Platonov: kak na tesnom dvore

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Tim,

Everything you say is generally valid.  BUT I am certain that, in the
context of the book as a whole, there is no difficulty whatsoever in
understanding the literal meaning of the phrases you think I have obscured.
I can't argue this. - either you have to take my word for it, or you have to
read the translation of the book as a whole!

And, in the immediate context of  a living person choosing to lie down in a
coffin, the root of the word 'zhivnost'' can hardly be ignored!

All the best,

Robert




> But when I read
> about "one's STOCK OF life" as opposed to "one's life" the notion of
> "livestock" (farm animals) still does not occur to me: the words "stock
> of" don't close the gap between the notion "life" and the notion "farm
> animals," not for me anyway. Reading "one's stock of life," all that
> occurs to me is the idea of a quantum of life (i.e., a stock, a laid-up
> quantify, of time) allotted to one. Reading about "the release of one's
> stock of life into collective imprisonment" I would never guess that at
> some "literal level" we are speaking of farm animals being relinquished to
> the ownership of a collective farm. This amplification of the "metaphoric"
> stratum obscures the "literal" stratum, in my view, beyond recognition:
> it's now invisible. 

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