Chekhov Becomes Chekhov

The Emergence of a Literary Genius

Bob Blaisdell

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781639362653
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Literature

A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life. In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov waspublishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and ocassional embarassment—admired by a growinglegion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondant and a dedicated mentor. And asBob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary. When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page.When hewas overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode.Chekhov's talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov's domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their families serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foiibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama. In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov'sdistinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Part One: Chekhonte & Chekhov
• Part Two: “Hymns of Praise”
• Part Three: At Home with Family and Fame
• Part Four: Friends and “Enemies”
• Part Five: To the South and Back
• Part Six: ‘Ivanov’ & Others
• Conclusion
• Photographs
• Appendix: A Chronological List of Chekhov’s Work in 1886–1887
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Endnotes
• Index
• Copyright