Listed high among the masters of short story is Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Even if you haven’t read his work, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of his technique in Chekhov’s gun. Instead of living in mystery, I have decided to finally dig into the author’s work and understand just what makes him an essential voice in the written word. Is he more than a simple gimmick and, if so, what does he have to say about the larger world around him? Like everything I’ve covered in the Short Stop column, his is a series defined by searching bookstores to find whatever speaks to me. At long last, I hope to better understand a name I’ve known seemingly since before I was a writing major but never had context for. Is Chekhov as great as they say? Follow along as I try to see if the payoff is worth the set-up.
When creating a vision of Chekhov as a writer, the early go of this anthology has been quite the downer. Most of the stories have centered around mortality with the previous entry, “The Dependents,” ending with his most morbid conclusion yet. I understand that it works as this great commentary on societal expectations and economics, but it makes me wonder if the writer has anything else on his mind. There is an existentialism in his work that borders on desperation as the protagonists realize that life could be better. One has to wonder if things ever wood.
That may be why “Grisha” is a disarming follow-up. While this isn’t the first appearance of a boy named Grisha, this feels like a prequel to “The Cook’s Wedding.” In the case of the earlier story, the boy is seven years old and witnessing adults expressing their limited access to power. Chekhov’s writing was clever and managed to turn something so bittersweet and tragic into a comically naïve tale of dysfunction. By nature of a child’s limited exposure to the world, the exchange reads a lot differently and creates a more complicated moral. Where most people reading “The Cook’s Wedding” are classifiably adults with cognitive dissonance, I doubt that Grisha at seven knows what he’s witnessing.
The same can be said for the self-titled story that meets readers this time around. Coming just a year later, “Grisha” finds the boy at the infantile age of “two years and eight months.” At that age, his world is a rectangular box, likely a crib, where everyone attends to his every need. He is a child whose periphery is fabricated and catered to his survival. It’s safe to say that Grisha doesn’t even a personality outside of basic needs while observing the world directly next to him. Like “The Dependents,” he is helpless. The only difference is that there’s optimism on him eventually escaping this trap and becoming someone of higher value.
At just four pages, this story feels slight. To those rushing through the story, it may be hard to find any greater significance in the prose. In fact, that’s how mamma would want it. She ends the story by feeding him “a spoonful of castor oil” and telling him to go to sleep. There’s a level of anticlimactic storytelling on display, especially for those used to catharsis or closure. Grisha has just entered the world for the first time and seen it full of chaos and derision. How is the solution to this story to feed the child castor oil? There must be some greater parable on display.
Something that Chekhov likes to do is create environments that exist outside the social. Consider “On the Road” where the entire story takes place in a traveler’s room that is meant for weary passengers wanting to sleep. There is room for introspection and solitude in this space. For Chekhov, it’s a place to best understand the self, as if the characters are ostracized and fending for themselves. For Grisha, it makes sense that he’s off in his own corner. However, his sense of isolation is not dissimilar from the adults that Chekhov has explored prior. They are not informed about something, and it’s only in addressing the environment that they learn anything.
The hyperbole on display in “Grisha” is delightful, if just because Chekhov knows how to regress language down to a two-year-old. The reader is forced to view the world through his viewpoint and makes the banal into something more adventurous. Over the course of the four pages, Grisha discovers that there’s a larger world. He’s at what amounts to a social gathering where soldiers are trampling about and cats wander the floors. At one point he runs loose and a maid chases after him.
Much like “The Cook’s Wedding,” this story would seem unexceptional if taken too literally. There isn’t enough to satisfy the image of a child wandering aimlessly and looking at stoves. Does he do anything with his newfound freedom? No. Then again, he can’t. He hasn’t learned how to defend himself. All he can do is go where mamma goes. He eats what the maids give him. He is subservient to an economy that is not dissimilar from his parents in a much different way. The only difference is that they have more options on how to survive their fate. Of course, Chekhov is likely suggesting that there will be someone feeding them their own metaphorical castor oil to try and keep them from questioning the madness they witness. Maybe it isn’t food but more a misery befitting “The Dependents.”
The prose of “Grisha” is filled with vibrant detail. The opening references that it takes place during April, which could allude to the start of a new season. It’s a shift of autonomy for Grisha as he indulges in almost every sensory sensation imaginable over the four pages. There’s new smells, new sights, new tastes to fill his mind with curiosity. It’s the type of addictive behavior that makes one wonder how much more they could have. Given how restrictive Chekhov’s other tales are, it’s likely that the ending embodies a tragic irony. He will have some of these sensations again, but it’s not likely to give him the same thrills. The world still feels new now. Embrace it while you can.
A key word towards understanding how Chekhov perceives the situation can be found in the line, “You are feverish.” Given that this follows an alarming exchange with a stove, it makes sense why the child would be afraid. The imagery is striking and unlike anything else a child used to a rectangular existence would know about. How does one calm down when they believe the provider of food and warmth is something to fear? The answer mamma gives is to take castor oil.
I understand that the idea of calming a child is often ideal. In normal circumstances, the end of “Grisha” doesn’t seem all that controversial. However, as a work of fiction Chekhov is forcing the reader to question why this needed to be shared. As entertainment, it works as an amusing little tale, but it’s not as special or intricate as his other work. Even “The Cook’s Wedding” has more substance from the same character. What can be derived from a two-year-old looking at a stove and having his first existential crisis?
To be honest, the irony of the piece is that the reader asking all of these questions is likely the point. Without proper care, Grisha will grow up afraid of stoves. If he doesn’t have a sincere conversation with either of his parents, this moment will plant as trauma that keeps him distanced from parts of the world. In this small moment, the parents aren’t necessarily evil, but their negligence can be seen as problematic. Grisha is at his most malleable period of existence and the wrong words will alter his entire life. By giving him castor oil, it’s answering the question with the dread that nobody knows how to solve his fear. It’s not a concrete problem but instead something that will build in his imagination as he sleeps and grows into a more comprehensive youth.
At its core, the story is a clever example of how easy it is for anybody to have ideas planted in their head. Without emphasizing anything too political or specific, “Grisha” embodies the way we struggle to process a world of information and learn about cultures through a totally alien perspective. There is enough of a humanity to make them recognizable, but their customs are weird. What happen when Grisha grows older and is confronted with something even more bizarre than a stove and has nobody tell him how it functions in society? Will he become a bigot solely because he wasn’t taught to have complex thought at a young age?
Honestly, the story is somewhat underwhelming as a greater work. I understand its function, especially when paired with “The Cook’s Wedding,” but everything comes across as trivial. That may be the point, but given that the other stories Chekhov has written is chocked full of details that make each page so meaty, it’s weird to read “Grisha” and feel so absent of larger subtext. Maybe that’s just because this story can’t afford it without losing that innocence. The best that can be said is that Chekhov continues to be a great subversive writer who knows how to say a lot with very little. I’m curious to know if Grisha will make another appearance down the line. For now, I look forward to what his dreams produce and whether there’s a sensible answer on the other side.
Coming Up Next: "The Kiss"
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