Customer Reviews

About Love and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This collection of short stories truly is about love. Not happy-ending fairytale love, but the love that really exists in the world: usually unequal felt, sometimes obsessive, and often inexplicable. The stories are all beautiful, well written and self-contained. Each story exhibits a different type of love: love of parents for children, unrequited love, obsessive love, forbidden loves, loves that could have been. Most fascinating to me is the way Chekhov has written the stories so we can see the motivations of all the various lovers. Some of them really want security, an interest to distract them from their meaningless lives, or just sex. In so many cases, what we would like to call love is just avarice. However the stories are not bleak. There are moments when true concern for others breaks through the characters innately selfish natures. I love Chekhov because his stories feel real, his characters aren't just characters. They are human, with all of our vices, and our slim redeeming virtues.

A well-picked, well-translated, small collections of stories with a sweet introduction (the same translator also wrote a biography of chekhov). She tackled C's long and bold sentences with her own, and has an interesting idea about the "musicality" of C's writing... So warm the samovar, let the serfs off early, and go nuts with this one.

This is one of the most enjoyable books I ever read. The odd characters made it all the more funny. Being a recent peruser of Russian books and having developed an interest in them, I am up and ready for more Russian stories. The stories are deep, witty and humorous in a classic way. The Usurper and Other Stories, Master Man and other Stories, Union Muzhik-- are fine and hilarious books to read.

Anton Chekhov the world master of short stories gives one a witty insight of man and his way of life than any writer I have come across. Overall, this is a collection of masterpieces.