Chekhov

Atlantic Monthly

Well written, intelligent...a fine biography.

Chicago Tribune

Vivid...Callow successfully unravels the mystery of Chekhov.
— Conan Putnam

Literary Review

Callow strikes a balance between Chekhov's prose and drama, and chronicling his life...very readable.
— Donald Rayfield

The Washington Times

Gracefully written, an easy read.
— Milton Ehre

Donald Rayfield

Callow strikes a balance between Chekhov's prose and drama, and chronicling his life...very readable.
— Literary Review

Atlantic Monthly

Well written, intelligent...a fine biography.

Library Journal

Not strictly a literary biography, this book is particularly effective in discussing Chekhov's work as it relates to his life.

Milton Ehre

Gracefully written, an easy read.
— The Washington Times

Putnam

Vivid...Callow successfully unravels the mystery of Chekhov.
— Chicago Tribune

White

Valuable...This is not the typical diary of a famous writer, rather, a memoir of the revolution and civil war that captures the political uncertainty of the period.
— Slavic and East European Journal

Publishers Weekly

Callow, a novelist and author of biographies on D.H. Lawrence, Czanne, Walt Whitman and Van Gogh, has not been as thorough as Donald Rayfield in his recent biography of the great Russian playwright and short story writer. And this is rather a blessing. Callow draws equally on Chekhov's (1860-1904) own writing and smartly culls from secondary sourcestaking valuable critical insights from V.S. Pritchett's Chekhov: A Spirit Set Free, or using Rayfield's important discovery of previously censored passages in Chekhov's letters, while casting doubt on the same author's characterization of Chekhov's relationship with early editor Nikolai Leykin. Chekhov's life was filled with romantic, professional, familial, political and philosophical complications, and most biographies leave Chekhov either elusively unfinished or unsatisfactorily psychologized. Callow allows his subject these complexities, presenting Chekhov as neither saint nor misogynist (two proffered views) and never tries to apprehend the unknowable. "When we attempt to clarify his feelings about love we are soon faced with ambiguity," he writes. But what is knowable he clearly connects to Chekhov's writing, making for a cohesive whole. While Callow does a good job of contextualizing Chekhov as a private figure, he is not so successful in giving him a social context: more, for example, on the Russian stage, on its penal system and on the roiling political atmosphere that spawned Chekhov, Tolstoy and Gorky would have shed great light without imputing more to Chekhov's life than the facts will bear. (May) FYI: Everyone knows Chekhov's four great plays, but few are familiar with the humorous one-act plays he wrote in his 20s. To correct this, Smith and Kraus will release Chekhov: The Vaudevilles and Other Short Works, trans. by Carol Rocamora. ($19.95 224p ISBN 1-57525-127-2; May)

Booknews

This biography of the Russian dramatist and storyteller reveals an elusive man of contradictions: a modest genius who finds the notion of fame unseemly; a man furious at injustice who is apolitical; a humorist in despair before the cruelty of the world; and a generous spirit who remains stubbornly apart. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Atlantic Monthly

"Well written, intelligent...a fine biography."

Kirkus Reviews

This new offering in the expanding and increasingly noteworthy field of Chekhov studies lacks both the original scholarship and the intellectual depth of other recent studies. Callow (From Noon to Starry Night, 1992; Lost Earth, 1995) has made a career of writing biographies of artistic greats, from C‚zanne to Walt Whitman. Turning his attention to a writer clearly dear to his heart, he opens his study with sentimental musings on seeing his first performance of a Chekhov work at the age of 22. This opening immediately sets the tone for a biography that takes us on a bumpy and highly personal journey through Chekhov's life and work. Callow covers the usual ground: Chekhov's youth in Taganrog, his move to Moscow, medical school, family affairs, the writing life, and his marriage to the actress Olga Knipper. He also interweaves mostly tedious commentary on and synopses of individual stories and plays into the narrative, and includes extended excerpts from Chekhov's texts and letters. Callow's narrative, from the very start, lacks structure (for instance, his information about serfdom in Russia is never given a proper context or carried through to form an argument) and tends to wander in too many directions. Furthermore, his staccato style ("he" can be repeated a dozen times in as many sentences) becomes irritating. As suggested by the biography's subtitle, Callow's loosely defined central interest in Chekhov is the "hidden,þ or emotional, life of the author and the recurrent themes of romantic disillusionment and the search for intimacy that appear in Chekhov's plays and short stories. But these are subjects that have long interested scholars and literary critics, and havegenerated considerable interesting work. Callow's overly simplistic biography fails to convey the source of Chekhov's genius. Interested readers would benefit more from their own reading of Chekhov, or from the more stimulating biographies of Donald Rayfield or V.S. Pritchett. (illustrations, not seen)