#191 About Love

Find today’s 3886 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/191.html Travis review: So this is the third story featuring Ivan Iavnovitch and Burkin and the second with Alehin. The story picks up the following day from Gooseberries. When Alehin tells his story it helps answer the curious details in Gooseberries, like why Alehin was so filthy and in desperate …

#190 Gooseberries

Find today’s 4373 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/190.html Travis review: I believe “Gooeseberries” is the first time that Chekhov has used characters from a previous story. And this is his 190th story. This story follows yesterday’s Man in a Case, where the teacher, Burkin, told the veterinarian surgeon, Ivan Ivanovitch, about a tyrannical Greek instructor who …

#189 The Man in a Case

Please find today’s 5400 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/189.html Travis review: The Man in the Case certainly lives up to it’s name both figuratively and literally. Two accomplished men spend the night in a barn after what I imagine was a vigorous day of hunting. Discussion about the how the wife of the man whose land …

#188 The Schoolmistress

Please today’s story 3491 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/188.html Travis review:  Chekhov follows a schoolmistress riding in a cart to pick up her pay from the zemstvo. She is introverted and had taken the job thirteen years ago out of necessity after her parents died. Her psychological disposition is to not reflect too deeply about anything. To that …

#187 At Home

Please find today’s 4973 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/187.html Travis review Today’s story is very different than The Peasants although both stories feature people returning to their childhood homes. Vera comes back to the steppe after inheriting her father’s estate. Having spent several years abroad she sees potential for her old home, but she is …

#186 The Petchenyeg

Find today’s 4279 word story http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/186.html Travis  The Petchenyeg is a humorous story about an obtuse, obnoxious man who doesn’t know how offensive he is. While Chekhov makes Zhmuhin absurd with his stupid questions and opinions, readers also witness the effects that the ignorant and arrogant man has had on his sons and wife. I don’t know that …

#185 The Peasants

Please find today’s 13,095 word long short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/185.html Travis review In today’s story Nikolay, Olga and readers learn through a harsh, crash course about the squalid lifestyle of the peasantry. Chekhov does a great a job in putting Nikolay and his family into a situation where they cannot turn back. Penniless they left Moscow …

#184 My Life

Please find the 37,799 word novella here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/184.html Travis review: Chekhov presents as he has in many stories, a passionate young man full of intense ideology. Unlike most of the young men in his stories though, Misail is cut from a different cloth. His talk is not idle bluster. He follows through on his passion to …

#183 An Artist’s Story

Find today’s 7280 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/183.html Travis review: This long short story is told from the first person point of view from an artist who believes in not lending a helping hand to the poor as it is an exercise in futility. Simultaneously, Chekhov shows this young, upper class artist spending his days doing nothing …

#182 Ariadne

Find today’s 10,545 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/182.html Travis review: Ariadne is a gorgeous woman who wants and consumes like a fire. Her family denied her nothing and even when it meant stripping lodge roofs of iron so she could get the horse wanted. Shamohin tells the narrator (who happens to be a writer) about how …