Manic Bookstore Cafe

Here Chekhov looks positively cheerful, it seems to me! Chekhov gets a bum rap as being a pessimist. My favorite indictment is by Lev Shestov, a turn-of-the-20th-century philosopher, who accused the writer of "killing people's hopes and dreams." Ouch. Others have suggested that he's just depressing. I've been asked to speak on Chekhov in Finland in January (where, granted, it is very dark in the winter, and people perhaps do their best to avoid thinking depressing thoughts). I propose to lecture on the topic of Chekhov and cemeteries, and even the professor who invited me found the topic to be rather "sad." Nonetheless, I think a case can be made that Chekhov offers us ways to think about the world around us and our place in it which in fact uplift us and give us if not hope, then at least pause. (And the pause is one of Chekhov's most important dramatic tools in the plays. On that another time.) Costume sketch for Three Sisters (from ...

In my class, we have spent the last two weeks talking about shchi . We learned proverbs, looked at different recipes, contemplated "fasting" or vegetarian shchi versus shchi with meat. We read essays about shchi , discussed the history of shchi  in old Russia, and looked at images of shchi  in power point presentations. Or at least I did. Then one of the students -- whose Russian vocabulary seems extraordinary (she's the one who knew how to say "polar vortex" in Russian) -- asked a question. "What are shchi ?" I had decided to check in with the students about the pace of reading, degree of comprehension, etc., so we were speaking English. "Cabbage soup," I replied. "But then why is it plural?" This, of course, is the great question of Russian cuisine. Why is  a soup plural? The students were not convinced by my first suggestion: because the declensions are that much more fun: add some smetana  [sour cream] to your...