The Crime Scene: Anton Chekhov’s Crime Fiction

It has been correctly noted that the detective story could flourish only in a democratic society. Fictional works can only reflect what is known of real life, and in order for the police to do their job, there must be cooperation from citizens who prefer a condition of law and justice. If there is no reasonable justice system in real life, it is too great a leap of imagination to hope that writers could provide it as a form of literary entertainment.Standing up for the truth required almost superhuman courage in Germany under the Nazi regime and in Russia and its territories under Soviet Communism (as shown so brilliantly in Tom Rob Smith’s “Child 44”). The reward for taking an ethical position in a dictatorship has often been a concentration camp, execution (as in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Idi Amin’s Uganda), imprisonment (as in today’s China), or some other form of disappearance (as in Argentina).In order to survive under a totalitarian government, it was safest to become invisible, to remain silent. Seeking help from the police is counterproductive when it is the police who are the cause of life’s greatest fears and difficulties. The corruption of their power, the pure whims that could change a life forever, were enough to erect a barrier between members of the police and other people.Few countries have enjoyed the freedom of a democratic justice system until recent years, which explains why, historically, most detective fiction has been produced in England, America, and, to a lesser degree, France.A fascinating new book seems to provide a rare exception. Anton Chekhov’s “A Night in the Cemetery: And Other Stories of Crime and Suspense” (Pegasus, 321 pages, $25) is a collection of more than 40 stories, all with elements of mystery, many published in English for the first time.Scanning the table of contents yields such titles as “A Thief,” “A Court Case,” “A Dead Body,” “A Crime: A Double Murder Case,” “Murder,” and “Criminal Investigator,” so it is fair to expect fiction that will force us to look at the great literary writer in a whole new way. This is largely true, but not in the way we might expect.Chekhov is customarily seen as the creator of moody, introspective characters who lead lives of quiet desperation, reflecting the darkness and tedium of existence and the hopeless ugliness of hardship and poverty. It is his classic plays, such as “Uncle Vanya,” “The Cherry Orchard,” “The Sea Gull,” and the “The Three Sisters,” as well as his only novel, “The Shooting Party,” and his late short stories that have earned him his place in literature’s pantheon.Before these masterpieces, however, Chekhov was a prolific author of — how else to say it? — hack work. He produced scores, no, hundreds, of sketches, parodies, short stories, one-act curtain-raisers, and miscellaneous prose, dashing them off by the basketful even as he pursued his unremunerative career as a doctor.Peter Sekirin, the translator, writes in his preface of the huge amount of minor prose early in Chekhov’s career, but does not mention that even the author was enough aware of the unambitious nature of the work to publish much of it under a pseudonym, Antosha Chekhonte. I suspect that many of the stories here were published under this nom de plume.Many are slight, and almost none are mystery stories as we define them. There is a lot of drunken behavior, frequently resulting in forgetfulness, which leads to a kind of “mystery,” as in: What happened? There are occasional policemen, and they invariably leap to erroneous conclusions. Apparent crimes have other, frequently humorous, explanations. Terrors brought on by seemingly supernatural occurrences derive from comical misunderstandings.“A Night in the Cemetery” has its delights, particularly for readers who enjoy a sharp intelligence that points out with utter glee the many weaknesses and frailties of human beings. The tales are filled with wry observations (“He realized that it was only due to his lack of opportunity that he had not become a thief or cheat”), apparent non sequiturs (“Should we beat him up? He will be offended”) and bizarre characters (with names such as “Mr. Gravedigger”).The premise holds, however. Chekhov’s stories bear less resemblance to mystery fiction than tsarist Russia did to a democratic society.Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the Best American Mystery Stories. He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.

The Crime Scene: Anton Chekhov’s Crime Fiction

The Crime Scene: Anton Chekhov’s Crime Fiction

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