The Lure of Anton Chekhov for an American Reader

         "There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man, to       remind him by his constant knocks that there are unhappy people, and that happy as he himself may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws, catastrophe will overtake him - sickness, poverty, loss" 

                                                                               - "Gooseberries" Chekhov

               "There is no such thing as happiness, nor ought there to be"
                                                                               - "Gooseberries" Chekhov

          Recently I came across the most recent list of the top 10 happiest countries in the world, as expected the all the Scandinavian countries were listed and Australia but one country that was not was the United States of American. This may seem odd to some because we live in the land of opportunity, the place where we can do anything we want and achieve anything as long as we work hard for it. This I believe is where the problem of our level of happiness comes in.
         From a young age we are led to believe that we deserve and ultimately will achieve happiness (I am throwing my net broadly, fully aware that in many cases what I say does not apply). We are told that our perfect mate is out there, that we can and will get that dream job with the great pay, and ultimately we will live a happy life. But there is another part to this message and that is that sadness, depression and the like are abnormal and must be fixed, particularly with medication. So then those of us who suffer with such things become medicated and work to join the rest of the population in the search for that happiness but in that search we get lost sometimes and hit road bumps. We become so focused on achieving our happiness that when, for women for instance, the 'clock is ticking' we settle because we fear that we will die alone and childless. This then can lead to an unhappy marriage and divorce and weeks of anguish and wonder at why we are not happy. At these moments of gut wrenching and debilitating pain we feel gross and wrong because we do not believe that such feelings are normal and that something is wrong so we hide it. Even when we are not in these states do we hide things that give us a sinking feeling; we avoid the idea of death and though we are all aware of its presence we pretend that we are in fact immortal and we will not be touched by it. In essence, in the United States we do not have what Chekhov terms as the "man knocking on the door" but rather we ignore the unhappiness of the world and continue to believe that we deserve and will experience eternal happiness.
          It is for this reason that I often feel so troubled with my fits of depression (here used loosely) because I believe that they are abnormal and must be done away with so that I can continue on my path of happiness. This struggle within myself causes me almost more agony than the fits and thoughts that come with those fits, this is why I am so drawn to the stories of Anton Chekhov.
          Chekhov lived and wrote in the build up to the Russian revolution. He was the first Russian author to utilize the short story, before him there were just big novels like Tolstoy's masterpiece Anna Karenina. I started reading his stories for my Chekhov and Munro master's class and after reading them for three months I am finally able to put into words why I am so drawn to his work.
           In his stories, Chekhov does not often present a 'happy' ending, rather his characters live more or less in a state of 'reality'. A reality in which people suffer, die, are perpetually unhappy and so on; though for many Americans I can see how his work would seem depressing, I find it liberating. Chekhov is my solace, he makes me understand that unhappiness is natural and that the acceptance of it and to a point embracing it is far better than pushing against it. The lines from the story "Gooseberries" - part of Chekhov's trilogy - are possibly some of the most important words I have ever come across in my life because they, in a way, give me permission to "throw off" this allusion that I must consistently be happy and allows me to accept the unhappiness, the "catastrophe" of life that is inevitable.
            If this blog seems like a bit of a rant, I did not mean it to be, rather I mean it to be a chance for readers to look at how our society approaches the concept of happiness and then maybe consider experiencing how Russians approach that idea. Do I believe that the Russian concept of happiness is better than ours, no, but I do believe that a balance is necessary and Chekhov provides that balance.
                                         

        

"Vandals" by Alice Munro: Looking at the Question 'Why did Liza vandalize Bea and Ladner's House?'

(Disclaimer: many of the thoughts and speculations that I will be discussing in this blog are not my own, rather they are accumulation of interesting points made by my classmates in my graduate level Chekhov and Munro class).

Note: I do not give a summary of "Vandals" and there is information that will ruin the story, so I strongly suggest that if you have not read the story do not read this blog.

     In Alice Munro's 1994 short story "Vandals" two prominent questions that arise are: a) was Bea aware that Ladner was sexually abusing Liza, and b) why did Liza trash Bea and Ladner's home. With regards to the first question I personally believe that Bea was aware at some level of Ladner's abuse towards Liza. Though there are no direct suggestions that Bea knew (as there so rarely is within Murno's work) there are minor hints that whether subconsciously or consciously Bea was aware. The major hint is Bea's donation of money toward Liza's college fund, "It was her gave me some money,' Liza continued, as if it was something he out to know, 'to go to college. I never asked her. She just phoned up out of the blue and says she wants to'"(370). This random large donation of money suggests a extreme feeling of guilt, presumably guilt about not protecting Liza (and possibly Kenny) from Ladner. The other hints are small and are controversial. Liza, as a child, expresses a deep trust and hope in Bea upon her arrival to Ladner's house and life, even more than that she believes that "Bea could spread safety" that she was "the woman who could rescue them - who could make them all, keep them all good" (386). This suggests to me that in some way or another Liza must have tried, either successfully or unsuccessfully, to communicate to Bea what was happening and that she was the only person who could protect Kenny and herself. 

     This argument that Bea was aware of the abuse can fall apart when looking closely at the beginning of the story, when it is from Bea's perspective. A classmate of mine argued that at this time in the story and in her life Bea seems to not only be hyper aware of herself and her past actions. So the questions arises that if she did know about the abuse why does she not bring it up now? My answer to this is that this is a woman who has been repressing and denying the truth of Ladner's secret affections the whole time that she has been with him and there is mention of her increased drinking. I believe that as a result of her denial and drinking she is unable, still, to acknowledge the truth of Ladner's abuse of Liza. 

       The argument regarding the extent of Bea's knowledge could go on forever and though Munro is still alive it seems unlikely that she would ever divulge the truth and who would want her to? It would ruin the mystery and reality of this story. 

        Now to the second question: why does Liza trash or vandalize Ladner and Bea's house? The majority of my classmates believed that Liza's actions were a reaction to Bea's inaction. That this is her way of getting back at Bea, at a particularly difficult time in her life with Ladner's recent death, in a subtle way. I, however, disagree with this. Though the reader is unaware of exactly how long Ladner was abusing Liza it is suggested and arguable that the abuse persisted for years. Along with her own abuse it is arguable that Ladner similarly abused Kenny. When Liza goes looking for Bea she passes a beech tree near Ladner's house with "L" for Ladner and Liza, "K" for Kenny and "PDP" carved in the bark. When Bea first sees this and asks what it means Kenny replies "pull down pants", Ladner brushes it off as the remark of a "dirty-minded juvenile" but with the knowledge of his treatment of Liza this outburst of Kenny's seems suspicious. Also, if Ladner was in fact assaulting Kenny as well, his accidental death could possibly be a suicide. The details of his death could support this reading: "Kenny was dead - he had been killed when he was fifteen, in one of the big teenage car crashes that seemed to happen every spring, involving drunk, often unlicensed drivers, temporarily stolen cars, fresh gravel on the country roads, crazy speeds" (370). 

       It is also important to note that the house was originally Ladner's and it was the location of the sexual abuse: "And places where Liza thinks there is a bruise on the ground, a tickling and shame in the grass" (385). Reading the information that Munro provides the reader than suggests to me that Liza is vandalizing the house as a way of getting back at Ladner. So why didn't she do something before? It is not unusual for those who have been assaulted, especially when they are children, to be unable to rebel against their abusers so it is likely that with the death of Ladner Liza is finally able to reclaim, or try to, a part of herself that he stole. So I read Liza's trashing of the house as a reclaiming of herself from Ladner; she is destroying his home, his thing and everything that she associates with him. Then the secondary reason, perhaps, for her trashing the house is to get back at Bea for doing nothing to stop Ladner. 

Munro, Alice. “Vandals”. Carried Away. Toronto: Everyman's Library, 2006. 357-387.

    

The Creative Writing Dilemma

     Since middle school I have always loved the idea of writing a novel (always a novel never short stories, probably because up until recently all I read was novels) and getting published. Unfortunately that is one of the many things that works better - at least for me- in theory rather than practice. Over the years I started and discarded dozens of stories, some of which I have come across recently and cringe at the mere thought of how dreadful they were and still are (while in middle school I attempted to write a novel on friendship).
      I bring the "creative writing dilemma" up now because I am currently in the process of revising the only story that I have ever been able to finish - cutting it down from four-thousand and sum words to three-thousand - for a creative writing program that I am applying for this year. Suffice to say it is not going well. The more I cut and rework in this story the more I dislike it and the more I just choose not to do it even though the application is due in about a week. In an attempt to free myself from the shackles of this sinking ship of a story I have been considering writing an entirely new one for the application. This has taken me from a sinking ship to a sunk ship.
      I have often heard it said that there are two key things to writing creatively: a) write what you know and b) do not write an autobiography (it was not said so bluntly but it was implied). So to write a story or novel the suggestion is to take something from reality - a messy roommate situation perhaps- and turn it into fiction, or as I prefer to think about it: take a pinch of the real and create an ocean of fiction around it so that the pinch of reality is almost indistinguishable. This theory I understand, but, once again, in practice I flop. For instance, the only completed story that I have (which is only complete because I had to write it for a class) takes the reality of my time as an exchange student in Edinburgh and creates the fiction of a budding romance with an attractive Russian. The entire story reeks of poor development and cliche plot twists, I have obviously watched too many bad romantic comedies ( it cannot possibly be a product of the books that I read since they are by and large magnificent).
     So here is where I write in my review of creative writing. It is wonderful in theory and I am sure once you have taken the time to learn the rules of the creative, consistent writing game you will be able to play wonderfully but until then, in practice creative writing is a painful dilemma. Perhaps by the end of this month I will feel differently having been once again successful with creating an entire world of fiction based off of a small grain of fact but at this moment in time I am dismayed.