Chekhov in the works of others - THANK YOU!

Fri Jul 17 11:00:20 UTC 2009

Boris Akunin's "?????" should read Akunin's "The Seagull."

Michael Katz
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Furman, Yelena [yfurman at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:24 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Chekhov in the works of others - THANK YOU!

First of all, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who wrote in with suggestions.  I now have an amazing and long list of things to read.  Thank you to Michael Katz for sending me his translation of Akunin's Chaika and John Barnstead, who sent me an entire list of "English Canadian poetry that engages with Chekhov."  As I received a request to post the compiled list on SEELANGS, I am happy to oblige; the suggestions below are quoted from your emails, loosely organized by theme and in no particular order.  By far the most reworkings of /responses to were to Dama s sobachkoi; to the excellent suggestions I would also add Petrushevskaia's short short story Dama s sobakami (although I'm not convinced it's been translated).  Again, thank you all very, very much.   Your help is truly appreciated.

Joyce Carol Oates, "Lady with the Pet Dog" (1972) from her collection Marriages and Infidelities

Michelle Herman's "A New and Glorious Life" (Carnegie Mellon Press)

Vladimir Nabokov's "Spring in Fialta"

Bunin's "Sunstroke" (very nicely translated by Graham Hettlinger)

William Boyd's "The Woman on the Beach with a Dog"

Boris Akunin's "?????" - trans. Michael Katz, New England Review, v. 27, no. 3, 2006

Tennessee Williams's remake of Chaika (The Notebook of Trigorin) - the latter is cast as bisexual with a certain interest in Kostya

Joshua Logan's remake of Vishnevyi Sad (Wisteria Trees) - set on a Louisiana plantation

Slawomir Mrozek, "MILOSC NA KRYMIE / LOVE IN THE CRIMEA, which draws on the dramas of Anton Chekhov
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/es_slawomir_mrozek_dramaturg

Olga Mukhina, her plays ????-???? and ?.

David Mamet's adaptations of Tri sestry, Diadia Vania, etc. are really good for looking at translating across temporal-cultural distance.

Yelena Isaeva, "Apricot Orchard".

Liudmila Ulitskaia's "Russkoe varen'e," an adaptation of "Cherry Orchard"

Liudmila Petrushevskaya's "Tri devushki v glubom."

Victor Slaikin's "Cerco"

Sorokin's "Moskva"

A few parallels with Platonov in Galkovsky

Vassily Aksyonov's play, "The Heron," trans. Edythe Haber, in "Quest for an Island" (NY: PAJ Publications, 1987): 179-246.  It's a late Soviet version of a Chekhovian aimless summer on an estate (here a Soviet rest home), complete with bird symbolism and three sisters.

Péter Eötvös's opera "Three Sisters" - the piece breaks up the Chekhov text and reassembles it (with multiple repetitions). The composer envisaged its being performed in more than one way and not necessarily in the same language each time; the Lyons recording uses Russian, but of course there is a CD liner booklet including translations into English.

William Boyd's "The Pigeon," about Chekhov's relationship with Lika Mizinova.

John McGahern, "The Beginning of an Idea" and Sean O'Faolain, "The Woman Who Married Clark Gable," both with direct textual allusions to Chekhov

Raymond Carver, "Errand," about Chekhov's death.

"The Grasshopper" purportedly had a strong influence on Maugham's "Painted Veil."

Helena Tolstoy, a comparison of Glinianyj Dom... with "Skripka Rotshil'da"

Valery Tarsis' 'Palata no. 7' is a curious and interesting mix of Chekhovian and Dostoevskian themes (Engl. translation publ. by Posev, 1966).

Chekhov's story "Pari/The Bet"/ an old episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "The Silence" which was written by the show's host Rod Serling

Philip Roth's protagonist in "Professor of Desire" writes his dissertation on Chekhov -- if I remember correctly, on "Chelovek v futlyare" -- with the argument that Chekhov represents the end of Romanticism, and there is a long section about how he reworks his dissertation into a book.

Virginia Woolf's "Jacob's Room" - one of the female characters reads Chekhov and is depicted (perhaps somewhat ironically) as being somewhat Chekhovian. That could work, especially in tandem with some of the many essays Woolf wrote about Chekhov.

Chekhov references in Nabokov's Ada, especially to the last two major plays.

The popular Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. In interviews he cites Chekhov as one of his major influences and often mentions him in his novels; two that specifically come to mind are "South of the Border, West of the Sun" and "Kafka on the Shore."

Chekhov also appears - of all places - in Eric Nylund's horror novel "Mortal Coils."

Ed Sanders' beatnik "poetic" biography of Chekhov

Joseph Brodsky's "??????????? ??????"

English Canadian poetry that engages with Chekhov (see above).

On a different note, I heard African-American scholar Cornel West speak about Chekhov's importance to him as a writer on a recent "Bill Moyer's Journal

Film adaptations of Chekhov's works http://www.fandango.com/antonchekhov/filmography/p316603

"Wild Strawberries" by Ingmar Bergman, where there are lots of parallels with "Skuchnaja Istorija."

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