A Work of Art by Anton Chekhov is one of The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, which are included on The Bokklubben World Library’s Best 100 Books of All Time list, and they are ranked 127th on The Greatest Books of All Time site…you have thousands of reviews on magnum opera from the aforementioned and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are the stars

 

A Work of Art by Anton Chekhov is one of The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, which are included on The Bokklubben World Library’s Best 100 Books of All Time list, and they are ranked 127th on The Greatest Books of All Time site…you have thousands of reviews on magnum opera from the aforementioned and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are the stars

 

10 out of 10

 

The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-short-stories-of-anton-chekhov-are.html is one of The Best 100 Books of All Time – I am curious to see what AI, or autocorrect until them will do with the verb – because we have ‘Stories’ it looks like plural, except this is just ‘one chef d’oeuvre’

 

This Work of Art is both thought provoking and jocular: “SASHA SMIRNOV, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm, something wrapped up in No. 223 of the Financial News, assumed a sentimental expression, and went into Dr. Koshelkov's consulting-room…” he has A Work of Art with him, and he wants to show gratitude

The doctor had saved his life, or at least that is his perception, so this lighting fixture is presented as a token of the appreciation, except it is decorated with ‘Cancan dancers’, and the wife is aghast at the idea of having this in house https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/11/art-brief-history-by-marilyn-stokstad.html

 

Actually, it is the doctor who is opposed, and we have to ponder the question of what is art, how can we explain it to children, there is the problem of adult content, although not here, and then we have changes in standards, what was unacceptable is now the norm, if not in tyrannies, fundamentalist places like Afghanistan

I am reminded of a short story by our best writer, most important living author, although somehow, I do not find it enticing to read his oeuvre, mea culpa, the tales were another matter, I enjoyed them, but his romans fleuve are another matter https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/irish-coffee-by-mircea-cartarescu.html

 

Mircea Catarescu writes about the can he received with ‘the artist’s shit’, there is this puzzle, although not in this case, what do we call art: Marcel Duchamp had the urinal, Fontaine, ergo, whatever we decide is art, Damien Hirst has the animals cut in half and placed in formaldehyde, and he is a multi-millionaire

What am I saying? I have not even reached the level of appreciating ‘Pickarso’ as he was called by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-kings-english-guide-to-modern-usage.html I am still stuck with the Impressionists, moved a little beyond to van Gogh, pointillists, maybe some Chirico

 

The doctor decides to give away the gift – there is an episode of Seinfeld on this, or at least we have some scenes around ‘re gifting’ – to a lawyer, but the latter feels the same embarrassment in having something ‘erotic’ (for two hundred years ago) in his office, and the object returns to…the doctor, given by Sasha Smirnov