The Shooting Party by Anton Chekhov – we find Anton Chekhov on the list of 100 Greatest Books Ever Written http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews - 10 out of 10

 The Shooting Party by Anton Chekhov – we find Anton Chekhov on the list of 100 Greatest Books Ever Written

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews

10 out of 10

Anton Chekhov was celebrated as one of the glorious authors, but mainly for his short stories, that are included with the best magnum opera http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/03/big-volodya-and-little-volodya-by-anton.html and The Shooting Party is a note apart, and the longest work by Chekhov, the novel is intriguing, although the under signed is noting here on the adaptation that has one of the most mesmerizing actors the world has ever had, George Constantin, the one who shares more than just value, but an anecdote with Jack Nicholson

 

According to Robert Evans, actor, producer of The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and other masterpieces, head of Paramount, he discovered Jack Nicholson as he was waiting for a more famous actor to audition and he was impressed by Jack, who had nothing to do on stage, but still attracted the attention – the two went on to be good friends, though Nicholson would refuse to take on the Great Gatsby unless he was paid half a million, therefore the part would go to Robert Redford and Gatsby is not a success, both adaptations actually - http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-kid-stays-in-picture-by-robert.html - about the same thing has happened with George Constantin, when the Bolshoi Theater came visiting…

The Shooting Party starts with a magistrate, Sergey Zinovyev, who offers a manuscript for consideration, explaining he has been involved in an investigation which he had conducted and the story has happened to him (though the name has been changed) and the narrator is the judge himself (like in France, with juge d’instruction, the judge here is the one deciding what happens, who is jailed, placed under accusation, as a prosecutor in other places) who has had not just firsthand experience, as we will learn.

 

The story teller becomes very good friends with count Alexei Karneyev, who drinks a lot, is superficial, vain, spoiled, as most aristocrats would have been, indeed, come to think of it, they are perhaps more than ever, except for those who have lost everything but their titles and live like ‘commoners’, there are those who enjoy privileges and the example at hand is Prince Andrew, who used to be only second in line –as The Economist puts it in the latest edition, just one horrible polo accident from the throne – to the crown and he is engulfed in the most ghastly scandal, and his interviews have shown what an awful figure he is, about to change the perception of heredity and the impact it may have on the future of Britain as monarchy…if not in the short term, then for the longer one.

Urbenin is the bailiff who works for Count Karneyev, in his fifties, a heavy drinker also – Russians seem to have a penchant for that, at least in literature…however, it is wrong and stupid to attribute characteristics to large groups that are specific to a portion and that in fact applies everywhere…in a large enough number of humans, you find a number that drink, are violent, some who are brilliant, others who are stupid.

 

Karneyev has fallen in love with Olga, a much younger woman, who is traumatized as she would say herself by the fact that she has to live in the forest, with her now deranged father, Nikolai Efimych, unable to find men of her own age (or indeed, of any age or sex presumably) in that claustrophobic environment and this solitude, the proximity of mental disease, the impulsive, enthusiastic nature of her age would prompt her to accept the marriage proposal, when this is made by the bailiff, who is nonetheless stupefied that she accepts…

It was unwise, as mentioned, she had been pressed by the chagrin of solitude and mental ailment – which she may have inherited to some extent, one vicious, sardonic, cynical observer might add, with hindsight from her erratic, sometimes perilous, unstable behavior which would be exhibited in the pages to follow the moment where we have stopped before this bracket – and had thought that the love of the would be husband, his wealth and the nature of her own infatuation would be the premise for a better life…

 

She may have fallen in love, however, Thomas Mann explains at one point that we should be aware of using ‘love, friend’ and other important concepts too easily, because it is not true when we say ‘my love is so great, there are no words to express it’ and the opposite is accurate, for love means so much that according to Thomas Mann, we only find the real feeling in literature, not in real life http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/01/death-in-venice-by-thomas-mann.html

alas, Olga may love, or just be infatuated with the magistrate, not her would be husband and one major, nay, probably capital factor in accepting Urbenin was the notion that her affection is not shared and it is destined to remain pointless, because there was presumably a major difference in the social status of the two, and about two centuries ago, in czarist Russia and much of the world, there would be no connection between the rich and poor, the commoner and the noble, and besides, her father is a mental case – to try a stupid cynicism here, dressed as a joke – and the characters refer to his hopeless situation

 

at the wedding, guests insist that the bride and groom kiss, but that repels the woman, who disappears from the feast and the poor husband asks the judge to intervene and the latter jokes that the departure of the bride has soured the wine in his cup and he is out to find her…what follows is a confession, the bride insisting that she loves Zinovyev and she had just made a terrible mistake, to align her life with the much older bailiff, but she is opposed to the idea that she should run away with the man she loves…

back then, they did not have the chance to consult the ultimate expert on relationships, John Gottman, author of the classic Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-seven-principles-of-making-marriage.html the one who was able to say with over ninety percent accuracy rate, which couples would stay together and which would disintegrate, and the whole affair would end…well, dramatically, and we can say that, since you have it in the tile and furthermore there is the famous quote “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired…Otherwise don't put it there.”