I'm a seagull ... no, that's not right.

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's having an identity crisis.

In act I Chekhov used a play within the play to lampoon the symbolist movement (which my old professor used to describe as "vague ... at best")--and to pity the poor girl who dreamed of becoming an actress and performing in front of Arkadina, a seasoned actress, and her lover Trigorin, a writer.

Unfortunately she was given incomprehensible shlock to perform. The metaphors in young Konstantin's play--with which he plans both to convince Nina to fall in love with him and also prove to his mother the actress that he has talent--are muddled to be sure. He rehearses the play with Nina on the banks of the estate's lake where he has built a kind of stage--and when the play is a failure, he goes off and shoots a gull, which he throws at her feet. Then he shoots himself.

Suffering? Drama? Comedy? Surely Chekhov's play has all of this and more to offer. But what about Nina? Is she as expendable as a gull? Ultimately her lover tosses her away, although Konstantin remains true. But he understands little about life, especially her life, in which she tries to make her way with no protector, only her meager talent and her desire to shine on the stage.

"No, that's not right." It was cruel of Konstantin to kill the gull, and crueler still to throw it at Nina's feet. But he was himself unsure of his identity and he lashed out at Nina as the easiest and most vulnerable person in his orbit. In the end she turned out to be surprisingly strong.

People talk about Alexander Pushkin's Tatiana as the "flower of Russian womanhood" and a female ideal. (This is arguable in my view but in some ways not untrue.) Then we talked about Turgenev's young women as smart and strong, eager to navigate their way out of the misogynist world of their birth (in contrast to the men who surrounded them, those "superfluous men"). But it's Chekhov's women, I think, who are the most determined.

Another line I frequently quote is the one from Crime and Punishment: Marmeladov turns to Raskolnikov in a bar and regales him with a long, pompous tale of woe, ending on a tender note: "Everyone must have somewhere to turn." Chekhov's Nina relied on herself, but Raskolnikov ends up relying on ... yep, a woman. When your intellect lets you down, cherchez la femme. (Is it legit to butcher that old trope, to turn it on its head? It's not the woman who's to blame, it's she who may be your savior. On the other hand, perhaps she'll just walk away and take care of her own business, leaving you searching and searching...)

Cringeworthy? Really??

It's so sad. I've gotten my first reaction to my new book. Well, second reaction. My sweet husband was brought to tears reading the introduction (possibly because he remembered just how many drafts of each section of the book, and of all the sections left on the cutting room floor, that he had read, and read, and read before). But now I've heard from a potential reader that his Russian friend-in-exile (and more importantly that friend's teenage son) think the title is кринжовый. Ouch. That hurts. Why do we need Russian literature? Do we? My Polish friend wrote to encourage me when she saw my linked in post about the publication and assured me that SHE and all her friends still love Russian literature ... even and despite the fact that Russians sometimes misbehave. (Some Russians more than others, and sometimes not just misbehaving--the world's reaction to the murder of Alexey Navalny in prison is noteworthy and important. We need to hold those responsible in contem

Personal Sanctions. Second Reactions

On Thursday I fled Denver in the face of what was promising to be an epic snowstorm. (My AirBnB host, who grew up in Michigan, advised that Denver is quick to hit the panic button, but I didn't dare stick around to find out. I needed to be home before Monday!) In the plane, waiting for de-icing, I checked my e-mail and learned that I had been added to a so-called "stop-list" of U.S. citizens who are being personally sanctioned for our attitudes toward the Russian government and its internal and foreign affairs. It's not often that you end up on a list with the head of Lockheed Martin--certainly nothing I ever expected. But then, I also had never thought of myself as a Russophobe, and now that's the label that has been affixed to me by the Russian Federation. I had just been upgraded to first class--apparently not a lot of people were fleeing Denver that morning!--so I did what any Russophobe would do: I ordered a vodka from the flight attendant. An American vodka,

RIP Randy Nolde

In everyone's life there is a teacher who motivated her to try harder, strive for more, reach beyond. Or in my case, a teacher who teased, goaded, poked, pried, laughed, lampooned, and somehow created an atmosphere where I was ready to work my tail off to make him proud. Randy Nolde, we will miss you. Mr. Nolde was my Russian teacher in high school. I first got to know him as a younger person -- the Russian Club Banquet was quite the event in my home town, and my grandmother used to take us regularly even before my sister enrolled in Russian language class. Every year, the high school cafeteria underwent a magical metamorphosis. Huge murals of scenes from Russia -- fantastic, colorful onion-domed churches, and young peasants reaping wheat, and Armenian maidens with long braids and colorful costumes -- hung all around the edges of the room. On the menu: chicken Kiev made by the cafeteria ladies, supplemented with cafeteria salad, but also khachapuri and piroshki made by the

Manic Bookstore Cafe

Search This Blog