Author Archives: Karen Kittrell

CSI: A Gentleman in Moscow

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(Context – Subtext – Intertextuality)

The author, Amor Towles, name drops in A Gentleman in Moscow. He weaves the names of literary greats, facts from the writers’ lives and passages from classics. A special surprise is the frequent mentioning of Chekhov and Tolstoy. I search for a term to describe this writing technique. No, it’s not plagiarism because the quotes are attributed to each author. By accident, between context for Bulgakov and subtext for Chekhov, I stumble on this little word – intertextuality.

Of course, it is not a little word, and the concept is huge in application. Intertextuality includes lifting and incorporating lines and thoughts from previously published works. It also expands to building upon previously published themes, characters and plots. Here is a reason for writers to be avid readers. To reference a previous work, the writer must have knowledgeable of the text within the writers’ work. Without a sufficient  literary background, the modern writer misses the opportunity for deeper meaning. I struggle with merely achieving sufficient knowledge to find the hidden treasures of intertextuality in my reading.

 Intertextuality

To find examples of intertextuality in A Gentleman in Moscow, I utilize technology to locate the passages. A simple “search” or “find” in the digital copy delivers numerous references for Chekhov, Tolstoy and even Bulgakov. Famous titles, such as War and Peace, enter the dialogue when one character is challenged to transcribe a favorite passage. And Anna Karenina is wedged under a furniture leg to steady  a wobbly bureau.

One of my favorite references is in a footnote. Towles writes about what I encountered in reading Tolstoy and Chekhov. He writes that “among readers of European fiction the character names in Russian novels are notorious for their difficulty. Not content to rely on given and family names, we Russians like to make use of honorifics, patronymics, and an array of diminutives – such that a single character in one of our novels may be referred to in four different ways in as many pages. To make matters worse, it seems that our greatest authors, due to some deep-rooted sense of tradition or a complete lack of imagination constrained themselves to the use of thirty given names. You cannot pick up a work of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Turgenev without bumping into an Anna, an Andrey, or an Alexander.”

Count the Many Ways 

Speaking of Alexanders and multiple names, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov– called Count, Alexander and  Sasha — is the protagonist in A Gentleman in Moscow . In this fictional book, the Count is under house arrest and confined to the Metropol Hotel in 1922 for publishing a poem unacceptable to the newly empowered Communist party. The abdication of Nicholas II, the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war in Russia and War World I were only a few years in the past. The Count, a descendent of Russian aristocracy with ties to the former Tsar, has lost seemingly everything. The following passage by Towles describes the downfall of aristocrats, writers and politicians.

” . . . the Confederacy of the Humbled is a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.”

Literally Literary

The character, Mikhail Mindich, a boyhood friend of the Count, mentions Chekhov  and is in the process of editing a compilation of Chekhov’s letters. In one scene, Mishka (nickname) shares his frustration at being forced to delete part of a letter by Anton Chekhov to his sister. Although Chekhov’s letter was written in 1904, the 1930s in Russia and the Great Purges (1936-1938) eliminated anything counter-revolutionary or negative about Russia. Towles includes the letter sent from Chekhov in Berlin on June 6, 1904 to his sister, Masha.  Only a month before his death, Chekhov comments on the good German bread, his improving health and the quality of his hotel.

As you might guess, Mishka is eventually imprisoned as an Enemy of the People. Following his imprisonment, Mishka writes a book titled Bread and Salt. Towles includes passages about bread from Genesis, Matthew and Luke and by authors Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. The passages inspire me to find these stories and novels to read next and better understand the effect of intertextuality in this example. Curious about the reference to bread and salt, I discover this is a welcoming custom in Russian for guests or on special occasions. Perhaps the Count’s reading Mishka’s book is the special occasion or a reference to a shared greeting in their more pleasant past as young men.

This novel accomplishes the job of putting history in context with literature. Towles, a reader of Russian literature, confirms the importance of Tolstoy and Chekhov in the history of world literature. I also learn through the events portrayed in the novel the cultural and political sentiment for Mikhail Bulgakov during the time when he wrote The Master and Margarita.

Now, I know enough about Russian literature to be dangerous.

CSI: The Seagull (part 1 of 3)

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The acronym, CSI, usually stands for “crime scene investigation.” In the next three posts, I will coin a new meaning for CSI – context, subtext and intertextuality. In Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, action occurs offstage, relying on subtext to convey the dramatic action to the audience. Dictionary.com defines subtext as the true meaning of a literary work. YourDictionary.com adds a character’s feelings and motives. Wikipedia includes the “content beneath the dialogue.” Literaryterms.net builds on these explanations with examples and distinguishes four types of subtext. Since Chekhov made a name for himself with this literary device, I will use The Seagull by Anton Chekhov to demonstrate each type of subtext.

Privilege Subtext

With privilege, the audience knows more than the characters in the play. The audience’s privilege begins immediately in The Seagull at the introduction of the four protagonists and their relationships to each other. Arkadina, an accomplished actress, is mother to Constantine and lover to Trigorin, a famous writer. Constantine, an emerging and experimental writer, loves young Nina, feels inferior to his mother and her friends and competes artistically with Trigorin. Nina acts in Constantine’s modern play yet is quick to criticize his writing. She is also quick to fall in love with Trigorin, who longs for love and life more than he really wants it. Trigorin and Arkadina share their passion for art above anything and anyone.

Secondary characters add more complication, conflict and love triangles. As each character shares his or her passions and longings, the foundation for both tragic and comedic missteps is laid.  Masha, daughter of the estate manager, longs in silence for Constantine’s affection and spurns the school teacher’s marriage proposal.  Masha’s mother is in a secret affair with the doctor, physician to Sorin. Sorin, Arkadina’s brother, struggles with his health and slumps over in the final scene as if dead.

Revelation Subtext

The themes of a play make an opportunity for a big revelation at the end. The Seagull’s themes and characters from 1895 continue to be relevant over one hundred years later. During the performance, I identified with many of the characters. In fact, it would be difficult not to relate to at least one if not many of the characters.  Any writer, actor and artist will appreciate the themes of art and life. The deeper threads of theme tread on existentialism, meaning of life and existence. Chekhov portrayed characters of varying sensitivity and awareness. Death flirted with these characters.

Subtext through Promise

One aspect of the author’s promise is that characters change and symbols are fitting for the story. The most changed character in The Seagull is Nina. She begins the play describing herself as the carefree seagull drawn to the lake of her childhood. Nina’s future is uncertain because her father’s marriage leaves her without an inheritance. Trigorin shares his note for a writing idea about a young girl who is like a seagull; she falls in love with a famous writer, who uses and destroys her. If that is not enough foreshadowing, a gunshot fires off stage. Constantine appears and presents a dead Seagull to Nina. He says he will be dead like the seagull in Nina’s honor. Chekhov’s promise will be delivered; Nina and Constantine do not fare well in the play’s ending.

Subtext through Questions

A good plot inspires questions. For example, will Nina run away with Trigorin? How will Constantine and Arkadina react? Is the weather preparing the audience for a change?  How can Nina and Constantine recover?  Which character will die?

The Seagull was a new type of play for 1895, introducing subtext to the theatre. Did Chekhov write Constantine’s criticism as an extension of his own? Did he write his own insecurity as Constantine’s? Or was Trigorin the real Chekhov? Did he observe, write and never live? At these points in the play, Chekhov inserted himself (and every other playwright) into The Seagull. The new translation performed by the Michigan Shakespeare Festival made me an instant fan.

 

 

 

The Top Score

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Lists, rankings and ratings eliminate some of the guesswork in life. For example, instead of chancing a bad experience, I check rating websites for a restaurant, a movie or even a church. Goodreads and other online forums allow readers to post comments and ratings about novels or collections of stories. How would the general population rank Chekhov’s short stories?  The half-dozen books on my desk about Chekhov or Chekhov’s anthologies are the old way of researching. I need guidance on where to begin, what is considered the best of Chekhov and how to do all of this in the quickest amount of time.

An Editor’s Choice

Books like The Essential Tales of Chekhov edited by Richard Ford offer a method for reading the best of Checkhov. Ford, a temporary Michigan transplant from the South, attended Michigan State University and writes in his  introduction to the Chekhov anthology that Chekhov is a writer for adults. Chekhov’s most frequent themes of adultery, poverty and illness are not exactly the hero’s journey that Hollywood pumps into most movies. Chekhov’s plots pale and blur while his characters are noteworthy. My Russian dentist who inspired this literary trek says Chekhov descriptions, such as in “A Man with a Case,” have become Russian cultural references for describing personality types. After reading every Chekhov story, Richard Ford chose his favorites. He admits to adding a few stories that were not as polished and complete as Chekhov’s later works. In Ford’s opinion, “The Lady and the Dog” is one of Chekhov’s finest short stories.

Ranker.com

Since I read Ford’s number one pick, I wanted to compare other lists. ListVerse.com which compiles top ten lists of the bizarre to scientific failed in the literary realm with only three lists:

Top Ten Books of All Time (#9 The Stories of Anton Chekhov)

Top Ten Greatest Writers (#3 Pushkin with Russian runner ups of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky)

Ten More Strange Moments In the History of the Novel Awards (no Russians until 1933)

My prize discovery is Ranker.com. This website allows viewers to vote for their favorites on people, entertainment, sports, culture and videos. Curious if the general public could be trusted to rank a literary giant like Chekhov, I find the ratings are generous for a guy who died in 1904. Here are the lists containing Anton Chekhov:

Best Anton Chekhov Short Stories

The Best Writers of All Time (#25 Chekhov)

Best Novelist of All time (#50 Chekhov)

Best Short Story Writers of All time (#3 Chekhov)

Dying Words Last Spoken by Famous People (#69 Chekhov)

The Greatest Playwrights in History (#2 Chekhov)

The Best Russian Authors (#3 Chekhov)

The Hottest Dead Writer (#3 Chekhov)

Every Person Who Has Been immortalized in a Google Doodle

I confess to spending more time on Ranker.com than in Chekhov’s actual writings. In regards to the primary mission of finding Chekhov’s best short stories, the survey says . . . the following stories received the most votes:

The Lady and the Dog (18 pages written 1889)

The Bet (9 pages written 1888)

Ward No. 6 (48 pages written 1892)

The Death of a Clerk (4 pages written 1883)

Misery (6 pages written 1886)

Fast Pass to Chekhov

If narrowing the reading to a handful of stories is still too much, then do what theme parks call the “fast pass.” Similar to a theme park’s shorter line, this method makes the classics very easy, fast and fun. I can listen to more stories than I have time to read.

The Duel (an independent film made in 2010 with an 81% on the Tomatometer)

“The Bet” (produced by ITV’s “The Short Story”)

The Seagull (a live performance by the Michigan Shakespeare Festival)

The Seagull  (a 1975 production with a Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score of 50%)

Both professional and school productions of Chekhov’s stories are found on YouTube.  Fans of silent movies will want to watch the short 2012 adaptation of Death of a Government Clerk by Ethan Unklesbay. Audio recordings are also on YouTube including the free online digital libraries of Librivox.org, read by volunteers. “Misery” is a good recording.

NPR produces Selected Shorts. The July 2017 program, hosted by Krista Tippett, begins with a Sherwood Anderson short story, continues to two poems by Tracy K. Smith and stories by David Whyte and Elizabeth Crane and finally ends with “An Enigmatic Nature” by Anton Chekhov. I veer off track to listen to Stephen King’s “Batman and Robin Have An Altercation.” This story is on Selected Shorts Too Hot For Radio. (I’m not counting this as a complete diversion because Stephen King’s Misery came to mind when I first saw the short story title of “Misery” by Chekhov.)

In conclusion, Chekhov’s short stories are for the reader to experience many times and in many ways. Ranker.com and Richard Ford helped begin my journey, but there are many stories remaining for me to enjoy. Each different story makes me fall a little bit more for the #3 Hottest Dead Writer.

Theatrical Lightning; The 10-Minute Play

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Anton Chekhov’s four hundred plus short stories are an easier writing topic than his plays. My curiosity took me to Chekhov’s most famous plays: The Seagull, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya. Why did Chekhov shift from short stories to plays? His first play, perhaps marketed incorrectly as a comedy, was not received well.  Eventually, he wrote another play and fourteen in total. What was the attraction of the theatre?  I explored how to write a play, more specifically a 10-Minute Play to examine Chekhov’s motivation.

What is a 10-Minute Play?

In addition to a full length play (90 minutes), a “want to be” playwright can choose from the one act play (30 minutes) and a 10-Minute Play. As described by Sam Graber for the Playwright’s Center, the 10-Minute Play is a “bolt of theatrical lightning.” The play has minimal props and a small cast. The play’s ten pages include an organized structure and writing elements of action, dialogue, character, and theme.

Where to watch a 10-Minute Play?

Play festivals highlight short plays for several reasons. The productions are inexpensive and can generate additional revenues for theatre companies. The audience enjoys a wide variety of themes and situations. And less experienced directors, actors, and playwrights get a shot at the spotlight.  The Sandbox Play Festival, for example, produced four plays in a one hour time frame. The festival awarded a judges’ favorite and an audience favorite.  At the end of the hour, my friends and I had a difficult time choosing a favorite. All of the plays were enjoyable and outstanding in a unique way.

How to enter in a play festival?

The first challenge is to write the play and use a play format. As in The Revenant -A Good Idea for a Film, both screenplay and play need dramaticized action. The format allows no time for boring exposition disguised as dialogue.  I wrote a play with four characters, but my writing group suggested to eliminate one character and begin a page later where the action really began. According to Graber, a 10-Minute Play must ask a question. Of course, this is not a literal question but more of an implied and intriguing question about society, culture or people. This quick grab of attention sounds like a short story. The difference is in the structure which escalates like a novel in a short ten minutes.

The next challenge is to submit the play. Websites list play festivals and play submission deadlines. The biggest festivals offer prizes of $1000. Smaller festivals reward playwrights with production credit. Do playwrights travel to the production of a play? Maybe this was Chekhov’s attraction? Seeing his words acted on stage must have been a thrill. If I choose Chekhov’s path, my next chapter in writing could easily be titled – write, submit, road trip.

 

 You, Me, Tolstoy and the Rest of the World

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Summer is the season for love and affairs. I plan to have as many affairs as I can. Of course, I mean “art affairs” because good art demonstrates Tolstoy’s Theory of Art. In films, paintings and writing, art relationships convey emotion and bridge the distance between the artist and the art recipient.

Film is an easy art form to love. The final production represents the vision of screenplay writer, director, cinematographer, actors, soundtrack composer and hundreds of other technical experts. In Writing Screenplays That Sell, Michael Hauge writes that a winning screenplay “enables a sympathetic character to overcome a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve a compelling desire.” Empathy engages the audience to experience a characters’ emotions. Each of these movies—Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, and La La Land—conveys emotions and establishes relationship.

Relationship

According to Tolstoy, all art forms offer this relationship experience, an opportunity to share a connection. My favorite art affairs are with paintings and sculptures I have seen many times and for many years. Travel to San Antonio, Texas requires visiting my childhood friends including Chagall’s “Dream Village” and Diego Rivera’s “Delfina Flores” at the McNay Art Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago houses other long lost friends and family, mostly in the 20th and 21st century rooms. Each visit discovers new subtleties missed before and possible new meanings in the twinkle of an eye or the last glint of a setting sun.

The same changing relationship occurs with literary classics. I will reread a piece, such as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and find aspects of the theme and plot more meaningful as an adult than as a high school student. A teenager might sympathize with the Happy, Biff or Bernard. The adult reader is more likely to fear and dread the consequences of Willy Loman’s mistakes. Good writing forms a quick connection with different types of readers that spans hundreds of pages. When the last page of the novel is turned, there is an immediate sense of loss, an aimlessness, a disconnect that sends the reader to the bookshelf for the next story in the series or more of the same magic from the same writer.

Emotion

My son’s Humanities class ventured to the art museum to select a painting to form a relationship. He chose Pablo Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist.” The somber grayed blues of the contorted musician with head bowed and legs crossed are representative of Picasso’s Blue Period. The emotional painting illustrates Tolstoy’s Theory of Art passing along the painter’s sadness to the viewer.

My college English class did a similar assignment, and I became a fan of Marsden Hartley. Decades later, I found the same painting now housed at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. It was like two old acquaintances meeting by chance. I almost said, “We know each other from somewhere. Don’t we?” I shared an emotional connection with the artist because he reminded me of my childhood in the Southwest.

Bridge

Tolstoy also believes art is a bridge across time and culture. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a bridge to a different time, culture and country. Tolstoy, like other great writers, eliminates the distance that separates reader from author.

What does it take to write like Tolstoy and how long? If an Olympic sport takes at least 10,000 hours for mastery, can an ordinary person transform into Tolstoy in five years. To speed my progress, I consulted How to Write Like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen. A Tolstoy example dominates the preface, but the book by this English professor is mostly about other great writers with a little Tolstoy sprinkled on top.

Who writes like Tolstoy today? Who makes a reader care about make-believe characters enough to forget the time, neglect friendships and tasks waiting for attention? Some of my favorite writers are Elizabeth Stroud, John Updike, Junot Diaz, Yann Martel, Jim Harrison, Elmore Leonard, Lauren Groff and Cormac Mccarthy. A Tolstoy writer brings characters to life. Some I wish I knew, but most, I’m glad I only experienced through a story.