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For over 20 years, Saunders has been teaching in the MFA program at Syracuse University, especially on how to write a short story by learning from the masters or, rather, from what we believe went into their craftsmanship. In this book, Saunders samples 7 out of ca. 40 stories from the Russian masters he and his students discuss throughout the semester, distilling the most important elements in his approach to short story writing. If anyone is interested in what other stories he includes in his seminar, here is his syllabus:


What guided him to select these 7 stories is that they are “eminently teachable.� “The stories I’ve chosen aren’t meant to represent a diverse cast of Russian writers (just Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol) or even necessarily the best stories by these writers.� So the first heads-up to future readers is not to expect this to be a collection of “best� or “favorite� Russian classic stories, accompanied by a “how-to-read/interpret� commentary.

All the same, it’s not an MFA textbook (though highly useful for those who would like to attend or teach in MFA programs), because it’s also intended for a general reader and Saunders skillfully makes his teaching adaptable into the discussion about many aspects in reading this literary form. I must say that some of the “writing technique processes� he illustrates in these stories were revelatory for me as a reader and made the story more interesting than what I felt about it in my initial reaction (Chekhov’s “In the Cart� and Tolstoy’s “Master and Man� would be prime examples). At other times, the commentary sometimes felt a bit tedious in technical details, reminding us that it’s foremost a workshop primer on the process of writing. But Saunders� whimsical and conversational style, compassionate personality, and brilliant mind shone through those parts as well, making them lively even for those who do not aspire to write in this form.

One of the common traits of all the selected stories is their ambiguity in presenting either a character or plot. It allowed for a great range of interpretations and, while mine were not always the same as those by Saunders, I found his approach and angles fascinating. Sometimes I had an entirely different take on the story because I brought in my own experience and inclinations. I, for example, very much disagreed that Turgenev’s “The Singers� was about the contrast between the manipulative pragmatism of technical proficiency and raw emotional expressions. Turgenev spent a good part of his life in the household of Pauline Viardot, one of the greatest opera singers at the time, and her husband. His description of the singing contest in a provincial inn was brilliant and quite learned in contrasting the Kunst vs. Stimme approach to singing, emotional/character expressiveness (art) vs. beautiful sound (voice), a well-known debate to this day among opera lovers. What I appreciated is how Turgenev showed that the passion for vocal art is universal and that these two schools of thought about vocalism can be instinctively felt by anyone, including the impoverished peasants in the remote and isolated lands. And my take on the two boys ending the story is consequently radically different from Saunders' view. Still, there is sufficient ambivalence in Turgenev’s construction of the story to be open to his approach as perfectly valid too.

There is one exception, though, when the validity of interpretation can be questioned because it’s based on the utterly inadequate translation of one of the crucial sentences in the story. This is what happened with Chekhov’s “The Darling.� Had it not been for a GR friend, who alerted us that the last line missed on an important expression that is quite clear in Russian but misleading and hinting the opposite meaning in translation, I would have interpreted the main character in the same way as Saunders did. I looked at several other translations, from Garnett to the leading translators in the 1960s such as Magarshack and Dunnigan, and the much-hyped translating couple today, Pevear & Volokhonsky, and all of them failed to do it right (!). I am not sure if all elements in Saunders� interpretation would have to be radically revised, but his understanding of Olenka’s love as ultimately suffocating for others would stand on very thin grounds. This is not Saunders� fault by any means but rather indicates how translations can sometimes grossly diverge from the original, fundamentally changing its meaning. It is to Saunders� credit and his innate intelligence that, despite all, he sensed that something would not be quite right in abandoning the warm feelings about Olenka (“the more I know about her, the less inclined I feel to pass a too-harsh or premature judgment.�) He acknowledges that translations often lose on the music and nuances. Nonetheless, as he points out, “even in English, shorn of those delights, they have worlds to teach us.� And if that’s the only way we can read foreign literature, short of learning just about every language in which the originals we’d love to read were written, it’s still better than not reading them at all.

Some may have caveats about MFA programs which have generated much controversies and debates (both pros and cons), there is certainly a caveat about a few translating blunders, which fortunately were not many except for one critical example, but I have absolutely no caveat about the brilliance of Saunders as a writer, teacher, and human being with an enormous intellect, irresistible humor, and compassionate heart. There is so much here that teaches us about the art of the short story form, the marvel of the Russian literary tradition (and Saunders' unquestionable love for it), as well as about living with a genuinely generous heart and open mind. All of it.