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Anton checkov: A Life.

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From: The Economist (US)
Date: 19980404
Author:

Russian writers

Flinty snail-horn

ANTON CHEKHOV: A LIFE. By Donald Rayfield. Henry Holt; 674 pages; $35

ONE of Chekhov's closest friends, the publisher Suvorin, observed that the writer was a man of "flint", that his talent was "cruel", his objectivity "harsh". At the same time, as Donald Rayfield shows, Chekhov was as tender as a snail-horn at the spectacle of human cruelty and injustice. When his Tartar servant was punched by a ship's officer for being among first-class passengers, the victim saw his master's agonised face and said: "You haven't hit me, you've hit him."

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