Andrei Platonov
He knew from a childhood memory how strange and sad it is to see a familiar place after a long separation. Your heart is still bound to the place, but the unmoving objects have forgotten you and do not recognize you; it is as if they have been living an active and happy life without you... and now here you are before them...
(Dzhan)
Were it this fragment alone, of Proustian sensibility, and it'd be enough to know he was a genius.
I met with the books of Andrei Platonov in the summer of 1989 when Communism was in shambles everywhere: in his country, in mine, in all Eastern Europe. Two books in Russian editions: Chevengur and The Sea of Youth. I didn't know anything about him, and for a moment I thought at the hero of Chekhov. It had happened to me the same way with Valentin Rasputin also.
Well, it was not the hero of Chekhov, obviously. Platonov, this one, Andrei, cannot be caught in one phrase, as he is many things. He believed in the Communist utopia and went deep into it, to discover the dystopia. His books are stories of love and disillusion: he loved Communism and was disillusioned by it, while continuing to love. That makes his sentences to be read in multiple keys. Maybe the best approach would be to think at each book on its own merits.
(Жизнь в Kнигах)
Labels: Platonov
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
2:25 PM
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