Platonov 'Never to return'

[Olga Meerson]

All of the examples used here are indeed important excerptions to the 
action order with perfective gerunds. The one with Zhachev, however, IS 
NOT. At least it is totally unclear when, in relation to leaving, 
Zhachev never returned. That is, the point of view of the speaker and 
the way for him to know what eventually happened to Zhachev--and when 
'eventually'--are all in the air. No, the sentence is very, very odd in 
Russian. It is not just Chandler who finds it odd, and not just myself, 
or at least not merely in my capacity of a native informant. Platonov 
has other instances of treating time non-linearly: i dazhe obradovalsia 
nam, no vposledstvii oshibsia ('Ivan Zhokh), etc. The mistake refers to 
the time of rejoicing but its mistakenness is something that would 
become apparent only later. My friend and colleague Nancy Workman once 
translated that one as 'but later he had been in the wrong'.
o.m.

Wayles Browne wrote:

> Possibly there is less oddness here than Robert Chandler suspects.
> The past perfective gerund is, in fact, not always past, though it is
> perfective. The Academy of Sciences' Russkaja grammatika, vol. 1,
> 1980, section 1589, points out that the perfective gerund in -v or -vshi
> can express:
> a previous action (ostanovivshis', skazal 'having stopped,
> he said'),
> or an accompanying action (sidit, naxmurivshis' 'he sits, frowning'),
> or a following action (rasstegnul sjurtuk, otkryv rubaxu navypusk
> 'he unbuttened his coat, exposing his shirt which was outside his
> trousers').
> The translations are mine, but I think they're logical; you couldn't
> have seen his shirt until after he unbuttoned his coat.
> A.I.Isachenko also discusses the "non-previousness" use of the
> perfective gerund in Grammaticheskij stroj russkogo jazyka, vol. II,
> Bratislava 1960, pages 534-539. He points out that placing this
> gerund after the main verb favors such an interpretation, and
> gives an example from Gogol':
> Ganna pospeshno vletela v xatu, zaxlopnuv za soboju dver'.
> Logically, says Isachenko, she had to rush in first and only then
> could she slam the door after her.
> Thus the translation would be: She rushed into the house,
> slamming (rather than: after slamming, or after having slammed)
> the door behind her.
> So perhaps Chandler's "utterly normal" translation of Platonov's
> sentence is the one to use.
>
> At 12:41 PM +0100 4/9/08, Robert Chandler wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Platonov does something odd with time in this passage from the very 
>> end of
>> KOTLOVAN. Zhachev, the speaker, is in the barak, which is, I think, 
>> being
>> treated as somewhere separate from the kotlovan itself.
>>
>> ­ íš Ê ’˔˯¸, —ÚÓ þ Û•Ó” ËÏÔ•ËýÎËÁÏý, ý ÍÓÏÏÛÌËÁÏ ­ ›ÚÓ ”ÂÚÒÍÓ 
>> ”ÂÎÓ, Áý
>> ÚÓ þ Ë çýÒÚœ Îœ·ËÎ... èÓÈ”Û ÒÂÈ—ýÒ Ìý Ô•Ó˜ý̸ ÚÓ’ý•Ë˜ý èý¯ÍËÌý Û·¸œ.
>>
>> à Üý—Â’ ÛÔÓÎÁ ’ “Ó•Ó”, ·ÓΠÛÊ ÌËÍÓ“”ý Ì ’ÓÁ’•ýÚË’¯ËÒ¸ Ìý ÍÓÚÎÓ’ýÌ.
>> I Zhachev upolz v gorod, bolee uzhe nikogda ne vozvrativshis¹ na 
>> kotlovan.
>>
>> There is clearly something paradoxical about this use of the past 
>> perfective
>> gerund.
>>
>> At present we have:
>> ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, never to return to the 
>> foundation
>> pit.¹
>> But that is utterly normal, which the Russian clearly isn¹t.
>> Another possibility is Œnever having returned to the foundation pit¹. 
>> But
>> that too, I think, oversimplifies the meaning?
>>
>> The following versions are probably the closest, but they seem rather 
>> fussy.
>> The original seems much cleaner!
>> ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, never again to have gone 
>> back to
>> the foundation pit.¹
>> ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, not once to have gone back 
>> to the
>> foundation pit.¹
>>
>> The last seems to me the least bad, but can anyone suggest anything 
>> better?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
> R.
>
>

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