Uncle Vanya

Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.

Yesterday I went to the theatre, which is something I really enjoy: I find seeing great texts come to life just in front of me very gripping and satisfying. Theatre can be, in a way, augmented reality: the characters' lives are happening a short distance from you, in a condensed period of time and through a powerful, precise use of verbal language and physical movements. Checkhov's Uncle Vanya is a very good example of these qualities. Having read about how revolutionary his approach to play writing was, I had long wanted to watch a play based on one of his texts, and I was not disappointed: the naturalism and universal   relevancy of his themes really resonated with me.

Uncle Vanya is about the tensions that arise when an elderly Professor and his attractive young wife visit his provincial relatives (his daughter from his first marriage, her Uncle Vanya and her grandmother) who support their urban lifestyle. It is not an epic tale - actually, its themes and tonality are very similar to Madame Bovary's: ennui, failure, the absurd way we carry on living what we know to be a meaningless existence, the loss of joy and humanity due to the emptiness of the relationships we establish. The social atmosphere masterfully portrayed through the characters' behaviour is one of dull mediocrity. However, unlike in Madame Bovary, there is some hope to be found here: in Vanya and Sonya's stoicism and acute conscience of their own failings and in Astrov's idealism and dedication to the future. 

The play feels like real life: what is left unsaid and undone is what truly defines the characters' lives, which are marked by the (perhaps inescapable) failure to communicate their inner richness to the outside world. This distance between who we feel ourselves to be and the person others perceive is possibly at the root of our constant dissatisfaction as human beings, and it is certainly a tragical aspect of life. However, as Checkhov manages to transmit, there is something inherently comical about this maladjustment. This play succeeds in showing in stark light the absurdity of our expectations and the bitterness of failure - it both makes you laugh and leaves you close to tears. There's a sharpness to the dialogs, particularly when they appear to be on petty topics, which hits close to the core of emotional and social experience (how not to laugh and feel uncomfortable at a line like When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair'?).

How are we to live? How - if at all - can we fit in the world, match our inner world with what is outside? How can we give meaning to our existence (which is by nature, meaningless in the vastness of an uncaring Universe)? These are some of the questions posed, by showing us a tragicomical stage version of ourselves, that this play asks.

Madame Bovary

Certain books can determine my emotions to a surprising, slightly scary extent: it's as if the outside world was covered by the book's phantom world. Of course I don't actually start behaving as if I was inside the book - that would give rise to many interesting situations, though -, but I create analogies between my surroundings and the book's mood. Madame Bovary, with its flawless writing, is one such book. I have to say I am glad I have finished it, because it made my reality dull, claustrophobic and nauseating while I was reading it - just like the world of this book.

Don't get me wrong: this is a compliment to the book's power to reach deep inside the reader, make him or her connect to the characters and explore the social setting and, from there, question his or her life choices. It is a classic for many good reasons and I recommend reading it, but it is definitely not a story to leave a smile on you face. Much to the contrary.

As you probably already know, it tells the tragic story of Emma Bovary, a doctor's wife in provincial late-eighteenth century France, trapped by social convention and eaten away by boredom (ennui, in the original French - just because it is closer to the texture of the original). Emma, raised in Romanticism, marries Charles, a doctor who is lacking in intelligence or charm (but who would do anything for her; despite his stupidity, he has a good heart), and, disappointed and bored with her life, takes two lovers (though not at the same time): Rudolphe, a charming member of the nobility who never sees her as a human being capable of feeling, and Leon, a young clerk who she is able to manipulate while the affair lasts. She is not a sympathetic heroine: she spends away the money she doesn't have, neglects her husband and daughter, and eventually wrecks their lives. She lives in a fantasy world and is unable to deal with the dull reality around her. Her actions are determined by her cultural background - she is a victim of Romanticism and of her illusions as much as of the dullness of bourgeois society. 

All the same, there is an ambiguity in the way Flaubert treats Emma: he seems to both despise and admire her at the same time. At the time, women enjoyed very little freedom, so Emma's adultery and consumerism are, in a way, brave attempts to escape from her stifling social position. The book masterfully transmits why Emma so wants to escape: the detailed scenes of provincial life are described with unbearable realism, rendering the shallow and dull nature of each and every character (including, alas, Emma Bovary) painfully evident. Flaubert's perfect style - filled with irony, able to reflect the characters' mental state, with each word carefully chosen and placed for maximum effect on the reader - greatly contributes for this effect, and is deserving of every accolade. Though the sentence construction is so well-achieved that it is a source of aesthetic beauty, it must be noted that the nausea pervading the book is achieved through a focus on human ugliness, including quite a few detailed, unflinching descriptions of physical defects and illness. These intensify our sense of the moral and cultural decay of the bourgeoisie, in particular, of the leading character, and force us to confront our own dissatisfaction, illusions and choices. 

After all, Emma is killed by the weight of her fantasies, excessive for her own weak character and for the smallness of society around her:

"N'importe! elle n'était pas heureuse, ne l'avait jamais été. D'où venait donc cette insuffisance de la vie, cette pourriture instantenée des choses où elle s'appuyait?... Mas, s'il y avait quelque part un être fort et beau, une nature valeureuse, pleine à la fois d'exaltation et de raffinements, un coeur de poète sous une forme d'ange, lyre aux cordes d'airain, sonnant vers le ciel des épithalames élégiaques, pourquoi, par hasard, ne le trouverait-elle pas? Oh! Quelle impossibilité! Rien, d'ailleurs, ne valait la peine d'une recherche; tout mentait! Chaque sourire cachait un bâillement d'ennui, chaque joie une malédiction, tout plaisir son dégoût, ot les meilleurs baisers ne vous laissaient sur la lèvre qu'une irréalisable envie d'une volupté plus haute."

The fault is is herself, as member of a society she rejects but is unable to fully evade. "Love" fails to save her: there are no magical solutions for existential boredom, which comes from deep inside. Only through facing our own illusions and surroundings and developing our own character can we ever find a form of peace and happiness, though that will probably be very different from the one which resides in our fantasies. 

Madame Bovary is a brilliant book, very rich in both ideas and style and extremely influential (looking back, there are echoes of Emma's tragedy in every tale of suburban dullness). The following link is an excellent in depth analysis of the book:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/27/classics.asbyatt?INTCMP=SRCH