Some thoughts on Chekhov’s Kashtanka

I recently finished listening to an audio version of Anton Chekhov’s short story, Kashtanka (I listened to this excellent version).  

In short, the story is about a little dog who is abandoned by his drunk owner, a carpenter, and found by a circus-performer who treats him much better but trains him to perform on the stage with other animals.

After finishing it, I didn’t particularly “get” the story. This happens to me sometimes. I really enjoy almost every Chekhov story I read or listen to, but sometimes I don’t “understand the meaning.” (This happened with A Dead Body, too). 

Anyway, I went onto read this analysis of Kashtanka, which I think is probably right – that the story is sort of autobiographical and descriptive of Chekhov’s views on the difference between being a commercial artist (i.e., one primarily concerned with making art to earn money) and an artist who makes art for art’s sake.  The carpenter, who beats and torments you, represents the life of pure art, and the circus act is what it’s like to be a commercial artist: do the same demeaning trick over and over again to earn a living.

But I didn’t get that. I just read a story about a dog. It was marvelous! He did a wonderful job of writing from the dog’s perspective (who understands the tones spoken to him but not the words) while revealing the story to us readers of human dialogue.  He also embodied the dog very well; for example, he seemed to understand what it’s like for a dog to sniff a scent:

• Kashtanka began sniffing the pavement, hoping to find her master by the scent of his tracks, but some wretch had been that way just before in new rubber galoshes, and now all delicate scents were mixed with an acute stench of india-rubber, so that it was impossible to make out anything.

And the story also excels at making you feel emotions. Something I’ve tried to emulate recently is choosing an emotion for a scene, and diving into it full bore. The first scene, where Kashtanka has lost her master, really hits the sinking feeling of being lost:

• Kashtanka ran up and down and did not find her master, and meanwhile it had got dark. The street lamps were lighted on both sides of the road, and lights appeared in the windows. Big, fluffy snowflakes were falling and painting white the pavement, the horses' backs and the cabmen's caps, and the darker the evening grew the whiter were all these objects. Unknown customers kept walking incessantly to and fro, obstructing her field of vision and shoving against her with their feet.

Another thing I loved: the details in the story serve so many purposes. For example, Kashtanka’s first owner, the carpenter who loses her, lives far away from other houses.  This fact means that when he takes Kashtanka on a journey and she gets lost, it’s impossible for her to find her way home. It also provides for a long journey between that place and town, during which the carpenter gets progressively more and more drunk. And it also serves as a metaphor for the isolation the pure artist (represented by the carpenter) feels.

Basically, my point is that it’s a very good story on multiple dimensions. No matter which way you view it from, it’s exciting and engaging and beautiful. The descriptions are great. The word choice is great. The length is great. The settings are great. There’s (apparently, even if I didn’t understand it) a wonderful deeper meaning. 

This is what’s great about masters. I love that with writing, you can actually go and read works written by masters.  Someone who built this amazing skillset over the course of years and wrote these wonderful stories, is right here in front of you.  I don’t really have that in other areas of my life: it feels like the cars and technologies we use today are better than those from the past. Sure, those things were impressive, but they aren’t the same what we have now.