Customer Reviews

In the Ravine & Other Short Stories

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A very strongly recommended addition to school and community library collections, The Ravine & Other Short Stories presents an unabridged audio CD anthology of classic Anton Chekhov short stories, including Oh! The Public; The Chorus Girl; An Actor's End; The Trousseau; A Story Without A Title; Children; Misery; Fat And Thin; The Beggar; Hush!; and The Orator. Classical music enhances a dramatic narrative performance by film, television, and stage actor Kenneth Branagh who does full justice to these timeless works of literature. 3 CDS, approximately 3 hours and 35 minutes.

Eleven short stories and one novella (In the Ravine) by Anton Chekhov, as read by British actor Kenneth Branagh in 2002. The stories are:

The Trousseau (1883)
Fat and Thin (1883)
Oh! the Public! (1885)
Misery (1886)
An Actor's End (1886)
Children (1886)
The Chorus Girl (1886)
The Orator (1886)
Hush! (1886)
The Beggar (1887)
A Story Without a Title (1888)

Overall very good although it helps to read along with the text since some of the Russian vocabulary and names are difficult to track by audio alone. It is the Constance Garnett translation, freely available online. In the Ravine is the best, a wide and colorful portrait of peasant village life - a tragic story though. "Misery" is very good. "Children" does a good job at evoking childhood. "The Chorus Girl" is also well done. The CD says "Abridged" even though all the stories are Unabridged.