Written in 1887, this is intended to be a humorous entertainment, and I suppose it’s a bit of that. It’s humorous-adjacent, let’s say. At least briefly. It outlives its humorousness pretty quickly.
The story: It’s Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent. A family has enjoyed the traditional celebration of a pancake breakfast and then had a nice nap – it’s a day off and a time to relax. But Styopa, a high school student, is not relaxing: He is struggling with homework. His father sits at his side to help him with his studies.
There follows a nearly interminable discussion of the division of fractions, which includes text that seems to have been lifted direct from a math textbook: “To divide a fraction by a fraction you must multiply the numerator of the first fraction…”
And that’s just a taste of it.
After nearly a full page of fraction-related dialog, we get to the point, which is that the father is not much more focused than his son, and soon he is telling tales. These are not terribly interesting tales, but it should be said that the scene feels real: the father jawing, the son just sitting there blankly. It feels pretty true to life. But boring. Very boring.
The day goes on. The family has tea. Father and son look at a copy of Neva, an illustrated news magazine. (A sly meta-reference; Chekhov wrote for the magazine.) Styopa grows sleepy and says he is going to bed. The family is scandalized. Surely he wants to have a little dinner before Lent, when there will be no meat. (Are you bored of this yet?) They eat dinner. They keep eating. (How about now? Bored now? Had enough?)
And then, as if Chekhov has bored himself to sleep, the family sits down to eat and the tale trails off in a haze of ellipses.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
If nothing else, “Shrove Tuesday” is a warm portrait of family life, and that’s something rare in Chekhov. His family life growing up was no stack of warm pancakes, that’s for sure. “The Head of the Family” is probably much truer to young Anton’s boyhood home life.
A Chekhov Circus 