“Joy” is a very early tale, and a heavy-handed one to boot, typical of Chekhov’s early output. But if nothing else it has a moral that resonates in the modern world.
A young man is thrilled to see his name in the paper. He’s famous! He rushes to show the paper to his family. “Read this!” he tells them excitedly, and so they do.
Here’s what the newspaper story reports: The young man, having gotten drunk, was run over by a sledge and knocked out. Obviously he was behaving like a drunken fool, but never mind that! He’s famous! Out the door he goes, to share the newspaper with everyone he knows.
In the modern era he might be found uploading a video of himself getting slammed in the crotch by an errant golf ball, or gluing his hand to a model airplane. Apparently humans were idiots for attention even before the age of the internet and “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
That said, this story is about as subtle as one of those home videos.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
So, this is basically piffle. Chekhov eventually proved himself to be the most subtle of writers, but he didn’t have enough time, patience or money in 1883 to worry about subtlety. He was pumping out stories that would sell to the editors of the popular press. Constance Garnett omitted alot of these short humor pieces in her collection of translations, but a few of them slipped through the cracks, especially in volumes 11, 12 and 13. So if you want to read something supposedly funny back in the 1880s to match up with this tale, I don’t know, I guess you could try “A Country Cottage,” another story worth reading only if you are a Chekhov completist.
A Chekhov Circus 