The Duel

By Anton Chekhov

About This Book

"Hate you!" Laevsky said quietly, breathing heavily. "I've hated you a long time!"

This new translation of the literary masterpiece— which combines a beautiful romance with high suspense— is here presented for the first time as a stand-alone volume.

One of Chekhov’s most important lengthy works, this remarkable story gives a startling twist to his classic, ongoing study of bourgeois romance when he sets it on a collision course with a decaying, Czarist concept of honor. It ends in the ultimate Chekhovian observation: that fate is often ludicrous.

This Is An Enhanced eBook

This eBook contains Illuminations—additional illustrated material that expand the world of Kleist’s novella through text and illustrations—at no additional charge. 

"Illuminations" contains writings by Mikhail Lermontov - Ivan Goncharov - Alexander Pushkin - Herbert Spencer - Friedrich Nietzsche - Jack London - Thomas Paine - Francis Bacon - Charles McKay – And a guide to the game of vint.
 
Full-color illustrations include: William Hogarth - James Joseph Tissot - Jan Steen - The Shahnameh and more.
 
Also Included: “Against The Duel: Writing In Protest of Dueling”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612190709

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, in southern Russia, and in his youth paid for his own education and supported his entire family by writing short, satirical sketches of Russian life. Though he eventually became a physician and once considered medicine his principal career, he continued to gain popularity and praise as a writer for various Russian newspapers, eventually authoring more literary work and ultimately his most well-known plays, including Ivanov, The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya. He died of tuberculosis in 1904, and is regarded as one of the best short story writers in history, influencing such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, and Raymond Carver.

Reviews for The Duel

[alanteder · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The Duel is Beckett with great hats." - Mary Bing, screenwriter."The Duel" (1891) was a novella that Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote concurrently with the first parts of his non-fiction accounts of penal colony conditions on "Sakhalin Island" (1891-1895). I read the recent translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky where only the one novella was published as a tie-in edition to the 2010 feature film version directed by Dover Kosashvili with a screenplay by Mary Bing. Mary Bing's foreword in this edition provides a great entry point to reading the work. " ...take heart, Chekhov loves life. The Duel is Beckett with great hats. And naked women, and guns that go off, and an absolution that extends to its audience. May we have the grace to take it."Introducing the idea of Chekhov as a forerunner of Beckett's humour may not be to everyone's taste, but it certainly agreed with me. I would have found some of these characters hard to put up with for long otherwise, but felt more of a degree of empathy when human weakness and foibles had a degree of humour to them. The main character, named Laevsky, comes across as a n'er do well, a slacker civil servant who drinks and gambles away his money at cards and schemes to leave his lover Nadya, who had previously left her husband for him. The antagonist is a zoologist named Von Koren who looks on Laevsky as a waste of space that should be eliminated to allow evolution and life to proceed properly. Laevsky starts having nervous attacks that are signs of a complete breakdown to come and he hotheadedly provokes Von Koren to challenge him to a duel. Meanwhile their friends, a doctor and a deacon bemusedly look on. Nadya has her own little plots afoot as she has admirers in the seaside town than Laevsky doesn't even know about. It all resolves with pistols at dawn.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After my disastrous attempt to read this month's other selection Michael Kohlhaas by Von Kleist, it should be unnecessary to say I came upon this one with trepidation. But I said to myself, at least it is very short so I will finish this one whether I like it or not. So, what a pleasant surprise to find myself fairly flying through the story in just one reading. Right from the first page my experience was different as this was easy to read, the story was entertaining and while wildly over dramatic it also had an understandable plot. All things I could not find in MK. The publisher's summary on the inside flap is incorrect and I see that the online summary has been changed to just one sentence which virtually summarizes the simple plot. "The story of a virtuous woman slandered by a nobleman." Things turn out to be much more than they seem though and through convoluted and last second revelations the truth comes out in the end. The story is readable, I have no complaints. I can only wonder though at the author's misconceptions of God, punishment and innocence (from both this story and Michael Kohlhaas); had he never contemplated God's gift of free will?

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novella was originally published in German in 1810. It is a delightful story which is both suspenseful and thought-provoking. It is set 'toward the end of the fourteenth century,' and it does a fabulous job of demonstrating how little humans have changed since then. The outward trappings may have changed, but our basic concerns and motivations remain the same. The translation is excellent.

[msarki_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I can't remember ever fighting for somebody's honor. It is possible I have, but perhaps too drunk at the time to remember. Of course, that would have been years ago when I was young and dumb and fought for things as if they mattered. In this novella, the truth does matter. Not only is an entire fortune at stake, but the integrity of good people is challenged and mistakes are made contiguous with deceit confounding all in several different ways. Love and jealousy share equal billing, and the battle between these two reaches almost epic proportion. But that is how a good novella is made.

The jacket flap erroneously states the general plot of the novella, but this is still a fine translation and wonderful story. Sad for the fact that the editors of Melville House missed this huge mistake on the flap and this is for me beyond belief. It is possible an intern wrote this bit for Heinrich, and that adds insult to injury. It is obvious whoever wrote the jacket blurb had not ever read the book. How important it is to have accuracy and attention to details when producing a book as important as this one could be. Important enough to be included in a series and finally have its own space alone in book form. There is no forgiving this error and for this grievous mistake somebody in these offices needs be held accountable. Melville House is doing the world a favor by keeping these important books in print, but their presentation needs to be of the very first rank. If it were my book, and if I were Kleist, and so appreciative of somebody finally recognizing my genius and giving me my due, and then the house I had trusted and put my faith into had produced an artifact with this type of unforgivable error in it which clearly could have been avoided had the person responsible for writing this copy had read the novella first, I would be beside myself with embarrassment. The publisher should immediately set the record straight with the prompt and judicious removal of this book from the public consumption and move forthwith to repair the copy for proper publication as error free as required by good taste. Of course, the entire premise of the novella is one of credibility or truth and how it questions ones integrity and honor. I am not at all versed in the history of knights and chivalry, and I am also not sure where I got the idea this novella takes place in the 1500's. But it sounds good. Just as it did for the writer of the jacket flap when he or she stated the premise being Littegarde's husband having been murdered by his brother when in fact Littegarde's husband died of some illness and his death and person had nothing to do with the story at all. I kept going back to the flap to find something I surely must have been missing, but to no avail. But I must report that the main text of the book is error free, and wonderful.

Heinrich von Kleist writes in an easy and flowing manner. He tells a good story. However, this novella could go down as a myth or moral and be closer to the truth than claiming it a masterpiece. Though the gifted translation proves the book to be well-written, the Kleistian idea that God has something or other to do with proving guilt or innocence in a duel to the death is preposterous. As much as I do enjoy the culture of knights and honor and chivalric fights to the death does not in any way align me to the creed of a just god ultimately deciding our fate. Skill and luck and intelligence prevail in most of our endeavors, both good and bad, and it would take more than a supposed miracle by God's hand to move me off my stalwart position for my consistent stance in denouncing gods.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Every time I get riled up about the many ways our current justice system is a farce, I will have to remind myself that this ridiculousness was once considered justice and reassure myself about how far we've come after all.

A story of murder, deceit, and intrigue set in the fourteenth century. All about who has the power of being believed, and how God works in the world. Remember the kind of logic that said if you attempted to drown a witch and she didn't die, it must be because she was a witch and Satan was protecting her, but if she did die, whoops -- must have been innocent? This is a little less terrible, but still amazing.

The story itself is well told though, and if you aren't rooting for poor Littegarde throughout, well, let's just say I have concerns for your soul.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nothing special. Writing is serviceable, characters are forgettable, the idea of a duel as a conduit for divine justice is interesting but never much explored, and swept under the rug by the final lines of the story: "unless it be God's will." Way to make the issue circular while not actually saying anything substantive about it Kleist!