Why do I enjoy Chekhov and Joyce, and why do I find this part of the course the most rewarding to teach even if students often don't agree with me (let's face it, these stories are, at first glance, boring)? Mostly because I think both of these writers embed a lot of poetic complexity in soils of simplicity - basically what "realism" is and should be - and that if we allow the structures and subtleties of both writers to truly digest, we can take away personal meanings and "epiphanies" that are useful each day - that can also help us as writers (and thinkers).
In Gooseberries, where three men (arguably four) exhibit and reflect varying approaches to happiness, this passage reached me the most:
At the door of every contented, happy man somebody should stand with a little hammer, constantly tapping, to remind him that unhappy people exist, that however happy he may be, sooner or later life will show him its claws, some calamity will befall him—illness, poverty, loss—and nobody will hear or see, just as he doesn’t hear or see others now. But there is nobody with a little hammer, the happy man lives on, and the petty cares of his life stir him only slightly, as wind stirs an aspen—and everything is fine.
Joe Fassler, in his article in The Atlantic, sums it up much better than I can, as to why we should value this story and look at it from different angles:
"I always come out of that passage feeling like it’s a beautiful piece of rhetoric, one that articulates something I really believe. I’ve quoted this line on book tours, trying to explain why I don’t mind writing dark fiction: One role of literature, I’ll tell them, is to be the guy with the hammer, saying, “Look, we’re all pretty happy right now, but let’s just not forget the fact our happiness doesn’t eradicate the suffering of others.” It’s a beautiful insight about the lazy nature of happiness—and, for a few minutes, I think we’re meant to think that this stirring speech by Ivan is the whole point of the story."
Fassler's article made me think of a This American Life podcast episode I recently listened to, titled "The Show of Delights," where various people explore the little things in life that make them happy via "seeking joy." Even if it is not the topic of daily discussion, each of us has our own interpretation of what "happiness" is and what the little "pleasures" are that build the "state of happiness." While pleasure and happiness are related, but very different in that one can truly be depressed while also experiencing pleasure (drug addiction, eating disorders, gambling - pick any and all vices that produce a temporary sensation of pleasure), it is without doubt that if one is truly happy that daily delights and pleasures had something to do with it. In Gooseberries we see there's a relationship among the details Chekhov gives us - refreshing baths, silk pajamas, a pretty maid, and, arguably, good conversation. As Fassler continues:
"Looking at what happens during the digression [story of Ivan's brother], then, you start to realize that the story is a reflection on different forms of happiness. There’s a beautiful scene where they’re all taking a sensuous bath—“Oh my God, Oh my God,” Ivan keeps repeating, so completely moved by the feeling of the water. Then, later, this woman Pelageya waits on the men—and she’s so beautiful that they can only turn and stare at each other with their jaws on the floor. Why are these things here? Why are they worth giving space to in this extremely short piece? It’s because they’re both manifestations of beauty in the world, celebrating the things that make us pointlessly happy, and they complicate the dark vision of happiness that Ivan spells out later.
That’s one of my favorite things about Chekhov: his ability to embody what I call “on the other hand” thinking. He'll put something out with a great deal of certainty and beauty and passion, absolutely convincing you—and then he goes, “On the other hand,” and completely undermines it. At the end of this story you ask, “Chekhov, is happiness a blessing or a curse?” And he’s like, “Yeah, exactly.”"
In Fassler's last sentence, he sums up one of the keys to reading Chekhov: identifying the question he wants us to debate. So, what is happiness? How to be happy? Is it something we should work for, save for, wait for? Is is something that can coexist with the suffering of others? Is material happiness often connected with some sort of sacrifice - "joined to the present by an unbroken chain of events" - like an iPhone that produces happiness but came at the hands of human suffering in a Chinese factory?
Back to the podcast episode, The Show of Delights, where Ira Glass gives his intro:
"In these dark, and confusing, and combative times, where in just one month-- and it's a month that doesn't feel that atypical-- we have impeachment hearings, and Australia on fire, and a near war with Iran, and a deadly virus spreading around the world. We thought here at our show, we would try the most radical counter-programming possible. So today, we bring you our show about delight."
