Stuffed Seagulls: Parody and the Reception of Chekhov's Plays

Boris Akunin’s Postmodern Čajka

“…8 A writer with no appreciation of Čechov might "use Chekhov to stand for every tendency in modern drama that he detested" (p. 289), in which case the parody is "a means of neutralizing the uncomfortably novel, difficult or strange" (p. 285). Yet, even written as a labor of love, parody "continues to disseminate the misconceptions that Chekhov's plays are full of doleful non-happenings and take place in the twilight zone" (p. 296).…”