Keely's Reviews > Selected Stories  Selected Stories by Anton
Chekhov Rate this book Clear rating  's review Jul 18, 07
bookshelves: short-story, reviewed, realism, russian, favorites
Read in October, 2006  There is a vein of dull misery running
through much of modern realism. It is not even tragedy, because
tragedy requires that the person be suffering as a result of
their actions, and that they be emotionally complex enough to
understand what is happening to them, and to feel the whole of
that pain.  These stories of misery have none of that, they are
tales of the ignorant, of the emotionally stunted, who bumble
into one stupidity after another, never realizing why or what it
means. Is there a certain kind of realism in this? Sure--but
fundamentally, it's only half the story.  Sure, we all might
feel that way sometimes, if we're depressed, and so we look at
the world and say 'it sucks out there, and always will'--and
part of it is that we want that to be true, too. We want it to
suck, and for us to have pr