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"....and isn't our living in town, airless and crowded, our writing useless papers, our playing vint -- isn't that all a sort of case for us? And our spending our whole lives among trivial, fussy men and silly, idle women, our talking and our listening to all sorts of nonsense -- isn't that a case for us, too?"

Let me begin writing my review with another story.

was a renowned Danish astronomer and alchemist of his time who was best known for his accurate astronomical and planetary observations. As it happens, one day, our well-respected scientist was attending a banquet with the likes of Johannes Kepler and other people of high social standing when, he felt the call of nature. However, as per Kepler's first-hand witness account, Brahe refused to relieve himself, deeming such behavior to be a breach of etiquette. Unfortunately, upon returning home Brahe found himself to be in great pain and was unable to urinate, and eventually died eleven days later of a ruptured bladder. It is said that Brahe had written his own epitaph before he died: "He lived like a sage and died like a fool."


Brahe wearing the Order of the Elephant


The reason why I'm beginning with this tale is that Brahe's fate has distinct similarities with the hero of The Man in a Case, a schoolteacher called Byelikov. Through Byelikov, Chekhov portrays a character who's so devoted to the systems and rules that he couldn't imagine his life beyond them, a character who is so alienated from libertarian ways that he has shut himself up in a case. The story has the witticisms and philosophical outlook present in Russian literature of the late nineteenth century using light-hearted social commentaries and word-of-mouth story-telling.

An amusing, yet thought-provoking read.