Chekhov Becomes Chekhov

The Emergence of a Literary Genius

Chekhov Becomes Chekhov
Bob Blaisdell
RRP:
NZ$ 52.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 45.04
Hardback
h229 x 152mm - 400pg
8 Dec 2022 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781639362646
Out Of Stock
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A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life. In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing 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 occasional embarrassment-admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob 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 he was 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 family' s serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles 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' s distinct, 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.
Praise for Creating Anna Karenina: "That Creating Anna Karenina is a major contribution to Tolstoy scholarship makes it no less of a delight to read. Blaisdell' s passion for the subject, and his always-surprising discoveries about the great man and his creation, kept me turning the pages unstoppably. This is a wonderful book. " -- Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia, staff writer at The New Yorker "Captivating. How did Anna Karenina evolve from a trivial high-society adulteress, whom Tolstoy despised, into one of the deepest, most sensitive tragic heroines in all of literature? What happened inside Tolstoy to condition this metamorphosis? Creating Anna Karenina is a worthy companion to the novel. " -- Janet Fitch * Los Angeles Review of Books * "In its study of the comings and goings of the Tolstoy household at the time of the novel' s composition, Creating Anna Karenina asks if one of the world' s greatest novels was in fact just as much a product of everyday minutia-like who stops by for a visit with what kind of gossip to tell-as it was the culmination of long-simmering ideas about morality and desire. " * The New Republic * "A fuller understanding of any work-and especially of its creation-requires the resurrection of its creator and his milieu. Blaisdell manages to do precisely that. " -- Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor, Los Angeles Review of Books, from the Foreword "Blaisdell conjures the novelist' s world, and painstakingly reveals the overlaps with the world of the novel. Tolstoy breathed in his world, and exhaled the novel. " -- Professor Michael Denner, Editor of Tolstoy Studies Journal "A riveting account of Tolstoy' s composition of Anna Karenina. Tolstoy comes to life as a complex individual defying easy classification. Tolstoy' s fans will relish learning from, and, occasionally, arguing with Blaisdell' s opinions. This passionate book is almost impossible to put down. " * Publishers Weekly *
Bob Blaisdell is Professor of English at the City University of New York' s Kingsborough College and the author of Creating Anna Karenina. He is a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Christian Science Monitor, and the editor of more than three dozen Dover literature and poetry collections, including a collection of Chekhov' s love stores. He lives in New York City.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781639362646
Published: 8 Dec 2022
Published In: United States
Imprint: Pegasus Books
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Format: Hardback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Spine: 26mm
Weight: 602g
Pages: 400

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