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In teaching circles, the word "lecture" has a bad name. Many would call it well-deserved -- often those who sat in huge lecture halls at college listening to professors drone on (vs. talk).

It could happen in more intimate settings, too, as in a small class of 20 boxed off in a room looking remarkably like high school classrooms (only with a few tendrils of ivy curling in from the bricks outside the window).

Reading "Professor" Saunders' thoughts on seven Russian short stories, and what they mean to writers leaning into that trying genre today, reminds me of the importance of qualifying things. Yes, lecturing is, overall, bad educational practice, but sometimes that bromide doesn't hold water.

What if, for instance, the lecturer is incredibly knowledgeable? What if, to complement that, he is engaging and personable, too? And while we have our Literary Fairy Godmother around (I see her feeling taxed and eyeing the exits), what if he is humorous (of all things) at times as well?

I'm sorry to disagree with common knowledge regarding educators who talk on and on, but in this case I'll happily listen to a lecturer every time. Or, to be more specific, I'll read a Syracuse writing course's lecturer's book cover to cover.

What review would be good without a few caveats up front? All seven stories Saunders uses are from the Golden Age of Russian Literature in the 19th century. There are three by Anton Chekhov, two by Leo Tolstoy, and one each by Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Gogol. If you don't care for the Russkies or, specifically, those Chekhovian wonders where "nothing" seems to happen (but does so eloquently), you might not like this book.

Also, if you have no interest in writing, you might not think it's a big deal. But that caveat is questionable, really, because there is such a thin line between the interests of a writer and the interests of a reader. Thus, Saunders' analysis of "how it's built" or "how the story works" could as easily fascinate a student of reading as a student of writing.

So, yes. Guilty as charged. The book hits my sweet spots as a fan of Russian literature, as a fan of writing, and as a fan of good senses of humor. Others might get bogged down in certain stories or be tempted to skip over them (and if so, why bother?). Or maybe they don't care about literary criticism (it's a free country, they say). Or maybe they're just not fans of George Saunders ever since he dragged poor Lincoln into the damn Bardo (which we had to look up to discover "in some schools of Buddhism, bardo, antarābhava, or chūu is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth.") That's Wikipedia for Purgatory in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Be this as it may, I'm giving my personal response here: Fun to read. Fun to mark up. Fun to read something that encourages a revisiting of the Russkies (or maybe a visiting for the first time of Saunders' short story collections).

As is true with lecturing, long books like this can be off-putting at first, but cordial given time and patience. My advice? If you're going to read it, you owe this book both.

Nota Bene: Saunders considers Chekhov's best short stories to be the three in this book ("In the Cart," "The Darling," and "Gooseberries") as well as "The Lady with the Pet Dog," "In the Ravine," "Enemies," "About Love," and "The Bishop."