The Black Monk (Translated)

By Anton Chekhov

Doctors and kind relations will succeed in stupefying mankind, in making mediocrity pass for genius and in bringing civilisation to ruin.' Kovrin is a gifted man, well educated. Following advice of his doctor he decides to leave his busy city lifestyle and travels to recover his health in a beautiful family country estate. There he meets this mystical and prophetic Black Monk, a character from an ancient legend, which he thought was nothing more than a hallucination. The Black Monk ignites intellectual stimulation, greatly improves Kovrin's mental faculties for a while, and engages him in discussions about eternal life, truth, philosophy, and even fame. What the Monk says to him flatters, not his vanity, but his whole soul, his whole being. Kovrin begins to experience moments of greatness with each Black Monk encounter. Then his doctors and kind relations succeed in curing his illness and a terrible accident happens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Interactive Media
• Release date: Mar 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781787244696

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 Black Monk (Translated)

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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".

[steph_billie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[hankiii · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those stories that appeals to something, which I haven't a clue because I lack the intellectual tools. I read it on Daily Lit.