(The quote below is from one of Chekhov's letters to other Russian writer, Maxim Gorky.) Your nature descriptions are artistic; you are a true landscape painter. But your frequent personifications (anthropomorphism), when the sea breathes, the sky looks on, the steppe basks, and nature whispers, talks, grieves, etc.—these personifications make your descriptions a bit monotonous, sometimes cloying, and sometimes unclear. Color and expressivity in nature descriptions are achieved through simplicity alone, through simple phrases like "the sun set," "it grew dark," "it began to rain," etc. As I asked in the title, what are some examples of the "simple but vivid" description that Chekhov talks about in letter excerpt above? (Examples can be from books, novels, your own writing—doesn't really matter to me )
Perfect! ...Jokes aside—and I should probably add this to the post—I would like to see some descriptions that are "more," like a paragraph or so.
I suppose...? I found the letter excerpt in the book What to Read and Why by Francine Prose, in the chapter "On Clarity," where Prose says this: You can pick up a volume of Chekhov’s stories and open it anywhere and, no matter how well or poorly the Russian has been translated, you will probably have a hard time finding a sentence you can’t understand. This is because, as much as any other writer and more than most, Chekhov put such a premium on writing comprehensibly, without flowery language or unnecessary adornment.
I'm in a happy medium place when it comes to Chekov's statement. Sure, all the melodramatic sea breathing, nature talking stuff can be excruciating, if it's piled on too thickly—like too many ruffles and bows on a dress or a curtain—but 'the sun set' kind of writing is not evocative at all. It just lets us know that the sun has set. Well, yes. The sun does set. Every day. (The sun also rises, as Hemmingway pointed out. ) Painting a picture is exactly what a writer should be doing, in my opinion. Immersion is a huge factor for me, when I'm reading. If I can't visualise or feel the situation, I just don't get engaged in the story. The picture doesn't need to be overly fussy (except for people who like that sort of thing) but it should provide more than just facts. If it reads like a report produced by low-level lackeys for your local Council, readers like me will walk away unmoved. If the quality or timing of the sunset matters to the POV character in the story, let us know why. Emotional and intellectual content are important when bringing a story to life.
IMO, Chekhov's main literary contribution is a shift in story structure. He likes to sweep over characters rather than plot. He writes these kind of slice-of-life stories that aren't so much about overcoming a problem as they are about coping with it. So the stories end with big issues unresolved but with a shift of character underway. Mostly. That was unheard of at the time. There will be a samovar in every story, lots of troikas, and somewhere "silence ensues." (That always makes me laugh for some reason.) He reminds me more of Dickens, with the class stratification as it is. Characters often think about the unfairness of society. There's a tremendous amount of religious presence and some characters question that too. He writes from a wide swath of characters. He's not like, say, Jane Austen, who favors one particular level of society. I don't know about the brief natural settings . . . I see him use big descriptions all the time. Here's one (and I don't particularly like it): And up above just then, on the side where the sun goes down, clouds are massing; one cloud resembles a triumphal arch, another a lion, a third a pair of scissors . . . A broad green shaft comes form behind the clouds and stretches to the very middle of the sky; shortly afterwards a violet shaft lies next to it, then a golden one, then a pink one . . . The sky turns a soft lilac. Seeing this magnificent, enchanting sky, the ocean frowns at first, but soon itself takes on such tender, joyful, passionate colors as human tongue can hardly name. (Chekhov, "Gusev," 1890) I never read him and think "wow, that was so succinct, and yet genius." What impresses me most is the depth of his characters. They commit to behaviors that can be surprising but always feel authentic. His characters don't stick to one behavior either. I don't want to make him look bad with that above quote . . . here's a section I liked a lot: A little red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent arrived; then a tall, stooping, shaggy individual, who looked like a head deacon; then a stout young man with a red face and spectacles. These were doctors who came to watch by turns beside their colleague. Korostelev did not go home when his turn was over, but remained and wandered about the rooms like an uneasy spirit. The maid kept getting tea for the various doctors, and was constantly running to the chemist, and there was no one to do the rooms. There was a dismal stillness in the flat. Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for having deceived her husband. That silent, unrepining, uncomprehended creature, robbed by his mildness of all personality and will, weak from excessive kindness, had been suffering in obscurity somewhere on his sofa, and had not complained. And if he were to complain even in delirium, the doctors watching by his bedside would learn that diphtheria was not the only cause of his sufferings. They would ask Korostelev. He knew all about it, and it was not for nothing that he looked at his friend's wife with eyes that seemed to say that she was the real chief criminal and diphtheria was only her accomplice. She did not think now of the moonlight evening on the Volga, nor the words of love, nor their poetical life in the peasant's hut. She thought only that from an idle whim, from self-indulgence, she had sullied herself all over from head to foot in something filthy, sticky, which one could never wash off ... ("The Fidget," 1892) (There is kind of a simple line in there though. "There was a dismal stillness in the flat.")
Wow, that's quite a contrast!! I'm assuming the 1890 story was an early one, or at least before he formed his preference for basic, simple nature descriptions. The weird thing is, he actually went way way beyond what he told Gorky not to do, and then he did exactly the same as he cautioned Gorky against with this: But the other excerpts you posted are brilliant.
He's a great writer. If you're ever to read a short story by him, read "The Bishop." It's online somewhere for sure and isn't that long. It's just a really interesting take on what a person in power wants. (Don't forget Chekhov's Tide Pod! If a Tide pod appears in the first act of your story, by the third act, a teenager must eat it.)
Hemingway's implementations of simple sentences--at least in the books I've read--were miraculous. On their own, the sentences were pretty bland, but together, somehow, it really worked.
Yep, so they say. But I found myself consistently unmoved by Hemingway's stories and novels—and he's considered a master. Mind you, I haven't tried reading anything of his for about 50 years, so maybe I should give him another go. Aside from the numerous short stories we were required to read at various levels of school and college, I also read The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises and For Whom The Bell Tolls. Worthy ... I suppose so—great themes, etc. But I was glad when we moved on to something else. I've often heard people extolling his virtues as a writer, but I've never been tempted to emulate his style—because I could never engage with it. I just slogged through it, that's all.
Honestly, it sounds like he was mistaking his own reading and writing preferences for good writing. Both types can be equally good. His examples of "simple yet vivid" can be equally monotonous. The issue isn't whether the language is simple or not - the issue is in variety, rhythm, and set up. You need to set the tone. Once you've set it, his simple yet vivid phrases come to life. For me, I see them as almost what I call "summarising sentences". They don't expand on the description that proceeded it - they conclude it. They give the whole thing a rounded finish, like the cherry on top that brings the whole thing to life. You are, essentially, using a "tell" sentence to sum up the theme of the entire paragraph, telling the reader the whole point for the existence of the descriptions they'd just read. Personally, as a teen I emulated Henning Mankell heavily. I haven't read his stuff in over a decade, but at the time, when I was 16 or so, I loved his stuff so much I was actively trying to emulate his style. I read a page of his stuff recently and I can actually see some of myself in it even now - seems my emulation worked lol. I don't write like him - his is far too simplistic for my taste now whereas mine is rather lyrical, but I also prize simplicity within lyricism. So I try to find a balance. But anyway, I was enraptured by how Mankell could sum up a relationship in a single paragraph that comprised of exactly those "simple yet vivid" sentences you speak of, stuff like Wallander eating pizza, again, alone, again. Stuff like the phone that never rings. Anyway he's hugely successful in Sweden and I believe worldwide with numerous translations of his works - obviously I read it in English as I don't speak a word of Swedish. It's all about balance. The point is whether you can paint an image. "Nature whispers" doesn't necessarily paint any image in particular. "The leaves rustled" does. "The waves danced" vs "The waves lapped on the shore" - which one is really more vivid? But notice "lapped" - that itself is a poetic choice. I do not say splash, or wash, or hug. Lyricism isn't always in all those literary devices, as far as I'm concerned. Also, too many people overestimate the power of one sentence. It's never about that one sentence. It's about how multiple sentences come together. It's about context and tone. A single word, or a single sentence, can never carry all that you want it to carry. And if you tried, you would fail. To give an example, I read a book by Lawrence Block about a private investigator who's also an alcoholic. Throughout the novel, alcoholism was a theme for him and as the reader, you know how much he's struggling to stay sober as he's investigating a case. Right at the end, the final line - do you know what the final line was? I'll have to paraphrase, but it was something like this: "My name is Matt Scudder and I am an alcoholic." I burst into tears. I had no idea I'd cared that much right up until that line. Is it simple? Yes. Very. Is it that line that's magic? No. It was the entire book. It was the build up of everything. It was never about that one line. That one line simply gave voice to the deep desire the rest of the story had already instilled in the reader. Similarly, in the German film The Lives of Others, right at the end, a former secret police officer who helped save the life of a playwright finds that this writer had dedicated a book to him. He takes it to the till to buy it and the staff asks him, "Would you like it gift-wrapped?" The former officer says, "No. It's for me." Why is that line powerful? Because all through the film, as the viewer, you'd been waiting for the playwright to realise who's been behind the scenes helping him. You'd been waiting for that acknowledgement, that gratitude, and you'd been waiting for the former officer to finally get the thanks he deserved. That line summed up the theme. That's what makes a simple line vivid - that's what makes it powerful. It's not the same thing as: Please write an entire novel comprised only of simple sentences such as "It grew dark." It's about giving voice to the theme, or on a paragraph level, giving voice to the emotion you're trying to convey. It's never about the physical description itself.
I know that was a rhetorical question, but I'm going to answer it anyway. For me they're both very vivid, but I slightly prefer "The waves danced" because it makes me see little points of sunlight shimmering across the surface of the water, all in hypnotic motion. "The waves lapped" is also good, and also hypnotic, but lacks the extra element of shimmering sunlight, though it includes a strong sound element missing in the first one. Just my own personal interpretation. But I don't mean to detract from your excellent post. Wish I could like it twice!
Aw thank you! Regarding the sunlight element, technically I might argue it's the sunlight that's dancing, not the waves, if you really wanted that shimmering quality But yeah, a thing like that, I'd probably have written at least 2-3 lines before or surrounding "The waves lapped" because, I'm like you, I also love the dancing lights on the water! If I were to use the verb "dance", I'd rather go for "The light danced upon the waters" - rather than "The waves danced" - simply because waves dancing is a little more cliche than lights dancing, somehow.
I mostly agree, but sometimes a single word can suggest multiple things, so without even mentioning the sunlight you invoke it by saying danced, but that might just be me. And before reading what you wrote and composing my own reply, I wouldn't have been able to articulate that, but it made me realize that the word dance in conjunction with waves does suggest sunlight to me. No need to drag it in so crudely as by actually saying 'the sunlight danced on the waves'. But then most people might not get that image from it.
Ah, but I wouldn't use "sunlight" - I'd go for simply, "light". Sunlight feels too specific - as you say, it would be crude. And yes, of course there's always a level of subjectivity, of how words work for each person. It's good that you can identify that! "Danced" is certainly a beautiful verb.
No one asked, but... In reading this thread, it's apparent that we are discussing intent and meaning of someone's words (Chekhov), but from the other side of the translation paradigm. Like any language, Russian is gifted with a host of differing ways to say the exact same thing - some workaday, some elevated, some technical, some poetic. Many different registers, just like in English. The dry, flat way Chekhov advises with respect to descriptions of nature felt very suspect to me, especially knowing the spin Constance Garnett (infamous in the realms of translators) gave to the works she translated from Russian. She had only her personal idiolect in a foreign language with which to work and there are known instances of her completely omitting sections she did not understand. Neither Dostoevsky nor Tolstoy would be amused at how she homogenized the sound, cadence, delivery, and vocabulary, syntax, and inflected grammatical choices of the respective original works, making them sound like they were penned by the same original hand. So I searched for the original letters in their original Russian - which I speak and read - and, frankly, that is very much the way Chekhov states it. Описания природы художественны; Вы настоящий пейзажист. Только частое уподобление человеку (антропоморфизм), когда море дышит, небо глядит, степь нежится, природа шепчет, говорит, грустит и т. п.,-- такие уподобления делают описания несколько однотонными, иногда слащавыми, иногда неясными; красочность и выразительность в описаниях природы достигаются только простотой, такими простыми фразами, как "зашло солнце", "стало темно", "пошел дождь" и т. д.,-- и эта простота свойственна Вам в сильной степени, как редко кому из беллетристов. ... "зашло солнце", "стало темно", "пошел дождь,"... ... "the sun set", "it became dark", "it has begun to rain,"... The original Russian is just as Plain Jane as the English translation. My only point here is to corroborate both the original words and the accuracy of the translation, which are good to go. That is what he wrote. I'll see myself out...
I don't think any clause by itself is meant to paint a picture; it's how it fits in the context of the description that is important. "The sun set" is a simple description, but a lot of the time that's all you really need to say. Here's an excerpt from The Old Man and the Sea which also happens to be concerned with the sun. "The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats, low on the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the current. Then the sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and then, as it rose clear, the flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it." I think it's very beautiful and evocative. YMMV.
Can't argue with that. Mind you, I wasn't referencing Hemingway in my quote (except as a joke ...the sun also rises.) I was referencing what Chekov said. He ate his dinner. She drove to work. The sun set. It grew dark. It began to rain. She got wet. The rain stopped. Things dried out. Um ...falling off the branch yet? I know I would be, if this continued much longer.
Yes, the following prose in that Hemingway quote does add nicely to the image, but even just the addition of thinly to the sun rose is enough to give that phrase a little life.
I know--I was using Hemingway as an example of simple, powerful description. I doubt that this is the sort of thing that Chekhov intended--it's not the descriptions that are offensive in your example, it's the repetitive, list-like sentence structure, which Chekhov wasn't talking about in the OP's excerpt. If you rewrite your example like this, I don't think it sounds very bad at all; and it still adheres to a very simple descriptive style, with simple descriptive phrases: "She drove to work as he ate his dinner. The sun set over the road, and as it set the rain began to fall--she got very wet in her convertible--but soon it stopped and things dried out."
That's a fine 'telling' style, if all you're doing is conveying information about what happened so you can move into the next scene. But I don't feel as if I can see or feel the importance of that sunset or the onset of rain or the lack of a roof on the car. Bald 'telling' is fine if you are just making a scene transition, etc. In fact it's a good trick to get people from here to there without much baggage. But if you want me to get immersed in the story, or envision the setting, or get a feeling for the characters and the scene, this bare-bones distancing tone isn't going to sustain my interest. I might not realise why I'm just not 'in' to the story, but I'll discover I just don't care about the characters or what happens to them. I'm likely to just walk away at some point. I do agree with Chekov that you don't need to get melodramatic over every detail either, though. That's just as irritating. It draws too much attention to itself as a writing technique. Unlike not necessarily knowing what is missing, you'll be all too aware of what's being piled on. And I'm just as likely to go 'oh, for crying out loud,' and walk away from that as well. That old happy medium. It's where I tend to live!
But also, good writing in one language is bad writing in another. In this sense, to what extent can Chekhov's advice be directly applied to writing in English? We don't know how "The sea breathed" in Russian sounds - we don't know the register the author used when he wrote "The sea breathed" - and we don't know if that is a typical usage of the words or a typical imagery. We also don't know what style was appreciated at the time, which will impact on Chekhov's comment, what might be unusual or original vs cliche. I still remember that one time I wrote a paragraph in Chinese and asked my mum to read it. She said everything made sense and the sentences themselves were actually good, but it confused her because "that's not how you write". Now she's not a writer, but she is Chinese and perfectly native. I'd started a description with the buzzing of a fly, and then zoomed out to describe the room. She said, "No, you must first describe the room. You can't just jump into talking about a bee." In English, what I did would have been perfectly acceptable. Good writing, even, focusing on a point of interest before giving a bit of context, reel the reader in with a bit of mystery, weave in some character reaction in the context of the bee. In Chinese, apparently, nope, bad writing.
I think this is why I loved Henning Mankell. Janet, you know my writing style quite well by now - I'm curious, do you see any of my writing in Henning Mankell's below (from his book, Faceless Killers)? I highlighted some lines because they are poetic and plain at the same time, for me, and the poetry, part of it, actually comes from the images he chooses, and not necessarily the words. It really sets the tone. This is obviously translated from Swedish.
It's the personal touch ...he thinks, he feels ...and then insight into what makes him think and feel. His wife lies beside him, breathing. (Well, we'd hope so.) But her breathing is faint, and it makes him think ahead to the day when maybe she won't be breathing. Without this insight, the observation would be unnecessary, wouldn't it? I can't say his writing made me think of yours, exactly. Yours is more detailed, and the richer for it. Mind you, this is just a snippet. Perhaps the story gets richer as it moves along. But in answer to the unspoken question 'would I keep reading?' The answer is yes.
