A journalist was interviewing me Monday in Rome about my new book, Why We (Still) Need Russian Literature . It's fascinating to get new questions, unexpected questions, and I should keep a log of them so that I'm prepared for the next talk or interview. Her question was: what is the one line from Russian literature that you like to quote over and over again? I found myself thinking back to graduate school, when we read all of Anton Chekhov in the original. The hapless heroine of Chekhov's play The Seagull at one point in act IV says: "Я чайка ... нет ... не то." "I'm a seagull. No, that's not right." What does Nina mean? She goes on to assert "I am an actress," and it's true. [Spoiler alert] In the two years since the start of the play's action she has indeed become a provincial actress--after running away from her parents, engaging in an illicit love affair, having her lover's child who tragically perishes. No wonder she&
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