Chekhov Cards

Russian Lit assignment. First experiments.

*Also, I can't be sure of any of the Russian text. I just do as translate.google.com tells me. 

I wanted something extremely simple, but at the same time potent and modern. The short story tells the tale of a hallucinating, megalomaniac named Andrey Vassilitch Korvin who is having visions of a black monk, who tells him that he is chosen by God to lead humanity into a brighter future. The majority of the story takes place at his soon-to-be-father-in-law's gardens and orchards: trees and fruits about which the old man obsesses to the point of neurosis. Like many of Chekhov's characters, Korvin becomes disillusioned, miserable, divorced, more miserable, catches tuberculosis, and then dies. Also his father-in-law dies. 

Honestly though, the story is pretty incredible—in fact, you can read the whole splendid thing here. 

The upside-down growing apple, or the cut, hanging pear both play with formalistic and naturalistic imagery in unnatural states, which I believe properly describes the whole timbre of the story without being vulgarly literal, plus I just love that cut pear with its weird asymmetry and that dark seed pushing out of it.