My Life: The Story of a Provincial

Anton Chekhov (1860 - 1904)
Translated by Constance Garnett (1861 - 1946)

A provincial youth of wealth and noble status refuses to employ himself in the typical occupations of the higher classes, thus acquiring a reputation as a lazy good-for-nothing. In reality, he is intensely sensitive to the injustices perpetrated by his social class upon the working classes of town and country, and resolves to become a common laborer, taking employment as a house painter and ikon gilder. All classes of society around him respond to this revolutionary action with bewilderment and ridicule, even the lowest workmen feeling threatened by this insolent shaking of the cosmic structure. Possibly Chekhov's most passionate outcry against the corruption and hypocrisy of every class of conventional society, "My Life" resonates with an Ibsenesque outrage and frustration of powerful relevance to twenty-first century life. (Summary by Expatriate)

Genre(s): Literary Fiction

Language: English

Group: Chekhov's Novellas

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 Chapter 01 Expatriate
00:18:37
Play 02 Chapter 02 Expatriate
00:15:31
Play 03 Chapter 03 Expatriate
00:14:33
Play 04 Chapter 04 Expatriate
00:07:55
Play 05 Chapter 05 Expatriate
00:10:35
Play 06 Chapter 06 Expatriate
00:11:59
Play 07 Chapter 07 Expatriate
00:20:03
Play 08 Chapter 08 Expatriate
00:07:49
Play 09 Chapter 09 Expatriate
00:14:31
Play 10 Chapter 10 Expatriate
00:11:08
Play 11 Chapter 11 Expatriate
00:03:33
Play 12 Chapter 12 Expatriate
00:11:58
Play 13 Chapter 13 Expatriate
00:12:51
Play 14 Chapter 14 Expatriate
00:04:09
Play 15 Chapter 15 Expatriate
00:04:52
Play 16 Chapter 16 Expatriate
00:11:57
Play 17 Chapter 17 Expatriate
00:07:18
Play 18 Chapter 18 Expatriate
00:07:24
Play 19 Chapter 19 Expatriate
00:19:01
Play 20 Chapter 20 Expatriate
00:05:58