#154 The Bet

Find today’s 2859 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/154.html

Travis Review

This is one of my favorite stories. It is the story that turned me onto Chekhov many years ago. It is a mixture of many great things. It’s an intellectual argument about the cruelty of imprisonment as well as a the futility of money and pursuing knowledge without human interaction. It is about male competitiveness and integrity. It is about the responsibility that comes with imprisoning another human. It is about the morality of choosing to murder somebody in order to save face and financial ruin. It is about greed and whether money is worth while. It is a story that takes place over 15 years and is compressed in under 3000 words. It is a master work.