The Black Monk by Anton Chekov contains three short stories: The Black Monk, An Artist's Story and Mire. Beginning with the first story, The Black Monk, I found myself mesmerized by the Checkov's writing and his ability to bring characters and settings to life. The countryside, the homes and the people within them were described so vividly and completely. He truly is a master storyteller. Each of the stories dwells on the human condition, emotional states and in the Black Monk in particular, man's neverending quest for the meaning of life and ability to find happiness. An Artist's Story shows us the plight of the peasants on the lands of the nobility, who were but indentured servants with no way out of their neverending poverty and abysmal conditions. Mire lays bare the darker side of man, and woman.

The book was very enjoyable, the stories quite evocative. ( )

The Black Monk and The Peasants are tenebrous and symbolic stories possessing the power of parables.
To soothe his shattered nerves Master of Arts goes to the country for the spring and summer and there he seems to remember an old legend…

I was intrigued by this, not just as a skillful handling of one man's descent into madness, but the lack of bias in the author's treatment of the situation. Who should we sympathise with? Tanya and her father, long suffering by standers and "victims" of Audrey's behaviour? Or Audrey himself, whose thoroughly delusional yet relatively benign behaviour causes little serious harm and keeps him happy. The drive by Tanya and her father to bring him back to "normality", destroying his genius in the process, seems cruel from his point of view. Their view of his odd behaviour seems understandable from theirs...
The quote that stands out for me is when the Black Monk talks of genius and madness: "Nowadays scientists say genius is akin to madness". I suspect the urge t come down on the side of one or the other is futile-and not what Chekhov was wanting for his readers. I think it is more the genius/madness that exists in humanity, which can be delusional, difficult and sometimes damaging, but which is more damaging when "cured". I'm a newbie to Chekhov so I need to read more to make sense of him. ( )

I enjoyed these two stories even though the backdrop is depressing. Both are philosophical and I believe they would be made better if read for a book club or class and discussed. In The Black Monk, my question is, is he crazy?

In Peasants, the question is, do situations people are placed in cause them to be unhappy with their lives or is it the individual who ultimately has control of their happiness with outside forces being minimal in that respect. ( )

These two stories are both weightier and more serious affairs than the author's many vignettes of Russian life in his Selected Short Stories. The title story is rather ambiguous and I am not sure if the author is making a specifically anti-religious point (the monk as the instrument of the protagonist's fall in life) or showing simply a generally cynical and pessimistic outlook on life. The protagonist dies of consumption, as did the author.

Peasants is a vivid depiction of grinding poverty, starkly unlike the humorous peasant characters in the author's other story vignettes. This culminates in the death of the main character and a horrible line "Far from having any fear of death, Marya was only sorry that it was such a long time coming, and was glad when any of her children died". ( )