This long story has a lot of interesting stuff in it, but it’s a hot mess. Despite being near-novella length, there’s just too damn much going on: too much incident and too many characters. It all feels rushed and somewhat confusing.
What’s interesting about “The Murder” is not the murder (there is one) or the investigation of the murder, or anything having to do with crime or punishment. No, to me what was interesting was the description of the main character’s highly unusual religious practices.
Here’s the story, boiled down as far as I can: Matvey Terehov is an odd duck, a reverent and pious young man who seems happiest when singing for religious services. His religiosity has a dark back story: As a young man, he grew so devout that he could not abide worship being led by priests who, in his eyes, were insufficiently observant. He became a sort of lay priest, scourging himself and attracting other followers. In time, these religious services began to resemble what an American would call pentecostal events – ecstatic affairs where the worshippers spoke in tongues. But then the ecstasy became fleshly – they turned into orgies.
After a wise man urges Matvey to recognize the fallibility of man–and specifically of priests–he gives up his ecstatic, self-defined religious practice, and becomes exceedingly modest.
At this point, he moves in with his uncle, who for some reason acts as a priest on holy days, not in a church, but in the home. Matvey urges his uncle to give up this wicked practice.
Meanwhile, there is a parallel story involving Matvey’s inheritance, which was usurped by the uncle.
As a result of these two problems, violence erupts. Matvey is murdered.
There’s more. A lot more. There’s a hidden body. A police investigation. Redemption in a prison camp… (!!!) LIke I said, there is just too much going on here, even for a story of some 40 pages.
All that said, “A Murder” does offer some interesting details about religious individualism in 19th Century Russia. The religious practices of Matvey and his uncle, weird as they are, feel real. More than that, they seem very modern–American, even.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
“A Murder” reminds me of “In the Ravine,” another potboiler that lacks focus and narrative force. I wouldn’t really recommend either of these long works, but they point up some of Chekhov’s weaknesses when trying to work in long form – melodrama, ungainly organization, sudden stops and starts of narrative flow, narrative side-trips that introduce otherwise non-important characters, and characterizations that seem to shift mid-narrative.
The fact is – or, let’s say it another way, my opinion is – that most of Chekhov’s longer works are weak. That includes most of his plays.
Gasp! Crash! (Sound of iPad falling on ground.)
A Chekhov Circus 