Review by Choice Review
A prolific writer who has produced many biographies (e.g., From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman, CH, Jan'93; Lost Earth: A Life of Cezanne, CH, Dec'95), Callow attempts to capture Chekhov's elusive character by investigating the "love theme" as the "hidden ground" of his life and work. He mistakenly states that this theme has been "insufficiently explored"; in fact, it figures prominently in most earlier studies, especially V. L. Smith's Anton Chekhov and the Lady with the Dog (CH, Feb'74). Callow knows no Russian and relies on translated works and non-Russian secondary material. Though he cites previous biographers--Ernest Joseph Simmons ( Chekhov: A Biography, 1962), Ronald Hingley (A New Life of Anton Chekhov, CH, Oct'76), V.S. Pritchett (Chekhov: A Spirit Set Free, CH, Feb'89), Donald Rayfield (Anton Chekhov: A Life, CH, Oct'98)--his debt to them is even greater than the generous tribute he pays them. Callow expands on Pritchett, and like him uses Simmons as his main secondary source. He concurs with those who see Chekhov as the most "un-Russian" of Russian writers, but one who is "astonishingly modern," especially in his use of irony. He embellishes the biography with novelistic touches, speculating on how people felt. Still, Callow has command of the subject, so this book is a good, accessible introduction to Chekhov for the general reader and the interested undergraduate. C. A. Rydel; Grand Valley State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Callow's biographies are a joy to read. Deeply involved with his subjects, whether he's writing about Cezanne, as he did in his last biography, Lost Earth (1995), or about Walt Whitman, as in the book before that, he is as comfortable with the inner progression of an artist's life as with its outer trappings and expressions. As Callow traces Chekhov's swerving path from medicine to literature, from pragmatic concerns to creative revelations, he presents a man split between duty and pleasure, the need for solitude and a taste for society, and a great love of women and the sharp fear of intimacy. Callow describes Chekhov as "astonishingly modern," and, indeed, this elusive artist has emerged from behind his brilliant creations as a figure more attuned with our time than with his own, an alignment that also inspired a major biography by Donald Rayfield [BKL Mr 1 98] earlier this year. Both books are excellent; each reaches different conclusions, and Callow's is the more concise and expeditious. --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Callow, a novelist and author of biographies on D.H. Lawrence, Cézanne, Walt Whitman and Van Gogh, has not been as thorough as Donald Rayfield in his recent biography of the great Russian playwright and short story writer. And this is rather a blessing. Callow draws equally on Chekhov's (1860-1904) own writing and smartly culls from secondary sourcestaking valuable critical insights from V.S. Pritchett's Chekhov: A Spirit Set Free, or using Rayfield's important discovery of previously censored passages in Chekhov's letters, while casting doubt on the same author's characterization of Chekhov's relationship with early editor Nikolai Leykin. Chekhov's life was filled with romantic, professional, familial, political and philosophical complications, and most biographies leave Chekhov either elusively unfinished or unsatisfactorily psychologized. Callow allows his subject these complexities, presenting Chekhov as neither saint nor misogynist (two proffered views) and never tries to apprehend the unknowable. "When we attempt to clarify his feelings about love we are soon faced with ambiguity," he writes. But what is knowable he clearly connects to Chekhov's writing, making for a cohesive whole. While Callow does a good job of contextualizing Chekhov as a private figure, he is not so successful in giving him a social context: more, for example, on the Russian stage, on its penal system and on the roiling political atmosphere that spawned Chekhov, Tolstoy and Gorky would have shed great light without imputing more to Chekhov's life than the facts will bear. (May) FYI: Everyone knows Chekhov's four great plays, but few are familiar with the humorous one-act plays he wrote in his 20s. To correct this, Smith and Kraus will release Chekhov: The Vaudevilles and Other Short Works, trans. by Carol Rocamora. ($19.95 224p ISBN 1-57525-127-2; May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This new offering in the expanding and increasingly noteworthy field of Chekhov studies lacks both the original scholarship and the intellectual depth of other recent studies. Callow (From Noon to Starry Night, 1992; Lost Earth, 1995) has made a career of writing biographies of artistic greats, from Cézanne to Walt Whitman. Turning his attention to a writer clearly dear to his heart, he opens his study with sentimental musings on seeing his first performance of a Chekhov work at the age of 22. This opening immediately sets the tone for a biography that takes us on a bumpy and highly personal journey through Chekhov's life and work. Callow covers the usual ground: Chekhov's youth in Taganrog, his move to Moscow, medical school, family affairs, the writing life, and his marriage to the actress Olga Knipper. He also interweaves mostly tedious commentary on and synopses of individual stories and plays into the narrative, and includes extended excerpts from Chekhov's texts and letters. Callow's narrative, from the very start, lacks structure (for instance, his information about serfdom in Russia is never given a proper context or carried through to form an argument) and tends to wander in too many directions. Furthermore, his staccato style (``he'' can be repeated a dozen times in as many sentences) becomes irritating. As suggested by the biography's subtitle, Callow's loosely defined central interest in Chekhov is the ``hidden, or emotional, life of the author and the recurrent themes of romantic disillusionment and the search for intimacy that appear in Chekhov's plays and short stories. But these are subjects that have long interested scholars and literary critics, and have generated considerable interesting work. Callow's overly simplistic biography fails to convey the source of Chekhov's genius. Interested readers would benefit more from their own reading of Chekhov, or from the more stimulating biographies of Donald Rayfield or V.S. Pritchett. (illustrations, not seen)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
