HORSE-STEALERS, and other stories. [The Tales of Chekhov, v. 10]

Description

Twenty-two stories deal with an insane asylum, an old, retired Army officer, superstition, a matchmaker, an architect’s trip back to his home town, and a man’s efforts to have his brother released from prison.It seems to be part of the human condition that a wall of glass separates one life from another. For Chekhov it did not exist. Though no Church has seen fit to canonize him, he was nevertheless a saint. The greatest of his stories are, no matter how many times reread, always an experience that strikes deep into the soul and produces an alteration there. The reader who has lived through “Ward No. 6” knows forever after that his own sanity is only provisional. As for those masterpieces, “The Looking-Glass,” “The Horse-Stealers,” “A Slander,” “Gone Astray,” “An Actor’s End,” “In Trouble” [all included in this Vol. 10 of “The Tales of Chekhov” series], – where else do you see so clearly the difference between light and dark, or how dark darkness can be. William Maxwell