"Father Alexyei's Story" by Ivan Turgenev

"Father Alexyei's Story" by Ivan Turgenev (1852, 13 pages)

Irish Short Story Week

March 11 to July 1

Stories About Priests

Posts by Participants

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

My Prior posts on Turgenev

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week, March 11 to July 1 (yes long week and I feel an Irish Short Story Year might happen in 2013).   All you have to do to join us is to post on one or more Irish short stories or a non-fiction book that relates to Irish literary culture and let me know about it. I also welcome guest posts.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page including links to 1000s of stories.  As of today I am opening up the event to Latin American writers of Irish descent.   This will be harder for those of us who do not read Spanish to explore (there are stories in English) but it is important to me to show the vast influence of the Irish Short Story Writers.  I am also as of now opening the events to Irish New Zealand writers.  I plan to add resources on these areas soon but I do need help on the Latin America area.   There are plans for Argentine Irish Day in the works now.

Frank O'Connor loved the short stories of Ivan Turgenev (1818 to 1883.)   He said if he were forced to name the two best short stories ever written they would both be by Ivan Turgenev.  Ford Madox Ford said Turgenev's short stories were among the greatest of all cultural treasures of humanity, and he is including the great art and music of all time.   With these preliminaries out of the way (there is some background information on Turgenev in my prior posts on his work), I am very happy to announce that Turgenev has made his way to Dublin.   He left from Paris in the company of his best friend Gustav Flaubert.  Flaubert will not participate in this event but I highly advise reading his Three Tales before you say he was not a short story writer.  The time is 1858, they arrive by steamship in Dublin in early fall evening.   A private escort has been arranged for them.  Expenses are of no concern as Turgenev's family owns five thousand serfs and miles and miles of land.  There first order of business is to request a tour of night town.   They will both stay with us for the duration of the event and will be at the party at Dunsanny Castle on July 2.

"Wake me when Mel stops
posting on these priest
stories"-Carmella

"Father Alexyei's Story" is about a Russian Orthodox priest.  ( Russian Orthodox priests were allowed to marry.)    The story is told in the first person by a man recalling his experiences of twenty years ago when, as a private inspector, he would make the circuit of his aunt's vast estates.   One of his job was to pay calls on the parish priests on the estates. All of the priests pretty much seemed the same to him except Father Alexyei.  Unlike the other priests he never asked anything for himself and had the most sorrowful and overwhelmed look he had ever seen on a human face.   He asks us the priest to tell him why he so sad and the rest of the story is taken up with the priests story about how his son has ruined his life as well as his own.  

The story is fully worthy of the claims O'Connor and Ford Madox Ford make for the work of Turgenev  I will not tell the father's story.  If you want to read it you will find it here.

Mel u

"The Bishop" by Anton Chekhov The Most Irish of Chekhov's Stories

"The Bishop" by Anton Chekhov (1902, 16 pages)

March 11 to July 1

Stories about Priests

April 1 to April 6

Posts by Participants

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

My Prior Posts on Anton Chekhov

Please consider joining us for this event.

"The Bishop" is a final affirmation of Chekhov's faith in life-lonely and sad, immeasurably sad, but beautiful beyond the power of the greatest artist to tell.  Frank O'Connor

Anton Chekhov-1860 to 1904

From now until the end finally comes for Irish Short Story Week Year Two on July 1 (no more extensions) we will be having as our guests some of the greatest of the world's  short stories authors.  In order to be invited you do have to have an "Irish Connection" of some kind.   Guests will stay on until the final event virtual party on July 2 at Dunsanny Castle.  Thanks to the power of magic realism they will arrive in Dublin by the modes of transportation in their times and all those who need them will be provided translators and each guest will have a generous per expense account.   

There are only really three claims for best of in the literary world that are undisputed.   Shakespeare is the best playwright, War and Peace is the best novel and Anton Chekhov (1860 to 1904-Russia) is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.  Frank O'Connor's took as his masters in the short story Chekhov and another Russian, Ivan Turgenev (we are working on getting him and Gustav Flaubert to come together).  He taught a generation of Irish Short Story Writers to love Chekhov.  James Joyce famously said O'Connor was doing for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia.

Chekhov will arrive in London via Steamship from St Petersburg.  He will spend a few days in London then proceed also by steamship to Dublin where he will be met at the docks by George Moore and William Carelton.   The first order of business is a stop for some Jameson.  

In The Best of Frank O'Connor edited and with commentary by Julius Barnes we are told that O'Connor said that "The Bishop", one of Chekhov's last stories, is virtually indistinguishable from an Irish short story.  

The bishop in the story is of course Russian Orthodox.   

"The Bishop" in the story is very sick.   He is used to being called "Your Grace" and his manner really does not admit of exceptions to this.   One of the themes of Chekhov is thk breaking down of false personalities through trauma.   People become what they are.   The bishops elderly mother comes to see him as her little boy under the skin of the bishop.  It is somehow crushing to see the mother call her dying son "Your Eminence".  As they both come to a realization as to what will soon happen the mother begins to call him by the words of childhood endearment that he longs to hear but cannot even admit this need to himself.  

You can  read "The Bishop"-translated by Costance Garnett-here

Here in the Philippines we believe that Manny Pacquiano is pound for pound the world's great greatest boxer ever.   I often think that word for word, Anton Chekhov is the world's greatest writer.  

I am pretty sure Ivan Turgenev will arrive in a day or so and will share with us his wonderful work "Father Alexyei's Story.   Frank O'Connor in The Lonely Voice said two of Turgenev's short stories were the best of all time.   Ford Madox Ford said his short fiction were among the greatest of all cultural treasures.  Gustav Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant are hopefully coming with them, with Turgenev, of course, paying the costs of the trip.    Flaubert wrote some wonderful short stories but not enough to be an active participant in our event.   He will be here for the party on July 2.

Who would you like to see be invited as a guest for Irish Short Story Week?

The next mini-event will be four days of "Nobel Prize Winners Only Please", with George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and a guest from India, Rabindranth Tagore with a very strong connection to Irish Literary Culture.  

Mel u