The Steppe

Chekhov wrote that Gogol “the tsar of the steppe” might be envious. And here, you see Gogol's influence most vividly compared to any other of Chekhov's stuff.

Like “Dead Souls”, The Steppe is virtually plotless - like an episodic TV show. Its a string of adventures that have no internal connection. It also, like Dead Souls, is infuriatingly impossible to convey in translation (this is always the case with Russian, but particularly so here). The language is the only way to understand the natural descriptions and the human flimsiness.