An unexpectedly unpleasant story about a teenage angst, which ends with a literal bang.
Sometimes Chekhov digs in and writes something so unpleasant that it is just no fun to read. This is one of those stories.
Volodya himself is a recognizable character–we’ve all known teenagers who struggle to fit into the world, who are intelligent enough but somehow can’t manage to pass their tests, who are wan and awkward at an age when they should be bursting with energy and enthusiasm. Some people just have a hard time being teenagers. That’s Volodya. Poor kid. It’s painful to read about him.
There is a decent scene where Volodya impetuously declares his love for an older, married woman. She lets him down gently and firmly.
From there, the story gets bumpy. There is a weird, second scene with the married woman that makes little sense. Volodya then attacks his mother, and he begins to seem not like an awkward, unhappy teenager, but a disturbed young man likely to do violence. And the story does turn dark and violent.
Living in modern day America, where gun violence has long been a catastrophic horror, I just don’t feel any need to read about violent teenagers with guns. The real world is plenty dark enough for me.
A quick biographical note: One of Chekhov’s early and influential editors was Alexei Suvorin, whose teenage son killed himself around the time that Chekhov was selling stories to him. Chekhov seems to have been deeply affected by the boy’s death, or maybe just found it irresistible from a writer’s perspective. In any case, the suicide of a young man not only makes up the core of this story, it is the key to the play “The Seagull.”
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are the sort of reader who enjoyed, or at least appreciated, “Volodya.” If that is the case, you might also appreciate “An Adventure,” which like “Volodya” turns unbearably violent. Go ahead, if that’s your thing.
A Chekhov Circus 