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Large quests, small comfort's avatar

'Cheri' is so unsentimental yet so moving.

The main character is so non-judgemental, manifests no bitterness – such graceful acceptance of both the horror she's undergoing and the inevitable eclipse that has to follow. The cats, the 'wild-haired, exotic daughters', the vivid dreams (especially of the Riley boys, circa 1955), all of it vignettes but so central to the story, the story itself kind of ethereal or, as Mary put it so well, "Because they refer to traveling 'somewhere' in a strangely outfitted conveyance, for example a body. Or a self. All alone".

'She needed a haircut more than a mammogram' -- maybe the slightest tinge of regret, of 'why me', in Cheri -– sums up the human condition in general, how things creep up on us unawares and how, mostly if not always, we are invariably too late.

The bit about resting one leg on the floor (nicely juxtaposed to a hangover and to more 'chaste' times), such a banal act but in the context of this story acquiring the significance of a grounding ritual. Finally, the brevity of it is slightly disappointing! As though the door opened a bit, creating a lozenge of light and then quickly shut again.

In Gusev, the contrast of everyday life (recounted so realistically, the granular details in the sick bay and on the deck) and the indifference of the universe (both sea and steamer making no distinction whatsoever of "saints and sinners") is striking. The final scene indeed seems some kind of ascent to heaven, maybe consistent with what the narrator says earlier in the story: "Overhead deep sky, bright stars, peace and stillness,exactly as at home in the village, below darkness and disorder".

Both are stories to cheri-sh.

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Anonymous Dude's avatar

Thanks for these touching and powerful stories. I went and bought the Beard book to finish reading Cheri. Some thoughts (these are at a high school level rather than a grad seminar level, as I studied in the sciences):

The effect of time, or maybe 'historical period' is better. We could save Gusev, now (isoniazid and rifampin); perhaps in 100 years we will be able to save Cheri. (Whether the Russian army would have bothered to save Gusev is another question, though presumably they treat TB in their soldiers now.)

Similarly, the racist attitudes Chekhov is trying to satirize would make Gusev a villain rather than a flawed protagonist as he was in Chekhov's era. One wonders what they will make of Cheri in 100 years! I don't see anything negative, but who knows what values people will have in 2120. (She might be judged harshly for all that driving, for instance, once the polar ice caps have melted.)

The different ways gender and social position affect their common journey to the thing that awaits us all (to paraphrase Laird Barron). Gusev's stuck in the military, so he wastes away in a hospital bed, but Cheri gets to say goodbye to everyone and surrounded by her friends. She has more emotional support than Gusev, who's stuck shuffling off this mortal coil next to someone he doesn't even *like*. Even chooses her time of passing, to some degree...

...but not completely, which points up the role of the surrounding society in determining end-of-life. Cheri is constantly aware of her declining supply of oxygen--a little more money and she could have a lot less stress in those final days. Not to mention the whole rigmarole of having to hide what they're doing from most of society. Gusev, of course, is a miserable unit of the Russian military who is no longer useful and can be discarded.

The metaphors of passing into another world in both cases. Gusev metaphorically passes into heaven, Cheri slips through the ice. You could argue that reflects the declining religiosity between one era and the next (Gusev is Russia and Cheri American, but Russia is actually less religious than us now)... nobody (who writes these sort of stories, anyway) really thinks you're going to a better place when you die anymore. Few expect the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns to have any dreams that may come, good or bad.

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