{"id":16252,"date":"2015-07-31T13:49:04","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T17:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=16252"},"modified":"2015-07-31T13:49:04","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T17:49:04","slug":"anton-chekhov-the-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2015\/07\/31\/anton-chekhov-the-prank\/","title":{"rendered":"Anton Chekhov: The Prank<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Anton Chekhov was in his early twenties, he had already amassed a large amount of work — over sixty stories over the course of a couple of years. At the age of twenty-two, he and his older brother Nikolai\u00a0put together a book, which Chekhov (the one who gets to claim the last name forevermore) called The Prank<\/em>, in which Chekhov placed what he thought were the best twelve stories he’d written, to be accompanied by Nikolai’s illustrations. Though these stories had already been published\u00a0in various outlets as standalone pieces, something about the collection drew the ire of the censors. The book was prepped but never printed. Never, that is, until now, 130 years later, and\u00a0only in\u00a0English translation. Thanks to the\u00a0fine folks at NYRB Classics and to the fine translating skills of Maria Bloshteyn, we can finally read these stories\u00a0(several of which have never been available in English)\u00a0and see the book Chekhov intended to use to forge his literary breakthrough (thankfully, he still managed).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Prank<\/em> completely disarmed me. I’m a fan of Chekhov, and I have my idea of who he was and what he was about. However, that idea come from reading only a dozen or so of his most famous short stories and having only seen a couple of his plays — that is to say, my idea of the great writer is mostly inherited: his work is concise, observant, often sad with soft tickle of humor.\u00a0I’m delighted to have my conception of the artist — a conception so clearly deficient — enhanced (though not proven\u00a0incorrect)\u00a0to include\u00a0the kind of whimsy and silliness on display in The Prank<\/em>. Silliness of the first order, I should say, as it is usually employed to skewer the subjects in these books (I admit, and am not ashamed, that\u00a0I thought of Monty Python quite often while reading The Prank<\/em>).<\/p>\n

As stated above, the book contains twelve stories spread across just over 100 pages.<\/p>\n