work
The Gordian Knot (Shcheglov)
The Gordian Knot
also: Гордиев узел
A novel by Ivan Shcheglov which Chekhov here calls the best of his works, praising its abundance of characters and situations -- the rented rooms, the Shchuraki, Goloshchapov, Lelka, Gorich's dream, and the masquerade at the club.
Reading notes
- To I. L. Leontyev, 22 February 1888. Moscow. §6 The Gordian Knot
Shcheglov's novel, which Chekhov ranks as the best of his works, praising its abundance of figures and situations.
- To I. L. Leontyev, 9 June 1888. Sumy. §4 "The Gordian Knot"
Shcheglov's novel, elsewhere praised by Chekhov as the best of his works (letter 379); here Chekhov preempts Shcheglov's likely objection that it too is a product of Petersburg, refusing to believe it.
- To I. L. Leontyev, 11 November 1888. Moscow. §5 "The Gordian Knot"
A story by Shcheglov himself, cited by title as a high-water mark of his prose against his own self-deprecating remark about writing "bad stories" for money; already established in this corpus.
- To I. L. Leontyev, 18 September 1889. Moscow. §4 "The Gordian Knot"
Shcheglov's novel, which he had evidently proposed reworking for the stage in a now-lost letter; Chekhov admires the novel and worries the stage version will not improve on it.
- To I. L. Leontyev, 21 October 1889. Moscow. §7 the censor forbade the
reworking of "The Gordian Knot."
\emph{Гордиев узел}, a Shcheglov novel; his attempt to adapt it for the stage was blocked by the theatrical censor. Chekhov had already commented on this novel elsewhere in the corpus (e.g.) and here treats the censor's rejection as a wry, deserved lesson -- landing with extra irony given his own play's failure reported earlier in the same letter.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 23 October 1889. Moscow. §8 "The Gordian Knot."
Shcheglov's novel, which Chekhov elsewhere had already praised highly; here he scolds the reworking of it into a stage play, calling the result "swinishness" rather than drama -- part of the same running Shcheglov/Gordian-Knot thread as and.