Do Not Invent Sufferings
You Have Not Experienced Yourself
Letter to Alexander Chekhov, Moscow, April 6, 1886
Where in the world did you find the married couple in your story that you have discussing scholarly articles over dinner.. .and where in heaven's name are these scholarly articles supposed to exist? For God's sake, have some self- respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch. Do not write more than two stories a week, work on shortening and polishing them, and make your work count. Do not invent sufferings you have not experienced yourself, and do not describe scenes you have not witnessed yourself: a falsehood is much more tedious in a story than in a conversation..
Bear in mind—every single moment—that your pen and your talent will be much more useful to you in the future than they are now, so do not profane them. Write, but keep
a watchful eye on every line lest you slip up And note,
that since you are not burdened with deadlines, you are able to devote several evenings to a single small piece.
No Lying in Art
Undated letter [1900?]3
One must never lie. Art has this great specification: it simply does not tolerate falsehood. One can lie in love, politics, and medicine: one can mislead the public or even God; but there is absolutely no lying in art.
Do Not Lie to Yourself
Letter to Alexei Suvorin, Melikhovo, November 25, 1892 Just remember that the writers we call "eternal" or just plain "good" and who intoxicate us, share one very important trait: they are all moving toward some definite point and they summon us to follow and make us comprehend—not just with our mind, but with our entire being—that they have a precise goal, just as in the case of Hamlet's father, whose ghost had a motive for coming and stirring Hamlet's imagination. Depending on their caliber, some have very concrete goals—such as serfdom, the liberation of their motherland, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, as in the case of Denis Davydov4; others have more abstract objectives— God, life beyond death, the well-being of humanity, etc. The very best among them are realistic and depict life as it is, but because each life is permeated with a consciousness of its own goal, you feel life not only as it is but also as it should be, and this captivates you. And what about us? Us! We depict life as it is: period. Beat us, whip us, you will not get us to budge. We have no other goals, short- or long-range: you will not find a thing in our souls. We have no politics; we do not believe in revolution; there is no God; we have no fear of ghosts; and as for me—I am not afraid even of death or blindness. One who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing cannot be an artist. Maybe this is a sickness, though it really does not matter what you call it. The crucial thing is to realize that this is a critical situation. I cannot predict what will happen to us in ten or twenty years. Maybe something will change, but for now you would be rash to expect anything genuinely worthwhile from us, no matter how talented we might be. We write mechanically, bowing to the long-established order that mandates some serve in the
bureaucracy, others in commerce, still others in letters
You and Grigorovich5 find me to be intelligent. Yes, I am intelligent, at least intelligent enough to not hide my illness from myself or lie to myself or cover up my own emptiness with other people's rags.
Rid Yourself of Violence and Falsehood
Letter to Alexei Pleshcheyev, Moscow, October 4, 1888 I am not a liberal, a conservative, a gradualist, a monk, or an indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and regret that God has not given me the strength to be one. I hate falsehood and violence in all their forms, and reserve the same loathing for provincial secretaries, Notovich, and Gradovsky.6 Pharisaism, stupidity, and arbitrariness reign not only in the homes of merchants and in police stations. I see them in science, in literature, in the younger generation
For this reason I have no partiality for policemen, butchers, scientists, writers, or the younger generation. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom, freedom from violence and falsehood, no matter what form these might take. This is the program to which I would adhere were I a great artist.
descriptions
I Limit Myself to Describing
Letter to Dmitry Grigorovich, Moscow, October 9, 1888
I have not yet acquired a political, religious, or philosophical worldview; I change my views every day and consequently have to confine myself to describing how my protagonists love, marry, breed, die, and talk.
Try Not to Tire the Reader
Letter to AleXander Zhirkevich,7 Melikhovo, April 2, 1895 Routine descriptions: "The йtagиre against the wall sparkled with books." Why not simply say, "the bookshelf"? You write that the volumes of Pushkin are "disconnected from each other," that the "Inexpensive Library" edition is "squashed." What is the point? You are only distracting and tiring the reader by forcing him to stop and reconstruct in his imagination the sparkling йtagиre and the squashed Hamlet. That's problem number one. Problem number two is that all these descriptions are complicated, mannered, and stale. Nowadays only ladies might write, "the poster proclaimed" or "a face framed by hair."
Smell the Bagels
Letter to Maxim Gorky, Yalta, February 15, 1900 "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl"8 is a fine story, the best among the pieces published in Life, that dilettante journal. In your story one can feel the place, smell the bagels.
Smell the Summer
Letter to Alexei Pleshcheyev, Moscow, February 3, 1888 "The Steppe" is finished and in the mail. There was barely enough for a nickel, and now, suddenly, there is almost enough to make a dollar. I started out with the intention of writing thirty or forty pages at most, and ended up with close to eighty. I am worn out and exhausted from the unfamiliar strain of writing at such length; it was hard going, and I feel that I have written a lot of nonsense.
Please be indulgent!
The actual subject matter of "The Steppe" is not important; if the story shows even modest success, I will use it as the basis for a much longer novella and will develop it further. You will not find a single character here that deserves close attention or further elaboration.
While I was writing, I had the feeling that I could actually smell the summer and the steppe. How good it would be to go there!
„.My "Steppe" is actually less like a story than an encyclopedia of the steppe.
The Smell of Hay
Letter to Dmitry Grigorovich, Moscow, January 12, 1888 For my debut in the "thick journal," I have selected the steppe, which no one has described for some time now. I describe the expanse, the lilac horizon, the shepherds,.. .the storms at night, the wayside inns, the wagon trains, the birds of the steppe, and so on. Each chapter is its own story, and all the chapters are as intimately connected and joined as the five figures in a quadrille. I am trying to give them a common note and a common tone, which I have a better chance of achieving by having a single character that runs through all the chapters. I feel that I have managed to work through quite a few issues, and there are passages that give off the smell of hay.