This picture explains why e-books will never take off for me. My favourite place to read is the bath. Furthermore, I adore the Russian classics, many of which are long. In print, long translates into weight. I like to feel the actual weight of what I'm reading. War and Peace as an e-book? Oblomov? No thanks.
I am rereading Chekhov, here his long short story The Duel. It concerns Ivan Layevsky, who runs away from St. Petersburg to the Crimea with Nadezhda, a married woman, and soon finds himself out of love, in debt, and the object of a eugenics-espousing zoologist's terrifyingly rational hatred. The story is both very funny and peopled with round, real characters whose chronic ennui, unfulfilled longings and stubborn hope define that particular Russian mood.
Chekhov's gift to the world is his characters. Through them he teaches us that what makes a person interesting (and sometimes even good), what endears him to us, are not so much his virtues, but his cumulative flaws: a bad temper, moral weakness, lassitude. Von Koren, the zoologist, tells Layevsky's friend, the gruff, neckless Dr. Samoylenko, “If you were really so very fond of him … you wouldn't be so blind to his weaknesses, you wouldn't be so tolerant.” But we are. We grow madly fond of Layevsky and the faithless Nadezhda, of Dr. Samoylenko's rages in the kitchen and his lending money all around. Even the despicable Von Koren wins us over in the end. If only we could extend the same tolerance to the people in our lives!
Here is my cure for an ungenerous heart, for boredom, for disillusionment: three drops of lavender oil in a hot, full tub; a glass of wine; something Russian to read.
Try it. And try not to drop the book in.
Caroline Adderson lives in Vancouver. Her new novel, The Sky is Falling, is about the fear of nuclear war and the love of Russian literature.
