they decide to relocate to the country side and become farmers. They help to build a school. At all points in time the peasants try to take advantage of them. Eventually the wife grows tired of the life and leaves. I guess this is a commentary on Tolstoyan philosophy... so I may need to read some Tolstoy and come back to this one. Chekhov himself was the grandchild of a former serf. My Life is pretty similar to Three Years in that I feel both stories the protagonists are trying to escape the tyranny of their fathers. Told in the first person.”
“My aim is to finish all Anton Chekhov stories one day so out of blue I picked up this Novella which was lying on my Kindle for a long time. No matter how frustrated his protagonists are with their life, no matter how dull and dark his stories and sense of humour are, still his writing fascinates me and I feel his writing was way ahead of his time and all his stories are somehow making sense now. Just like this one. This is a story about a frustrated young man who is sick of his bourgeois society and wants to step down to mingle with the working class and wants to understand them and their life. So to do this he finds himself manual labour for a living and then what life throws at him and how he finally comes to terms with living is what this is all about. Though it made me sad many times still it was the hard reality of life Chekhov wanted us to know. Chekhov’s writing is nothing but showing the harsh realities of life and that’s what I love about his stories.”
“Deeply unsettling. It pained me, I know not why. Nothing new here, except the nakedness and cruel irony with which the text is so callously written, digs so deep, that it's hard not to be troubled by it. Truth laid bare, without any pretensions.”

About Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov was born into a large family in 1860 in Taganrog, Russia, the grandson of serfs. He supported the family by writing stories for magazines while simultaneously putting himself through medical school – where, tragically, he contracted tuberculosis. He published his first collection, Motley Stories, in 1886, and his second, In the Twilight, a year later. He continued to practice medicine, often pro bono, leading friends to complain about the line of peasants constantly at his door. He also wrote plays, but when critics attacked The Seagull, he vowed to give up playwriting. He did not, and while staging The Cherry Orchard Chekhov collapsed, dying shortly thereafter, in 1904.

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