Ward No. 6 and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) [Paperback]

Anton Chekhov (Author), Constance Garnett (Translator), David Plante (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003 | Series: Barnes & Noble Classics

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

 

Anton Chekhov invented the modern short story. With writing that is concise, realistic, and evocative, he became a sort of photographer in words, less interested in plot than in the subtleties of mood and atmosphere, and the telling detail. His characters, always vividly drawn, come from all walks of life and often seem to be caught up in a world they don’t quite understand.

Early in his brief literary career, Chekhov outlined in a letter to his brother his idea of the ingredients of a good short story. Arguing against moral judgments and political, economic, or social commentary, he wrote, “To describe . . . you need . . . to free yourself from the personal expression. . . . Subjectivity is a terrible thing.” Instead, he favored objectivity, truthfulness, originality, compassion, and brevity. Although his writing developed and matured, he remained largely faithful to these principles.

This new selection of twenty-three stories explores the entire range of Chekhov’s short fiction, from early sketches, such as “The Cook’s Wedding” (1885) and “On the Road” (1886) to late works, such as “In the Ravine” (1900) and “The Bishop" (1902). Ward No. 6 and Other Stories includes some of his most popular tales, such as the title story and “The Lady with the Dog” (1899), as well as several lesser-known works, no less masterful in their composition.

David Plante is a Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He is the author of many novels, including The Ghost of Henry James, The Family (nominated for the National Book Award), and The Woods. He has been a contributor to The New Yorker, Esquire, and Vogue, and a reviewer and features writer for the New York Times Book Review.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Russian dramatist and short story writer who brought both the short story and the drama to new eminence in Russia and eventually in the Western world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From David Plante's Introduction to Ward No. 6 and Other Stories

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, and from his earliest childhood his father was, I believe, the greatest influence on him as a man and as a writer. As brutal as his father was, he was not stupid, and he insisted on the education of his children, assuming as a matter of course that his sons would somehow go on to university. And, dogmatic in his religious beliefs, he had a substantial collection of religious books that indicate his faith was informed by study. But Pavel Egorovich had bad luck. Circumstances beyond his control-a newly built railroad shifted the entire economy of the town to his drastic disadvantage-led to his having to close the grocery shop and to his escaping to Moscow, where his two elder sons were already studying, to avoid debtors' prison. There, he was only able to find work as a clerk in a warehouse (how interesting that Laptev in "Three Years" remembers working in a warehouse!), and his will was broken. It was at this point that his son Anton took over the responsibility of the family.

Anton was sixteen, the same age as his father when he was freed from being a serf. Still a student in Tanganrog, he sold family furniture to pay for the fare of his mother and a younger brother and sister to Moscow, and, though not a very brilliant student himself, he tutored other students to earn money to send to his family. He seemed, too, to take on the moral as well as the financial guidance of his family.

From Taganrog, he wrote to his younger brother Mishka, rather condescendingly: "You write well, and in the whole letter I have not found a single mistake in spelling," then, with moral authority, he lectured: "But there is one thing I do not like: why do you call yourself 'your worthless and insignificant brother?' . . . Recognize it before God; perhaps, too, in the presence of beauty, wisdom, nature, but not before men. Among men you must be conscious of your dignity and worth" (Letters on the Short Story, p. 291).

Later, when he was himself living with his family in Moscow in a half basement apartment and attending the faculty of medicine at the University, he continued to help support the family: He added to the insufficient earnings of his father by writing what he called "stories, tales, vaudevilles, any sort of rubbish" (Life and Letters, p. 4) for periodicals. He had been introduced to editors by his older brother Alexander, who himself wrote for the periodicals, but Alexander and the next older brother Nikolai, a painter, had already taken to the drink that destroyed them.

If, in becoming the financial and moral force of the family, Anton had taken on the tenacity of his father's will, he also became essentially different from him-in reaction, I'm tempted to say, to free himself from his father's dogmatic will. Anton had developed into a light-spirited, witty fellow who amused others with "all sorts of pranks and inventions" (Life and Letters, p. 3); he had become liberal; and he no longer believed in the religion that had been inculcated in him. And, unlike his father, Anton never imposed his will on anyone.

In a sense, his was a negative will, for, absolute as it was, it kept him from imposing himself not only on others but on the characters of his fiction-he refused, in the name of what he believed to be absolute freedom from tyranny, to judge. He was as strict as his father was, though not in insisting on a dominating ideology; on the contrary, he insisted on freedom from any such ideology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593080034
• ISBN-13: 978-1593080037
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,608,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have given us more, December 18, 2007

By 

Andrew J. Sydlik "writer and artist" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ward No. 6 and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Paperback)

This book is a good collection of Chekhov stories, but there is little information to help a reader unfamiliar with the author. Before reading this collection, I had only read "The Bet" in high school. I majored in Creative Writing in college, but we didn't read one single Chekhov story, though his name was thrown around here and there. As I saw his name referenced more and more, I became curious and read this. At first, it was hard to get into the stories--Chekhov's style is rich in detail but not exactly cohesive in plot or character. But I saw enough talent to prod me on, and as the stories progress (arranged chronologically), they get more refined and mature.

There's a good portion of reading here, 23 stories that span 358 pages, and a diverse selection that ranges from 1885 to one of his last stories, "The Bishop," from 1902. (Chekhov died in 1904.) However, I feel there could have been better representations of Chekhov's earlier stories. I haven't read them, but I've heard that "The Steppe" and "Gusev" are particularly good stories, probably better than "The Cook's Wedding" or "On the Road," which seem to lack the power of some of the other early pieces like "Easter Eve" and "The Witch."

Also, where are the humorous stories? I couldn't believe that Chekhov wrote humor after reading this book, because all the stories are pretty depressing, showing the toil of everyday life and the difficulty of finding happiness. That's not a bad thing per se, but I think a more representative picture of Chekhov's writings could have been given.

If you're new to Chekhov, you will probably be jolted, perhaps annoyed, perhaps amazed, by his writing. He is a master at honing in on the lives of people without providing much in the way of plot or authorial explanation of what's going on, yet in most stories, he maintains momentum through the sheer power of the details.

And don't expect uplifting moral messages or hope here--or formulaic sentimentality, for that matter. "The Pipe" is almost apocalyptic in its tone, conveying a sense that the world is dying. But is that the story itself saying it, or just the characters thinking it? It's hard to decide, but it really doesn't matter. In another story, an infant is killed when a woman throws boiling water on it, and no one seems to hold it against her.

The eponymous story, "Ward No. 6," is probably the most powerful--and one of the longest--pieces here. A doctor who considers himself an elitist philosopher becomes intrigued with a mental patient, only to have people start to doubt his only sanity. Considering Chekhov was a doctor himself, he didn't seem to have any more sympathy with doctors than he did anyone else--the doctor is portrayed as pretentious and naive. He has his positive qualities, too; though rebuffed by the mental patient he visits, he reacts only in confusion, not anger. He seems to genuinely want to understand the man and the larger questions in life, even if his ideas distort him to the reality of suffering.

And then there is "The Lady with the Dog," often considered the best of Chekhov's works. The core of the story is a pretty common idea--adulterous lovers whose lives become disrupted by their passion for each other. But Chekhov depicts the situation with such intriguing detail that it takes on a whole new meaning. And there is no clear resolution--as often happens in Chekhov's stories--just a tense collision of passion and suffering.

Chekhov shows the faults, passions, and more rarely, the redeeming qualities of a diverse range of people, from peasants, to widows, to aristocrats, to clergy. Without seeming to make moral judgments (except perhaps in "The Grasshopper" which seems to outrightly condemn the cruelty of the characters and satirize the arrogance of actors), Chekhov shows people as they really are--struggling, weak, philosophical, victims of circumstance, victims of their own self-delusion, compassionate, filled with beauty, sorrow, and cruelty. In essence, he captured the complex workings of human nature.

Chekhov's stories also capture the atmosphere of late 19th-century Russia: steeped in images of the Orthodox Church; the encroaching modern world on a hard, unmerciful landscape; ubiquitous vodka, often gone bad, which makes people roll on the ground and lose their senses; corrupt government officials and clergy; crude, stupid peasants; philosophical meanderings that intrude upon getting water from a well or treating a patient sick with typhus. Characters are plagued with poverty, disease, superstition, infidelity, even murder. Some towns are hundreds of miles from a railroad station, and you begin to see how hard life in 19th-century Russia must have been.

But while the names of characters may be long and hard to remember, while there are numerous references to towns, rivers, landmarks, and people a non-Russian is unfamiliar with, the struggles and details told in these stories are relevant to anyone, in any country. There is great power in Chekhov's ability to reveal the complexities in life without being sentimental or melodramatic, and his conciseness and richness of language is inspiring.

Besides a better selection in the early stories, I would have liked more background about Russia, about the many references in the stories that were hard to follow. The introduction isn't a bad portrait of Chekhov's life and work, quoting his letters and others who have commented on him, but it wasn't all that helpful in approaching the stories with a good idea of what I was getting into. I have since read more about him, which has helped me to better appreciate my reading. I'm also intrigued to read more of Chekhov's work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful stories, lame commentary, October 21, 2007

By 

raboof "Lauren in Tokyo" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ward No. 6 and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Paperback)

Chekov brings a warmth and "fleshiness" to Russian fiction that is not so prominent in the works of other authors. This collection of short stories provides a big taste of 18th and 19th century Russian peasant life. Characters are real people, with humor and sadness, dedication and flightiness, and most of all roots in the ground.

For the stories, I really loved the book. Because of Chekov's insistent realism, the pain and pleasure of these fictional characters were just as real as if I were reading a biography. The editing and organization of the stories is flawless, with each story leading positioned well with the story before and after it.

What I found disappointing was the commentary in the preface and the afterword and "study guide". Compare the rich and complete commentary of Penguin Classic's Crime and Punishment to the vapid and wholly uninteresting opinion piece of Barnes and Noble's Ward No. 6. In the former, the commentator provides context, insight, and relevant information regarding the story to follow. That commentary makes the book richer and more enjoyable. The latter (this book) commentary provides no such context, no insight, and not a shred of relevant information regarding the stories, Chekov, of related literature. It seems to be little more than a hack-job criticism of Super-realism and the author's own biases.

The study section at the end is again more of the same. The followup questions focus on the commentary rather than the text, so students are turned against the author for his style rather than towards the value of the literature itself. The short blurb about some Katherine Mansfield seems wholly out of place with neither relevancy to the stories nor connection to the commentary.

I recommend the book for its stories, but skip everything preceding and following.

5.0 out of 5 stars A very Entertaining collection, October 30, 2011

By 

John T C (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ward No. 6 and Other Stories (Kindle Edition)

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. It comes after The Usurper and Other Stories as my second collection read this year. The stories are fine and hilarious and Chekhov's books to good to read.