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Illustration by Ragni Svensson From Platonov’s Chevengur: The Ambivalent Space by Natalia Poltavtseva The May 2018 edition of e-flux contains the Andrei Platonov story “Immortality,” translated by Lisa Hayden and Robert Chandler. It is a fairly simple but moving story of the railway station chief Emmanuil Semyonovich Levin tirelessly working to keep trains running on […]
I’ve only given a handful of books my highest recommendation (when I add a semi-ranking), and Chevengur by Andrei Platonov was one. Robert Chandler (a polite but definite critic of the only previous available English translation), Elizabeth Chandler, and Olga Meerson will have a new translation of Chevengur, hopefully available soon. Fortunately there are a […]
Public Seminar has Andrei Platonov’s short story “Antisexus”, a provisional translation by Anna Kalashyan of an occasional piece by Platonov. In ‘Antisexus’ (1925-26), Platonov writes in a parodic vein about what Béatriz Préciado calls the sex-gender industrial complex. The production of gendered and sexualized bodies via technologies of the image and the orgasm appears here […]
Another YouTube videos post, where the videos have under 1,000 views, this time related to Andrei Platonov. I guess there is a tie-in between the previous post and this one: Vasily Grossman gave the main speech at the funeral of Platonov. The first video is Alexander Petrov’s animation of the Platonov story “The Cow” (which […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott Posts on the novel: Links on Platanov and Chevengur: helpful posts and articles, not intended to be all-inclusive A note on translations: when Robert Chandler’s translation comes out I will happily read this again. In the meantime, read Chandler’s ideal translator of […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott This will be the hardest post on Chevengur since it gets to the heart (and main character) of the novel, the town. The difficulty lies in both the complexity of the message and some ambiguity Platonov leaves in the story. I’ll apologize […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott In reply to a comment from Miguel I ended up linking three articles related to Platonov and translator Robert Chandler, info I think worthy of its own post. The first article is an interview with Chandler at the Guardian, mostly focused on […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott I’ll apologize in advance for lack of moving the story forward… After Kopenkin and Sasha leave Chernovka, Sasha heads home and experiences the first fruits of the New Economic Policy. Shumilin, the person Sasha was to report to about possible spontaneous developments […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott When we last left Alexander “Sasha” Dvanova, he was wandering the countryside at the request of the provincial executive committee president looking for spontaneous outbreaks of socialism in the countryside. Sasha is shot by anarchists but rescued by Stepan Efimovich Kopenkin, commander […]
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978), translated by Anthony Olcott I plan on several posts as I read through Platonov’s Chevengur, focusing on what strikes me as I go. The English translation is out of print but can be obtained from other libraries through interlibrary loans–please do so! Don’t expect any unifying […]