The Three Sisters, by Anton Chekhov
Dreaming of Moscow
Makes life pass by unnoticed.
Did you hear the gun?
Not a novel, nor a doorstop, but certainly a classic. One which I didn't get the first time round though. My first experience of Chekhov was a pained student production directed by an old lag with too many ideas and actors with too little experience.
Needless to say I didn't see the point of it and said so to a lecturer in the drama department. A very grand, poised former opera singer who replied with one of the wisest things I've ever heard about literature. "Ah yes," she said, "I think you can only appreciate Checkhov once you're old enough to have something to regret."
That's the thing about universities. They get you in young and attempt to stuff your head with older people's thoughts. Sometimes they don't fit. But that doesn't mean they won't in time.
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