Word: chekhovs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...last piece in the collection, "Errand," is not a story. When Marilynne Robinson reviewed Where I'm Calling From in The New York Times Book Review, she confessed that she was perplexed. "Errand" is the story of the death of Chekhov. Robinson supposed that Carver was inviting comparison between himself and Chekhov, but if so, she did not see it, much as she admired them both...
...delivered in a complete prose deadpan, methodically thorough detail, small paradoxical moments that reveal character--the touches sound contrived and unnatural in Carver's hands. If "Errand" were akin to Harold Bloom's apophrades, a return from the dead of an old literary influence, the styles of Carver and Chekhov would merge without seams. Instead they...
...without warning, blood began gushing from his mouth" in the middle of a lengthy paragraph. Nor would Carver use a phrase like "Suddenly, without warning" in one of his own stories, because, in addition to the dated gentility of the phrase, it is redundant. Furthermore, in his homage to Chekhov, Carver adopts a pace that is not as tight as his own, a pace that surveys each scene with caution and scrutiny before proceeding...
...recipient of an Oscar for her role in "The Year of Living Dangerously", Hunt also counts among her credits performances in "The Bostonians" and the motion piction version of Frank Herbert's "Dune", Among her stage credits, Hunt lists "Hamlet" and Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard...
...almost compulsively funny, no matter how dark the underlying theme. The key difference: Simon has a forgiving, generous spirit toward his characters, while Ayckbourn is increasingly merciless. Audiences pause amid laughter and abruptly realize that the landscape is blasted. Ayckbourn borrowed this technique, if not much else, from Chekhov, and at his best -- as in Season's Greetings, Time and Time Again and Woman in Mind -- uses it just as effectively...