Platonov: kak na tesnom dvore

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Karen,

Thanks very much for your thoughts.  As often happens, I did think of
something new immediately after sending my last message to SEELANGS.  This
is what I have now:

As for anyone who had managed to eat his stock of life in advance or else
released it into collective imprisonment – he lay in an empty coffin and
lived there as if confined in a snug home, sensing enclosed peace.

Part of the difficulty with Platonov is that he writes on many levels at
once – literal and metaphorical.  Your ‘exhale it into a kind of prison’
loses the literal reality of the peasants surrendering their animals into
the collective farm.

Best wishes,

Robert



> What about "As for that one who managed in advance to consume his life or
> exhale it into a kind of prison, that one emptied into a coffin, living as if
> in a tightly cramped home, feeling an airless peace."
> 
> I know it departs from the literal, but Platonov writes in metaphor...
> 
> Karen
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
> Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 7:59 AM
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Platonov: kak na tesnom dvore
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Tesnyi, tesnota, stesnennyi, stesnenie, etc are anther group of words that
> Platonov uses particularly often in KOTLOVAN.  For the main part we have
> used different combinations of such words as 'cramped', 'tight' and
> 'constraint'.  Most of the time we have, I think, come up with satisfactory
> solutions, but we are still struggling with the following:
>  Кто вперед успел поесть свою живность или кто отпустил ее в колхозное
> заключение, тот лежал в пустом гробу и жил в нем, как на тесном дворе,
> чувствуя огороженный покой.
> 
> The (very unsatisfactory) best we have come up with is:
>  As for anyone who had managed to eat his stock of life in advance or else
> released it into collective imprisonment - he lay in an empty coffin and
> lived in it as if in a snugly cramped home, feeling an enclosed peace.
> 
> (I'm aware, by the way, that the normal tr. for 'zhivnost'' would be
> 'poultry', but the phrases 'live stock' and 'dead stock' (zhivoi inventar'
> and 'mertvyi inventar') occur many times, so we have chosen to play on
> that.)
> 
> In hope,
> 
> Robert
> 
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