Bleeding rail ties and 'Ya chuvstvuyu"

[Olga Meerson]

Hurray for Tim Sergay!
Olga

> Dear Seelangers,
> 
> To venture that Platonov's character Fyodorov "bleeds rail ties" 
> may well be 
> an inventive, accurate and idiomatic way of describing his 
> intuitive passion 
> for his profession, but I can't agree that "I bleed rail ties" is 
> a valid 
> translation of what Fyodorov actually says of himself in his 
> dialogue: "no 
> ia chuvstvuiu..." And that's not because I'm a literalist ninny, 
> although 
> sometimes I suppose I am. That's because Fyodorov is not uttering 
> an utterly 
> idiomatic, slogan-like, quite finished and readily comprehensible 
> thought 
> about himself. If you google for "I bleed" you find Cardinals 
> baseball fans 
> cheerfully confessing "I bleed Cardinals red" and so on. Fyodorov 
> shouldn't 
> say "I eat this railroads stuff for breakfast," or "My middle name 
> is 
> rolling stock," either. He is not pronouncing a well-formulated 
> slogan about 
> himself. He is groping toward an articulation. As mentioned many 
> times, what 
> he says is significantly incomplete. I think the translations 
> proposed here 
> that come closest to that quality are Robert's "I work by feeling" 
> (which 
> might be even better, less finished, less determinate, as "I go by 
> feeling), 
> and someone else's very fine suggestion "I feel things" ("WHAT 
> things?").
> Best to all,
> 
> Tim Sergay 
> 
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