Platonov - Kosnoyazychie

[Lily Alexander]

Dear Sasha and All,

I agree with you of course, with everything you mentioned.
 
Re: "Ia boleiu vsei dushoi" is a very good correlation. And yet, he 
would have used it if he wanted to. He wanted a new slovoobrazovanie. 
And it looks like this man does not want to explain himself completely 
to his peers, so the sentence, being  torn, or self censored, or for no 
reason -  has some incompleteness.
Platonov has the dimensions of kosnoyasychie of the holy fool, of the 
Soviet press, and of the Soviet muzhik, and of street language merging 
with literature, and many many more things. That's why I believe that it 
is difficult to read too much into Platonov's texts, because they have 
so many hidden channels and semantic niches opening into all kinds of 
possible interesting readings. I have seen students interpreting his 
texts very differently, but all of them made sense to me - I enjoyed 
seeing them trying. This is his richness. His texts are provoking in 
this sense - they are almost force us into some kind of Talmudic intense 
interpretation set of mind. Prof. Hill touched upon the composition 
issue - and it is the whole new area of inquiry.

Several remarkable books have been written on  Platonov, numerous 
articles, and he will likely inspire many more publications and open 
discussions.

Btw, I just found out that Robert has already been very effectively 
"injecting" Beckett into Platonov, on stage. So he knows his stuff and 
appreciates the absurd edge of Platonov, and of course a creative 
process of finding the words is very difficult and open ended. 
Hopefully, Robert, you are enjoying the process and thank you for 
letting us in.

There likely will be different translations of Platonov eventually, in 
different styles, and why not?

Best regards,

Lily

Alexandra Smith wrote:

> Dear Lily,
>
> I think that your reading of Platonov could stretch further, beyond  
> Shklovsky, pointing to some analogies with the issues related to the  
> philosophy of language discussed in the writings of Diderot and other  
> 18th-c. thinkers. See, for example, Smoliarova's excellent article:  
> Tatiana Smoliarova, ?Distortion and Theatricality: Estrangement in  
> Diderot and Shklovsky?, Poetics Today, Spring: 27:1, 2006. The 
> article  also sheds some light on the issue related to Chaplin and 
> Shklovsky's  notion of estrangement.
> However, having done a considerable amount of research on Platonov 
> and  his language at some stage of my life, I  came to the conclusion 
> that  to a large extent Platonov's language has some strong links with 
> the  language of various Soviet newspapers of the 1920s and some 
> colloqual  and non-standard language used in Southern parts of Russia 
> (Voronezh  region, etc.). It is not always a product of clever tricks 
> and  lingistic games. Naturally, Platonov had a very good ear for 
> picking  up lots of things that deviated from the norm, so to speak.
> In the sentence that includes the phrase "Ia chuvstvuiu" the  
> strangeness comes from the fact that in the Russian language this  
> phrase is not used by itself, it appears to be incomplete, since  
> native speakers would usually continue this type of sentences along  
> the lines "I feel that..." (Ia chuvstvuiu, chto...) or "ia 
> chuvstvuiu,  kak"...
> It seems to me that the phrase discussed earlier stands close to the  
> idiomatic expression "Ia boleiu vsei dushoi".... but in the end of 
> the  day the translator still needs to preserve the stylistic mask of 
> a  simpleton used by Platonov and look for similar cases that exist 
> in  non-standard English. I'm not sure though whether Robert Chandler 
> and  Olga Meerson (who already wrote a wonderful book on Platonov's  
> estrangement) are prearing their new translation for British or US  
> readers ... I would imagine that the factor of readership should  
> determine to a large extent  the narrative and translation strategies  
> that the translators of this story would like to develop...
> I agree with your description of the narrator though but I think that  
> you are reading too much into this text. In the end of the day,  
> readers of the story should be aware of some eccentric qualities of  
> the narrator's speech who is not as sophisticated as Platonov. But 
> one  shouldn't forget about the stylistic mask of a simpleton that 
> Platonov  uses here.
>
> All very best,
> Sasha Smith
>
>
>
>
> =====================================
> Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
> Lecturer in Russian
> School of European Languages and Cultures
> The University of Edinburgh
> David Hume Tower
> George Square
> Edinburgh EX8 9JX
> UK
>
> tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
> fax: +44- (0)131- 650-3604
> e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk
>
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