Humor translates notoriously poorly from age to age and language to language, so imagine trying to render these mostly humorous short stories from Russian to English, a hundred and twenty years after they were written.  Some hold up surprisingly well--for instance one nearly slapstick episode where an anxious suitor tries pitching woo while cursed with the hiccups--but I have to admit that others went completely over my head.

Footnotes might have been helpful, both in explaining some of the author's references and the translator's choices.  Just one example : in the story, July 29 (Story of a Hunter who Always Misses), Mr. Sekirin provides the following translation :

    Otletaev was as stupid as a bag of hammers...

Is this now-common phrase an invention of Chekhov's; was it already in use at the time he wrote; did the translator make an idiomatic Russian phrase into a more recognizable English one?  I have no idea and the implications are somewhat significant.  If it is a strict translation then Chekhov seems to have contributed an enduringly funny line to a couple of languages.  If it is a liberal translation, then how much of what we're reading is Chekhov and how much is the translator?  I'm actually not particular, but I would like to know.  On the one hand, I don't mind struggling with the idiosyncrasies of a direct translation (like Harvey Mansfield's new version of Democracy in America); on the other, if a translator decides to make a great author more accessible to a modern American reader, it's fine by me, but I would sort of like to know which type of translation I'm reading.

Of course the chief interest here lies not in the stories themselves but in the mere fact that they represent the earliest writings of one of the world's great dramatists.   Now, I'm not a big fan of the theater in general and, as my wife said of Chekhov, after watching Vanya on 42nd Street, "he makes you feel awfully good about your own life, because everyone in the play is such a loser", but I thought the stories were sufficiently interesting, and often enough funny, to make the book worth reading.   Meanwhile, Chekhov enthusiasts are likely to find it invaluable.

(Reviewed:03-Nov-01)

Grade: (C) Orrin C. Judd

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