“In general, I am not happy with my story. It strikes me as unwieldy, boring and too narrowly focused.”
That’s how Chekhov described “The Steppe” in a letter in early 1888. And he was mostly right. Unwieldy? Yes. Boring? Crushingly! Too narrowly focused? No, no and no! This novella, widely considered Chekhov’s first, has little or no focus at all!
“The Steppe,” subtitled “The Story of a Journey,” traces the path of a boy, Yegorushka, who is being escorted by his uncle and a local priest to a distant town, where he will attend school. Here’s how Chekhov described the story: “It’s a small novella in which I depict the steppe, people of the steppe, the birds, the nights, and so on.”
“And so on” is the key phrase there. I’ve never seen so much “and so on” in any other Chekhov story or novella. The steppe is vast and unchanging and almost featureless, and so to describe it Chekhov essentially goes on at vast length, repeatedly noting the unchanging, featureless nature of it.
In trying to grasp the vastness of it all, and the stultifying heat and sameness of the landscape, Chekhov ploddingly writes dull, dreamy sentences that tail off in ellipses. Over and over again, sentences just go pfft….
Here’s one that practically had me tearing my hair out:
There was no sound except the munching and snorting of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of three snipe… the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds did not break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but on the contrary, lulled all nature to slumber.
No sound? You just described seven separate sounds! Munching, snorting, snoring, wailing, crying, babbling and lisping! How much sound does there have to be before we can agree that there’s sound??
That cruddy sentence is pretty much par for the course in this story. Chekhov keeps straining for the poetic and coming up short.
The lengthy descriptions of nature alternate with scenes in which the travelers interact with each other and others on the road. There is, annoyingly, a cringey scene featuring Jews, specifically a visit to an inn run by someone named Moisey Moisevitch. (This seems sort of like calling the character Jewy McJewface, does it not?) In any case, Moisey is meant to be a comical figure, a kind of Steppe-n-Fetchit:
As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and agreeable.
And then there is Moisey’s wife, who isn’t even given a name, and is simply described thus: “a big fat Jewess with her hair hanging loose.” Moisey’s children poke their heads from under a greasy quilt (like bugs from under a rock) while Moisey and his wife yammer at each other in Yiddish that is expressed essentially as the grunting of animals: “Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!” “Too-too-too-too!”
Ugh.
About one-third of the way in, the story shifts a bit, as Yegorushka, for no particularly good reason, is placed under the care of a group of peasants who are driving hay wagons to the same town that Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher are going. This plot device introduces us to a new band of travelers. There’s Panteley, a kindly, long-suffering peasant; Dymov, a bully; Vassya, who apparently has contracted an illness from working in a matchmaking factory that deformed his face (plus he seems feeble-minded, eating a live minnow) and others.
This segment of the tale is somewhat more readable than the first. (But don’t get me wrong, it’s not anything I would recommend to a casual reader.) The one plot development that actually could be called interesting involves Dymov, the bully. Yegorushka works up his courage to tell Dymov off for bullying one of the more pathetic men in the group, and even threatens to report his behavior to his uncle, the merchant Kuzmitchov. Dymov seems actually moved by Yegurushka’s tearful rant, and tries, hamfistedly, to make amends. This may be because he is ashamed to have brought a child to tears, or it may be because he fears the boy’s rich family.
It’s not much but it’s something in this endless tale.
Ah, but that’s not all! There’s more and more and more: A thunderstorm; a brief interaction with the glamorous Countess Dranitsky; a visit to a shop; a church service. Perhaps the best way for me to describe this novella is to just go pfft…
Oh, but wait, one more thing: An upside of this novella is that it does offer interesting, presumably accurate glimpses of life on the steppe. Here’s how one man is described: “The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand—a regular figure from the Old Testament…” Meanwhile, there are telegraph wires and, even in the deep reaches of the steppe, factories. The beginnings of modernity can be glimpsed alongside “old testament” figures like the old shepherd.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
“The Steppe” features a variety of scenes and tableaux that Chekhov had already used in other stories–and generally to better effect. The hay drivers tell stories of travelers murdered and robbed—calling to mind “Overdoing It” and “An Adventure” and other road misadventures. The thunderstorm scene is almost exactly the same as the one in “A Day in the Country,” down to the desperate murmuring of “holy, holy, holy” as the lightning flashes across the sky. A scene where the wagon drivers catch fish is very, very much like “The Fish.”
Finally, there are interesting parallels between “The Steppe” and “The Cook’s Wedding.” Both stories feature boys struggling to understand the world–specifically, wealthy boys trying to grasp the lives of the poor people who serve them. And both boys wonder why adults get married. “The Cook’s Wedding” is a much better, tighter story–and one that, unlike “The Steppe,” has a satisfying twist at the end.
A Chekhov Circus 