Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchSUMY, LINTVARYOVS’ ESTATE, May, 1889.… Among other things I am reading Gontcharov and wondering.I wonder how I could have considered Gontcharov a first-rate writer.His “Oblomov” is not really good. Oblomov himself is exaggeratedand is not so striking as to make it worth while to write a wholebook about him. A flabby sluggard like so many, a commonplace,petty nature without any complexity in it: to raise this person to therank of a social type is to make too much of him. I ask myself, whatwould Oblomov be if he had not been a sluggard? And I answerthat he would not have been anything. And if so, let him snore inpeace. The other characters are trivial, with a flavour of Leikin aboutthem; they are taken at random, and are half unreal. They are notcharacteristic of the epoch and give one nothing new. Stoltz doesnot inspire me with any confidence. The author says he is a splendidfellow, but I don’t believe him. He is a sly brute, who thinks verywell of himself and is very complacent. He is half unreal, and threequarterson stilts. Olga is unreal and is dragged in by the tail. Andthe chief trouble is that the whole novel is cold, cold, cold. I scratchout Gontcharov from the list of my demi-gods.But how direct, how powerful is Gogol, and what an artist he is!His “Marriage” alone is worth two hundred thousand roubles. It issimply delicious, and that is all about it. He is the greatest of Russianwriters. In “The Inspector General” the first act is the best, in“The Marriage” the third act is the worst. I am going to read italoud to my people.112