GOOSEBERRIES

Gooseberries

Achieving your dreams is good. Unless all it gets you is becoming fat and lazy.

And it depends on what you dream about. If all you want is a house in the country and some gooseberries -- then maybe your dreams aren't big enough -- too selfish?

If you are going to dream -- dream big -- work hard -- do something for the community that actually means something beyond handing out a gallon of vodka.

You can walk away from this story with this message -- but Chekhov is more than that and I am beginning to realize (duh!)  that his stories can be taken on many levels -- the levels depend on you -- the reader. 

This is also a story of siblings -- brothers -- and brothers compete -- when one succeeds the other might very well feel like a failure -- and in this story you only hear one side. 

Only one brother -- Ivan Ivanovitch tells the tale -- and we don't really know much about Ivan Ivanovitch --  except something is bothering him -- what is it really? 

Is it that the brother, Nikolay Ivanovitch, is happy when the whole world is suffering? Possibly. However, people don't usually work that way.

Something personal is bothering Ivan Ivanovitch.  Is it that his brother has realized his dreams? 

Nikolay Ivanovitch has a happy family -- a nice house -- and is respected and admired and Ivan Ivanovitch might not  have a family or a house -- and no one may admire him like they admire his brother. 

Nikolay Ivanovitch,  passes himself off as a noble -- Ivan Ivanovitch keeps harking back to the fact that their grandfather was a peasant -- why?

When all is said and done -- one would have to look at jealousy as a possible motive for why Ivan Ivanovitch is so disturbed by the visit to his brother.

Chekhov ends the story reminding us of the smell of Ivan Ivanovitch's pipe.

Something is rotten somewhere.