Book Specs 📖

One Sentence Synopsis🔖

Five plays that are categorized as “tragicomedies”.

Notes/Thoughts📝

• Drive My Car brought me here! The film uses the play, Uncle Vanya as the guiding text and is beautifully executed over the duration of three hours. Funny story, I bought the wrong book (still Chekhov) because I had stupidly assumed that Vanka was a Russian translation of Uncle Vanya (did zero research and went on vibes!). I’m so glad I did because I read Ward no. 6 and it is quite possibly one of the best short stories I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I haven’t read a play since high school which speaks to the inter-medium influence of art. To re-interpret is to create and see the same text through new eyes. Hamaguchi’s interpretation of Uncle Vanya certainly enriched my reading experience and even more so when I went back to the read the original play. Oh, how art keeps alive!
• The central themes of this book were love (affairs), work, and longing (for a passed life or a future state) What I do like about Chekhov’s plays are the balance of melodrama and realism. Since the plays are destined for the stage, he intentionally wrote for the audience while staying true to uncomfortable topics of the human condition i.e depression, suffering. Also appreciated the minimalism in scene setting:)
• The hardest part of reading plays: the extensive character list!! Girl make up your mind, which name do you want, you have three!!
• From now on I’m reading introductions after I finish the book. I used to like having the themes explained so I could notice them as I read. Now I like forming my own thoughts before being told what the themes are–growth??? It’s almost like watching the movie before reading the book–what’s the fun in that??!

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“Dissatisfaction with oneself is one of the fundamental qualities of every true talent.” [Intro]

“A writer must be humane to his fingertips.” [Intro]

…the most important thing isn’t fame or glory or anything I used to dream about–but the ability to endure. To know how to bear your cross and have faith. I have faith, and my pain is less, and when I think about my vocation I’m not afraid of life. [The Seagull]

…it’s better to go through scandal, isn’t it, than to destroy yourself for your whole life. [Ivanov]

…because a work of art absolutely needs to express some great thought. Beauty only lies in what is serious.[The Seagull]

Life should be shown not as it is, and not as it ought it be , but as it appears in dreams. [The Seagull]

People with aspirations but no talent have nothing left but to criticize genuine talent. What a consolation for them! [The Seagull]

You forget that belief alone are nothing, a dead letter…What you needed was action. [Uncle Vanya]

Man is endowed with reason and creative power in order to increase what he is given, but hitherto he has not created but destroyed. [Uncle Vanya]

…an idle life can’t be a virtuous one. [Uncle Vanya]

We shall live out many, many days and long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials fate sends us; we shall labour for others both now and in our old age, knowing no rest, and when our time comes, we shall meekly die, and there beyond the grave we shall say that we suffered, that we wept, that we were sorrowful, and God will have pity on us, and you and I, dear Uncle, shall see a life that is bright and beautiful and full of grace, we shall rejoice and look back on our present woes with tenderness, with a smile–and we shall rest. I believe that Uncle, I believe fervently, passionately…We shall rest! [Uncle Vanya]

A man, whoever he may be, must work, must toil by the sweat of his brow, and in that alone lie the sense and the goal of our life, its happiness, its joys. [Three Sisters]

What seems to us serious and significant and really important–a time will come when it’ll be forgotten or seem unimportant. [Three Sisters]

And it’s interesting that we absolutely can’t know what exactly will be regarded as sublime and important and what will be thought pathetic and ridiculous.[Three Sisters]

You must know why you are alive, or else everything is nonsense, just blowing in the wind. [Three Sisters]

However much philosophy one spouts, loneliness is a frightful thing… [Three Sisters]

When you read some novel, you think its all old stuff and all so easy to understand, but when you yourself love someone’s hen you can see that no one knows anything and everybody has to decide for themselves. [Three Sisters]

Life is heavy load. Many of us find it blank, hopeless, but still one has to admit it is becoming brighter and easier every day, and one can see the time is not far off when it will be filled with light. [Three Sisters]

Time will pas and we will be gone for ever, they’ll forget us, forget our faces, our voices and how many there were of us, but for those who live after us our sufferings will become joy–happiness and peace will come down on earth, and there’lll be a kind word and a blessing for those who are living now…I think in a little while we too will know why we live, why we suffer…If we only knew, if we only knew! [Three Sisters]

Perhaps man has a hundred senses and death eliminates only the five that are known to us, but the other ninety-five remain alive. [The Cherry Orchard]

I’m such a sensitive girl, I’m terribly fond of tender words. [The Cherry Orchard]

Come with me, come away from here, darling, come!…We will plant a new orchard, more splendid than this one, you will se it, you will understand, and joy, a quiet, deep joy, will settle on your spirit like the sun in the evening, and Mama, you will smile!… [The Cherry Orchard]