After reading this collection of Chekhov’s short stories, I understand why he is considered one of the best. Anton Chekhov lived from 1860 to 1904, so he was writing prior to the Russian revolutions. Most of these stories are slices of life in the Russian countryside in the late 19th century. A few contain elements of fantasy. Common themes running throughout these stories are love, religion, hypocrisy, materialism, and leading a meaningful life. My favorites are Fortune and The Black Monk.

The Huntsman – 1885 – 4 stars
On the Road – 1886 – 4.5 stars
The Letter – 1887 – 4.5 stars
Fortune – 5 stars
Gusev – 1890 – 3.5 stars
Fish Love – 3 stars
The Black Monk – 1894 – 5 stars
Rothschild's Violin – 1894 – 4 stars
The Student – 1894 – 3 stars
The House with the Mezzanine – 1896 – 4 stars
In the Cart – 1897 – 3.5 stars
The Man in a Case – 1898 – 3.5 stars
Gooseberries – 1898 – 4 stars
About Love – 1898 – 4.5 stars
The Lady with the Little Dog – 1899 – 4.5 stars
At Christmas Time – 1900 – 3.5 stars
The Bishop – 1902 – 4 stars ( )

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/recent-reads-about-love-... ( )

About Love and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics, 2004) served as my introduction to Chekhov's short stories, and what an impression those literary snapshots have left! I have never read anything quite like them. In her introduction to this collection, Bartlett notes that "the question of how we interpret Chekhov has led to the word 'elusive' becoming a cliché in criticism of his writing". She is certainly right. I was left at times feeling as though the text before me was either a load of rubbish or a work of literary genius, although which one I couldn't say. Émile Dillon described Chekhov as a "miniaturist who courageously dives into the mysterious depths of the ocean of human life, and brings up — shreds and seaweed". I agree absolutely, but I don't see this as such a bad thing – the glimpses of the murky depths Chekhov provides are beautiful and precious; anything more would desecrate this beauty with vulgarity. Those shreds and seaweed are to be treasured, and the author must be praised for his ability to grasp them amid such a torrent of activity.

Bartlett's introduction offers as good a brief primer as the uninitiated can reasonably hope for, and her translation is superb – although I have not (and could not) read the original russian, I have compared a few of the stories with previous english translations and found Bartlett's to be by far the more readable and enjoyable, with no discrepancies in meaning between the two.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and will be seeking out more of Chekhov's stories as soon as the characters contained in these – still very much alive in my mind – dissipate enough to make room for more.

This collection of short stories truly is about love. Not happy-ending fairytale love, but the love that really exists in the world: usually unequal felt, sometimes obsessive, and often inexplicable. The stories are all beautiful, well written and self-contained. Each story exhibits a different type of love: love of parents for children, unrequited love, obsessive love, forbidden loves, loves that could have been. Most fascinating to me is the way Chekhov has written the stories so we can see the motivations of all the various lovers. Some of them really want security, an interest to distract them from their meaningless lives, or just sex. In so many cases, what we would like to call love is just avarice. However the stories are not bleak. There are moments when true concern for others breaks through the characters innately selfish natures. I love Chekhov because his stories feel real, his characters aren’t just characters. They are human, with all of our vices, and our slim redeeming virtues. ( )

Quite good but I think Chekhov is a bit too depressing for me. ( )