French name?

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Annie,

I stayed out of this discussion because I don't know 'Anti-Sexus' at all well and didn't have any thoughts about this name

But I CAN say that Platonov does, elsewhere, use French names in a meaningful way.  There is a young woman called Katya Bessonet-Favor (Бессонэ-Фавор) who appears both in the novel HAPPY MOSCOW and in 'Otets', a film script that incorporates many scenes from the novel.

Here is the endnote that Eric Naiman, myself, and I forget who else eventually came up with for the first appearance of this woman in HAPPY MOSCOW.
	• Platonov mentions a hydraulic pump called “Bessonet-favor” in his article “Goryachaya arktika” [Chutyo pravdy (Moscow: sovetskaya rossiya, 1990), 335–340]. In Happy Moscow this name is a pun. It recalls the achievements of world technology, and it is erotically charged. Bessonet is reminiscent of the french besogne, meaning “need” or even “sexual intercourse”; favor sounds like faveur, meaning “favor,” also often in a sexual context.

And this second endnote, for the film script, is summarised from an article by Yevgeny Yablokov.
	• The names of Platonov’s characters often have multiple resonances, but this name is especially complex. The young woman with this name in Happy Moscow is French, and the name’s French associations are explained in note 91. But the name also conjures up associations in Russian, all of them religious. Mount Tabor, the site of christ’s transfiguration, is—in Russian—Mount Tabor. The tabor light, the light revealed during the transfiguration, is favorsky svet. Bessonet is close to the russian adjective bessonny (“sleepless”), and this too may evoke an orthodox image: that of the icon of christ known as “The unsleeping eye”: even in sleep, Christ is looking after the world.

I realise that this must all seem insanely complicated to people who do not know these particular works - but it really does make sense in context! My guess is that we ARE all missing something and that there IS some personal or historical reference behind Chautelois / Châteloy.

All the best,

Robert
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Thank you for your on- and off-list replies. I tend to agree with the majority opinion that this is French, and find the Dutch rendering of “Shotlew” mysterious - perhaps there’s a famous “Shotlew” to whom Platonov could have been construed as referring? - but I am still stuck choosing between Chautelois and Châteloy.
> 
> Does anyone happen to know whether/how well Platonov knew French? Maybe he meant a similar name (Chantelois), as some of you suggested, but mistransliterated it? The thing that makes me feel I’m missing something is that none of these versions appear to have a referent (be it real-life or fictional), but the other names in the piece (Bergman, Kreuzkopf, etc) do.
> 
> At any rate, thanks for an interesting discussion,
> 
> Annie 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2013/5/14 Anne Fisher <anne.o.fisher at gmail.com>
> Hello folks, 
> 
> I'm translating Platonov's "Anti-Sexus" and am wondering how best to transliterate the second name in the company name Беркман, Шотлуа и Сн. (Berkman, Shotlua i Sn).
> 
> My one distant semester of college French, which I'm assuming is the language of origin of the name "Shotlua," doesn't make me feel confident about my transliteration - would the best transliteration be "Chatlois?" I googled that and didn't find any person with a similar name to whom Platonov may have been referring... so any leads on possible referents would also be gladly received.
> 
> Thanks, 
> 
> Annie
>  
> 
> -- 
> Anne O. Fisher, Ph.D.
> Russian>English Translator
> anne.o.fisher at gmail.com
> 440-986-0175 (GMT-7)
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Anne O. Fisher, Ph.D.
> Russian>English Translator
> anne.o.fisher at gmail.com
> 440-986-0175 (GMT-7)
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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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