I’m going to be away for the next two weeks, and so won’t be blogging: take it as a chance to work on that stack of books you’ve got lying around!

“You can’t have too many English Seagulls: at the intersection of all of them, the Russian one will be forever elusive.” – Tom Stoppard

The best known Russian works tend to be long, philosophical novels, in which characters  represent whole philosophies. War and Peace, Brothers K, Crime and Punishment, and many others are all justly famous. As a result, though, other works, including Chekhov’s The Seagull, are often under-known.

The Seagull focuses on the romantic entanglements of four characters, each of whom also has an artistic and dramatic history: a middlebrow author, an actress past her prime, a rising star of an actress, and an abstract playwright. Conversations revolve around the nature of theatre and artistic expression, with perspectives sometimes in striking contrast to the nature of the play itself. Dialogue is also rich in subtext, with characters frequently skirting around what they mean or discussing one thing while meaning another.

Most broadly, Chekhov aims to capture various approaches to being an artist, and even more to being an artist in love. No one character is right or wrong, but each struggles in their own fashion: the Seagull borrows heavily from Hamlet, even quoting lines from it directly, and elements of the Shakespearean tragic flaw are present in the Seagull as well.

It’s a quick read, as plays often are: I haven’t seen it performed, but I suspect it’s a play worth reading before you see it, simply due to the complexity of the dialogue. Well worth a read.

“A work of art should invariably embody some lofty idea. Only that which is seriously meant can ever be beautiful.”

“Wine and tobacco destroy the individuality. After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else. Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.”

“He used to laugh at my dreams, so that little by little I became down-hearted and ceased to believe in it too.”

“It is not the honour and glory of which I have dreamt that is important, it is the strength to endure. One must know how to bear one’s cross, and one must have faith.”