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בעולם נהדר ואכזר
אנדריי פְּלַטוֹנוֹב, כמוהו כמיכאיל בּוּלְגַקוֹב ואִיסאק בַּאבֶּל, הוא אחד משלושת ענקי הפרוזה שקמו לספרות הרוסית במחצית הראשונה של המאה ה-20. משלושתם הוא הפחות ידוע במערב, הן משום שהיה האחרון שהותר לפרסום בברית-המועצות, והן משום שברבים מכתביו פלטונוב הוא סופר ל"מיטיבי קרוא". סגנונו – אישי וייחודי כל-כך, ולכן קשה פה ושם לפענוח – נשמע לפרקים ילדותי ומגומגם, עילג אפילו, כמו נעשה כאן איזה מאמץ הרואי לבטא חוויות-בראשית, לצייר "מראות-שתייה" (במובן הביאליקאי) ברעננותם הראשונית.
שמו של אחד הסיפורים בקובץ, "בעולם נהדר ואכזר", מתאים מאין כמוהו לתמונת עולמו של פלטונוב בכלל: מכל יצירה שהוציא מתחת ידו זוהרת פליאה אינסופית מול יופיים של החיים, יחד עם אומץ-רוח מול אכזריותם.
תרגמה מרוסית והוסיפה הערות ודברים בשולי הספר: נילי מירסקי.
שמו של אחד הסיפורים בקובץ, "בעולם נהדר ואכזר", מתאים מאין כמוהו לתמונת עולמו של פלטונוב בכלל: מכל יצירה שהוציא מתחת ידו זוהרת פליאה אינסופית מול יופיים של החיים, יחד עם אומץ-רוח מול אכזריותם.
תרגמה מרוסית והוסיפה הערות ודברים בשולי הספר: נילי מירסקי.
403 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
13 people are currently reading
1681 people want to read
About the author
Andrei Platonov
269 books455 followersAndrei Platonov, August 28, 1899 – January 5, 1951, was the pen name of Andrei Platonovich Klimentov, a Soviet author whose works anticipate existentialism. Although Platonov was a Communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and other Stalinist policies.
From 1918 through 1921, his most intensive period as a writer, he published dozens of poems (an anthology appeared in 1922), several stories, and hundreds of articles and essays, adopting in 1920 the Platonov pen-name by which he is best-known. With remarkably high energy and intellectual precocity he wrote confidently across a wide range of topics including literature, art, cultural life, science, philosophy, religion, education, politics, the civil war, foreign relations, economics, technology, famine, and land reclamation, amongst others.
His famous works include the novels The Foundation Pit and Chevengur.
From 1918 through 1921, his most intensive period as a writer, he published dozens of poems (an anthology appeared in 1922), several stories, and hundreds of articles and essays, adopting in 1920 the Platonov pen-name by which he is best-known. With remarkably high energy and intellectual precocity he wrote confidently across a wide range of topics including literature, art, cultural life, science, philosophy, religion, education, politics, the civil war, foreign relations, economics, technology, famine, and land reclamation, amongst others.
His famous works include the novels The Foundation Pit and Chevengur.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
June 29, 2017
platonov'un öykülerinde bilgelik var.
platonov savaşların, yıkımların, tarifsiz acıların ötesinden sesleniyor okuruna. hayal kırıklıklarının, yok olan umutların, heba olan emeklerin ötesinden. o öte noktada ne olduğunu, bugün hepimizin küçücük hayatımızda sorup durduğumuz soruların cevabını sezdiriyor, hissettiriyor.
platonov'un öykülerini okumak hem insan olmanın acısını, ağrısını hissettiriyor hem de bu acıya, ağrıya iyi geliyor.
platonov savaşların, yıkımların, tarifsiz acıların ötesinden sesleniyor okuruna. hayal kırıklıklarının, yok olan umutların, heba olan emeklerin ötesinden. o öte noktada ne olduğunu, bugün hepimizin küçücük hayatımızda sorup durduğumuz soruların cevabını sezdiriyor, hissettiriyor.
platonov'un öykülerini okumak hem insan olmanın acısını, ağrısını hissettiriyor hem de bu acıya, ağrıya iyi geliyor.
September 1, 2017
Platonov'u ilk kez okudum ve bu kadar geciktiğime hayıflandım. Doğa ve insan sevgisinin yanında teknolojinin de şiirini yazan bir yazar. Acılı, kederli, her türlü güçlüğe göğüs germek durumunda kalan ama ümidini de kaybetmeyen, mücadele eden insanların enfes bir üslupla yazılmış hikayelerini okumak, verdiği edebi tatminin yanı sıra - özellikle günümüzde giderek yitirmekte olduğumuz - insanlığa olan inancınızı da güçlendiriyor. Yazarın dediği gibi, insan ruhu alemde varolduğu müddetçe kahır çekse de... Metis'in yayınladığı diğer Platonov kitaplarını da çevirdiği anlaşılan Günay Çetao Kızılırmak'ın çevirisi de çok iyi.
July 10, 2025
Yet another Soviet Russian writer whose principal works remained unpublished during their lifetime. It seems that there were so many of them that they could have formed a small army.
I wasn't overly keen on The Foundation Pit - the first time I read Platonov, but this collection, although slightly uneven later on, I found to be more richer, deeper and complex. My god was it ever bleak though; full on misery - specifically the novella Dzhan (Soul), which was for me the standout piece. There are themes of mourning, poverty, survival and redemption in these stories, including that of six men gathering after the death of their mother, and a soldier returning to an unfaithful wife, but it was Soul that grabbed me the most, a story of abandonment and displacement, which focuses on a young man, Chagataev, who travels to the stark wilderness from Moscow to try and bring the nomadic Dzhan desert nation, mostly made up of wretched and desperate souls, into the communist cause. The story carries with it a biblical weight, as Chagataev is seen as a Christian archetype; a sort of Russian Moses, and where his existential empathy expands beyond just man. Platonov's vision here is powerful and at times unforgettable; a scene featuring a camel that is killed for food was considerably moving, as in the eyes of Chagataev the pitiful animal was just as much part of humanity. It's hard to compare Platonov with many other Soviet/Russian writers I've read. There is just something that makes him different from all the rest.
June 7, 2017
The Difference between Historical and Ahistorical Fantasy
As the New York Review of Books list gains volume, it also takes shape. Russian and French avant-garde works mix with mid-twentieth century American fiction, with an emphasis on Jewish-American themes, World War II memoirs, and women writers. It's a version of the "New York Review of Books" itself, with an admixture of Bookforum-style internationalism. By printing central and Eastern European avant-garde fiction along with some surrealism, the series also replicates the conventional interests of North American departments of art history, where surrealism and Cubo-futurism continue to be expected specialties. (It would be interesting to make a graph of the birth dates of the authors in the NYRB list: I imagine they were writing mainly in the period 1920-1970.) Any sense of that larger historiographic and cultural context, and any hope of locating Platonov in relation to it, is blurred by Tatyana Tolstaya's unhistorical and poetic introduction.
She bills Platonov as an author with "no literary predecessors," who writes "as though no one before him had ever written anything" (pp. ix, x). That is a kind of literary wishful thinking, which might have a function for Tolstaya in her own writing, or perhaps in a sort of generic sense of Russian literature that doesn't notice generational difference. Platonov was in the grip of historical ideals and fantasies; Tolstaya, here, is in the grip of ahistorical fantasy, perhaps one specific to Russian literature.
Platonov's predecessors are the Russian avant-garde, including absurdists and existentialists. Tolstaya says Platonov "never uses... narrative... in a conventional way," and that he "continually undermines the reader's expectations." But that is only true if the reader's expectations are based mainly on nineteenth-century Russian writing like Chekhov's or Tolstoy's. It's not that Platonov's narratives defy expectations, it's that they make continuous, deliberate, slight deviations from what would have been an expected norm. The effect is not unlike Georges Perec's experiment in "Life: A User's Guide." Tolstaya accurately calls Platonov's experiments in form "microdeviations." (p. x)
What keeps these experiments interesting is the reasoning that apparently drives the microdeviations. Platonov sometimes thinks like a fin-de-siecle short story writer, inserting fragmentary or truncated vignettes, deliberately swerving aside from full psychological portraits, subverting what he clearly imagines are readers' expectations of completed narratives. All that is just part of the history of the short-story form. What makes Platonov different is that some of the microdeviations are made for entirely different reasons: he is in thrall of a certain kind of collectivism and utopianism, and he sometimes writes for, and even writes as, a collective future. He is also hypnotized by the spells of new science, which for him takes two forms: dreams of infinite electric power, inspired largely by Tesla and by large industrial projects; and dreams of railroads, which inhabit his mind as much as they transfix his characters. Both electric power and railroads are animated presences in these stories, capable of collective good but also of unpredictable and inexplicable destruction. They have the power to galvanize men and sometimes women (with "galvanize" taken in the original meaning -- the characters are shocked into precipitous action or perpetual stasis).
Tolstaya says Platonov's characters inhabit "a cosmic world, the world before... the appearance of God," but that's another piece of poetry (p. xvi). His characters inhabit a world where sometimes the idea of individual action, and even the depthless romantic attachments that are so characteristic of late-Romantic prose, can be instantly and irreparably erased. In the space of a sentence, a character can become the mouthpiece of some physical, electrical, or utopian collective ideal: a strange state of affairs, and an interesting tonic for contemporary fiction, which has forgotten that way of achieving the death of the author.
So it's not the microdeviations from the standard, Barthesian characteristics of the late romantic story, as much as the microdeviations from comprehensible characters to instruments of a collective and even inhuman or natural mind, that make these stories so interesting. I don't think they have anything in common with Tolstaya's work.
As the New York Review of Books list gains volume, it also takes shape. Russian and French avant-garde works mix with mid-twentieth century American fiction, with an emphasis on Jewish-American themes, World War II memoirs, and women writers. It's a version of the "New York Review of Books" itself, with an admixture of Bookforum-style internationalism. By printing central and Eastern European avant-garde fiction along with some surrealism, the series also replicates the conventional interests of North American departments of art history, where surrealism and Cubo-futurism continue to be expected specialties. (It would be interesting to make a graph of the birth dates of the authors in the NYRB list: I imagine they were writing mainly in the period 1920-1970.) Any sense of that larger historiographic and cultural context, and any hope of locating Platonov in relation to it, is blurred by Tatyana Tolstaya's unhistorical and poetic introduction.
She bills Platonov as an author with "no literary predecessors," who writes "as though no one before him had ever written anything" (pp. ix, x). That is a kind of literary wishful thinking, which might have a function for Tolstaya in her own writing, or perhaps in a sort of generic sense of Russian literature that doesn't notice generational difference. Platonov was in the grip of historical ideals and fantasies; Tolstaya, here, is in the grip of ahistorical fantasy, perhaps one specific to Russian literature.
Platonov's predecessors are the Russian avant-garde, including absurdists and existentialists. Tolstaya says Platonov "never uses... narrative... in a conventional way," and that he "continually undermines the reader's expectations." But that is only true if the reader's expectations are based mainly on nineteenth-century Russian writing like Chekhov's or Tolstoy's. It's not that Platonov's narratives defy expectations, it's that they make continuous, deliberate, slight deviations from what would have been an expected norm. The effect is not unlike Georges Perec's experiment in "Life: A User's Guide." Tolstaya accurately calls Platonov's experiments in form "microdeviations." (p. x)
What keeps these experiments interesting is the reasoning that apparently drives the microdeviations. Platonov sometimes thinks like a fin-de-siecle short story writer, inserting fragmentary or truncated vignettes, deliberately swerving aside from full psychological portraits, subverting what he clearly imagines are readers' expectations of completed narratives. All that is just part of the history of the short-story form. What makes Platonov different is that some of the microdeviations are made for entirely different reasons: he is in thrall of a certain kind of collectivism and utopianism, and he sometimes writes for, and even writes as, a collective future. He is also hypnotized by the spells of new science, which for him takes two forms: dreams of infinite electric power, inspired largely by Tesla and by large industrial projects; and dreams of railroads, which inhabit his mind as much as they transfix his characters. Both electric power and railroads are animated presences in these stories, capable of collective good but also of unpredictable and inexplicable destruction. They have the power to galvanize men and sometimes women (with "galvanize" taken in the original meaning -- the characters are shocked into precipitous action or perpetual stasis).
Tolstaya says Platonov's characters inhabit "a cosmic world, the world before... the appearance of God," but that's another piece of poetry (p. xvi). His characters inhabit a world where sometimes the idea of individual action, and even the depthless romantic attachments that are so characteristic of late-Romantic prose, can be instantly and irreparably erased. In the space of a sentence, a character can become the mouthpiece of some physical, electrical, or utopian collective ideal: a strange state of affairs, and an interesting tonic for contemporary fiction, which has forgotten that way of achieving the death of the author.
So it's not the microdeviations from the standard, Barthesian characteristics of the late romantic story, as much as the microdeviations from comprehensible characters to instruments of a collective and even inhuman or natural mind, that make these stories so interesting. I don't think they have anything in common with Tolstaya's work.
May 27, 2018
'Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya', 'Dönüş'ten sonra Platonov'dan okuduğum ikinci eser. 'Dönüş' son yıllarda okuduğum en iyi öykü kitaplarından biriydi; ardından şöyle not almışım: "Andrey Platonov'un öykülerini okuyorum ve gözlerimden yaşlar fışkırıyor. Platonov 1951 yılında ölüyor ve 2018'de bir şubat sabahı yazdıklarının hissettirdikleriyle benim dünyamda tekrar doğuyor. Yazarın ölümsüzlüğü ve yazının büyüsü dedikleri şey işte tam da bu..."
'Dönüş'ün ardından 'Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya'yı okuyunca elbette beklenti daha yüksek oluyor. Ama ilk olarak 'Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya'yı da okusaydım yine Platonov'un öyküleriyle kurduğu dünyanın müdavimi ve hayranı olurdum.
Svetlana Aleksiyeviç'in İkinci El Zaman kitabında anlattığı, 'özel bir tür' olan 'homo sovyeticus' yani Sovyet insanı, her yönüyle (azmi, inancı, aşkı yaşama tarzı..) bu öykülerde karşımıza çıkıyor. Sovyet dönemi insanının göreviyle, makinayla (bilhassa tren Platonov öykülerinde sıklıkla kullanılıyor) kurduğu ilişki, dünyayı ve doğayı dönüştürme hırsı, incelikle ve bilgelikle işlenmiş.
Eserdeki bazı öyküler yazar tarafından tamamlan(a)mamış, nihayete erdirilememiş. Metis yayınevi seçki yaparken bunu dikkate alabilirdi diye düşünüyorum.
Son olarak, Günay Çetao Kızılırmak'a da bu enfes tercümesi için teşekkürler.
'Dönüş'ün ardından 'Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya'yı okuyunca elbette beklenti daha yüksek oluyor. Ama ilk olarak 'Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya'yı da okusaydım yine Platonov'un öyküleriyle kurduğu dünyanın müdavimi ve hayranı olurdum.
Svetlana Aleksiyeviç'in İkinci El Zaman kitabında anlattığı, 'özel bir tür' olan 'homo sovyeticus' yani Sovyet insanı, her yönüyle (azmi, inancı, aşkı yaşama tarzı..) bu öykülerde karşımıza çıkıyor. Sovyet dönemi insanının göreviyle, makinayla (bilhassa tren Platonov öykülerinde sıklıkla kullanılıyor) kurduğu ilişki, dünyayı ve doğayı dönüştürme hırsı, incelikle ve bilgelikle işlenmiş.
Eserdeki bazı öyküler yazar tarafından tamamlan(a)mamış, nihayete erdirilememiş. Metis yayınevi seçki yaparken bunu dikkate alabilirdi diye düşünüyorum.
Son olarak, Günay Çetao Kızılırmak'a da bu enfes tercümesi için teşekkürler.
January 3, 2008
I grabbed this book because Nadezhda Mandelstam esteemed Platonov highly and because a quick scan of its pages didn't dissuade me.
I was completely unprepared for how wonderful it is and I feel like reading it while I was traveling wasn't even fair. This has immediately shouldered its way into the ranks of my favorite books (of all genres, ever) and I am about to set off on a massive Platonov jag to see if there is more to love.
Anyone who thought McCarthy's "The Road" was special, should read "Dzhan," the novella at the beginning of this collection for a similar story rendered with more wisdom, fewer calculated shock stunts, more beauty and a more satisfying conclusion.
The three stories immediately following "dzhan" deal with human relationships in such a humble and piercing way that I will return to them often. I was reminded of the insight into human doings that stands out in several Austrian writers (Musil and Handke come to mind); but Platonov avoids artifice and has a more grown up approach to self-pity and alienation.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that i was more vulnerable to this book for its willingness to grapple with revolutionary thought (even in its dignified failure) and because it came from a writer who experienced true poverty and humility--dying of polio at 51 while employed as a janitor for a university.
In selecting a few passages that stuck with me, I noticed that nearly everywhere I had marked this collection, Platonov was making bold enough to talk about people's "hearts" or their "misery." Often writers are not sufficiently credible to speak of these things; in Platonov's case, whether he later falsifies the sentiments of one of his characters or not, they all seem true and essential:
"The girl was not interested in her guests; her eyes were engrossed with her own thoughts--probably she was living some secret, independent dream and doing the housework almost unconsciously, distracted from all the world around her by her concentrated heart."
"He understood his former naivete, all his nature started to grow harder, ripening in misery, and began to learn how to overcome the mountain of stone which blocked the road of his life; and then the world in front of him, which had seemed to him clear and attainable until now, spread itself out in a faraway mysterious haze, not because it was really dark there, or sad, or strange, but because it actually was enormously larger in all directions and could not be surveyed all at once, either inside a man's heart or in simple space."
"She was clinging to her grief, and was in no hurry to squander it. It meant that in the deepest part of a person's reason or of his heart there exists an enemy force which darkens one's life even in the embrace of loving arms, even under the kisses of one's children."
Read this book.
I was completely unprepared for how wonderful it is and I feel like reading it while I was traveling wasn't even fair. This has immediately shouldered its way into the ranks of my favorite books (of all genres, ever) and I am about to set off on a massive Platonov jag to see if there is more to love.
Anyone who thought McCarthy's "The Road" was special, should read "Dzhan," the novella at the beginning of this collection for a similar story rendered with more wisdom, fewer calculated shock stunts, more beauty and a more satisfying conclusion.
The three stories immediately following "dzhan" deal with human relationships in such a humble and piercing way that I will return to them often. I was reminded of the insight into human doings that stands out in several Austrian writers (Musil and Handke come to mind); but Platonov avoids artifice and has a more grown up approach to self-pity and alienation.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that i was more vulnerable to this book for its willingness to grapple with revolutionary thought (even in its dignified failure) and because it came from a writer who experienced true poverty and humility--dying of polio at 51 while employed as a janitor for a university.
In selecting a few passages that stuck with me, I noticed that nearly everywhere I had marked this collection, Platonov was making bold enough to talk about people's "hearts" or their "misery." Often writers are not sufficiently credible to speak of these things; in Platonov's case, whether he later falsifies the sentiments of one of his characters or not, they all seem true and essential:
"The girl was not interested in her guests; her eyes were engrossed with her own thoughts--probably she was living some secret, independent dream and doing the housework almost unconsciously, distracted from all the world around her by her concentrated heart."
"He understood his former naivete, all his nature started to grow harder, ripening in misery, and began to learn how to overcome the mountain of stone which blocked the road of his life; and then the world in front of him, which had seemed to him clear and attainable until now, spread itself out in a faraway mysterious haze, not because it was really dark there, or sad, or strange, but because it actually was enormously larger in all directions and could not be surveyed all at once, either inside a man's heart or in simple space."
"She was clinging to her grief, and was in no hurry to squander it. It meant that in the deepest part of a person's reason or of his heart there exists an enemy force which darkens one's life even in the embrace of loving arms, even under the kisses of one's children."
Read this book.
October 16, 2023
Dört puan vermeme rağmen tamamen beğendim diyemem bazı bakımlardan düşüncelerime aykırı çok yer vardı. Yinede ilginç bulduğum için okunulması gerekir.
September 29, 2023
Kitapla aynı adı taşıyan ‘Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya’ öyküsünü en sevdiğim öykülerde ikinci sıraya koyuyorum. ✌️
Coğrafya, mekan, toplumsal siyasi değişim, insan ilişkileri, açlık, otorite, aşk ve demiryolları ve kara trenler hepsi Platonov’un öykülerinde. Tabiiki en baştan çevirmene gönülden teşekkürlerimle.
Platonov belli ki çok iyi bir hikaye anlatıcısı ve insanı insan yapan duyguları da hafifçe biz okurlara bırakıveriyor.
Üzücü ve yorucu olansa anlatılanların değişmemiş olması…
Coğrafya, mekan, toplumsal siyasi değişim, insan ilişkileri, açlık, otorite, aşk ve demiryolları ve kara trenler hepsi Platonov’un öykülerinde. Tabiiki en baştan çevirmene gönülden teşekkürlerimle.
Platonov belli ki çok iyi bir hikaye anlatıcısı ve insanı insan yapan duyguları da hafifçe biz okurlara bırakıveriyor.
Üzücü ve yorucu olansa anlatılanların değişmemiş olması…
March 10, 2018
Yeteneği Maksim Gorki tarafından keşfedilen yaptığı başarılı çıkış sonrası eserleri Stalin tarafından eleştirilince zor zamanlar geçiren, 2. dünya savaşında savaş muhabirliği yapan Platonov'un kaleminden kısa hikayeler okuyacaksınız. Anlatımın kendine haslığını sevecek yarım kalan hikayelerde "keşke devamı olsaydı" diye hayıflanacaksınız...
Ben kitaba adıni da veren hikayeyi çok sevdim. İnsaniyet adına çok değerli mesajlar barındırıyordu...
Okuyun derim.
Ben kitaba adıni da veren hikayeyi çok sevdim. İnsaniyet adına çok değerli mesajlar barındırıyordu...
Okuyun derim.
Read
June 10, 2025İnsan ruhu âlemde var olduğu müddetçe kahır çeker.
February 6, 2016
ANDREI PLATONOV, (1899-1951), Yazar-Elektrik Müh, TR-2014, Metis Yayın, Rusçadan çeviren: Günay Çetao Kızılırmak, 167 sf.
*** "Rusların Kafka'sı" deniliyor; Gorki keşfeder; Stalin'in sert eleştirilerine maruz kalır; bazı kitapları 1980 sonrasında yayınlanır; John Berger, "günümüzde dünyanın muhtaç olduğu hikayecilerin öncüsü" diye tanımlar. ***
-İhtiyar en güzel günlerin henüz yaşanmadığı düşüncesine bel bağlamış, geçip giden zamana veda edip onu unutmaya karar vermişti.
-Ay yoktu, fersiz yıldızlar yüksekteydi ama raylar parlak ve uzak ışıldıyordu, karanlığın tüm yoksulluğundan, geceye dağılışından olanca ışığı çekip toplamış gibiydi.
...hızlı, aceleci tren gelmekteydi. Lokomotifin sakin ışığı ufukta belirdi ve karanlığı ileriye, sık ormanın yukarılarına iterek diri lacivert ağaçları, çalılıkları, gündüz görülmeyen esrarengiz nesneleri, karanlık ve yalnızlık içinde yolu gözetleyen hat bekçisinin siluetini aydınlattı.
-...kadınlar bazen fena halde ruhu yorar, pes ettirir. Kim bilir belki de olması gereken budur, ne de olsa insanları onlar doğurur, insanlığın sahibi onlardır, vardır bir bildikleri.
-Ruslar yumuşak mizaçlı, itaatli, uzun ve ağır işlerde sabır sahibi, ancak vahşi ve cehaletlerinde karanlık kişiler.
-İskender fethetmiş, Vespucci keşfetmişti, şimdiyse yapılar çağı gelip çatmıştı -kanlar içindeki savaşçının ve yorgun seyyahın yerini akıllı mühendis almıştı.
-Daracık pencereden gece boyu doğanın şatafatı yıldızları görüyor, göğün tepesinde kanunsuzca yanan bu canlı ateşe şaşırıyordu.
-...mutluluğun da ayakta kalabilmesi için değişmesi gerekir.
-...o zaman, kendisini seven biri onu peşi sıra gökle yerin ışıltılı boşluğuna davet etmiş de kendisi varıp gidememiş gibi buruk bir sevinç duymuştu.
-...bitkiler ve mahlukat toprağın karanlığından çıkıp ona misafir olmuştu -renk renklerdi, her biri başka, kimselere benzemez: Hepsi meşrebince oluşmuş ve toprakta can bulmuştu, yeter ki soluk alarak, bayram ederek dışarı çıkabilsin, ömrü yettiğince tüm varlıkların toplu buluşmasında yerini alsın- yaşayanları sevmek ve sonra onlardan tekrar ebediyen ayrılmak için.
-...karısı Afrodit'e olan aşkından ve sadakatinden bir ruh huzuru kurdu; ...şehvani dünyanın karanlık tarafına kendisini çeken tüm muğlak tutkularını dindirdi; gücünü işe ve kalbini fetheden düşünceye -insanı tüketmeyen, aksine tekrar ve aralıksız dirilten ve artık onun için zevk haline gelen, vahşi ve yorucu değil sessiz iyilik gibi uysal olana- hizmete verdi.
-...insan eskiden de caniliğe meyledebilir ama onu bir talihsizlik olarak görür, üstesinden gelince de tekrar hayatın tanıdık sıcak iyiliğine sokulurdu; şimdiyse beşer kendini ve başkalarını yakarak ısınıp yaşayabilme kabiliyetine kavuşturuldu.
-...gökten su namına tek damlanın düşmediği, aç bir mezar insanları beklermiş gibi bütün tabiatın çürük ve toz koktuğu o kurak yazın bulanık sıcağına zor katlanıyordu. O yaz çiçekler bile metal yongasından fazla kokmuyordu; tarlalarda, toprağın bedeninde zayıf bir iskeletin kaburgaları arasındaki boşluklara benzer derin çatlaklar oluşmuştu.
-...kendi bile bilemezdi ki içinde olabilecekleri; hoşnut, dertsiz, korkusuz yaşayan kişi kendini kontrol edemezdi.
-...ihtiyacın mevcudiyeti, tatminin mutlak mevcudiyetine bağlıdır. ...tatmin olanağı mevcut değilse zevk arzusu bile üretilmez.
*** "Rusların Kafka'sı" deniliyor; Gorki keşfeder; Stalin'in sert eleştirilerine maruz kalır; bazı kitapları 1980 sonrasında yayınlanır; John Berger, "günümüzde dünyanın muhtaç olduğu hikayecilerin öncüsü" diye tanımlar. ***
-İhtiyar en güzel günlerin henüz yaşanmadığı düşüncesine bel bağlamış, geçip giden zamana veda edip onu unutmaya karar vermişti.
-Ay yoktu, fersiz yıldızlar yüksekteydi ama raylar parlak ve uzak ışıldıyordu, karanlığın tüm yoksulluğundan, geceye dağılışından olanca ışığı çekip toplamış gibiydi.
...hızlı, aceleci tren gelmekteydi. Lokomotifin sakin ışığı ufukta belirdi ve karanlığı ileriye, sık ormanın yukarılarına iterek diri lacivert ağaçları, çalılıkları, gündüz görülmeyen esrarengiz nesneleri, karanlık ve yalnızlık içinde yolu gözetleyen hat bekçisinin siluetini aydınlattı.
-...kadınlar bazen fena halde ruhu yorar, pes ettirir. Kim bilir belki de olması gereken budur, ne de olsa insanları onlar doğurur, insanlığın sahibi onlardır, vardır bir bildikleri.
-Ruslar yumuşak mizaçlı, itaatli, uzun ve ağır işlerde sabır sahibi, ancak vahşi ve cehaletlerinde karanlık kişiler.
-İskender fethetmiş, Vespucci keşfetmişti, şimdiyse yapılar çağı gelip çatmıştı -kanlar içindeki savaşçının ve yorgun seyyahın yerini akıllı mühendis almıştı.
-Daracık pencereden gece boyu doğanın şatafatı yıldızları görüyor, göğün tepesinde kanunsuzca yanan bu canlı ateşe şaşırıyordu.
-...mutluluğun da ayakta kalabilmesi için değişmesi gerekir.
-...o zaman, kendisini seven biri onu peşi sıra gökle yerin ışıltılı boşluğuna davet etmiş de kendisi varıp gidememiş gibi buruk bir sevinç duymuştu.
-...bitkiler ve mahlukat toprağın karanlığından çıkıp ona misafir olmuştu -renk renklerdi, her biri başka, kimselere benzemez: Hepsi meşrebince oluşmuş ve toprakta can bulmuştu, yeter ki soluk alarak, bayram ederek dışarı çıkabilsin, ömrü yettiğince tüm varlıkların toplu buluşmasında yerini alsın- yaşayanları sevmek ve sonra onlardan tekrar ebediyen ayrılmak için.
-...karısı Afrodit'e olan aşkından ve sadakatinden bir ruh huzuru kurdu; ...şehvani dünyanın karanlık tarafına kendisini çeken tüm muğlak tutkularını dindirdi; gücünü işe ve kalbini fetheden düşünceye -insanı tüketmeyen, aksine tekrar ve aralıksız dirilten ve artık onun için zevk haline gelen, vahşi ve yorucu değil sessiz iyilik gibi uysal olana- hizmete verdi.
-...insan eskiden de caniliğe meyledebilir ama onu bir talihsizlik olarak görür, üstesinden gelince de tekrar hayatın tanıdık sıcak iyiliğine sokulurdu; şimdiyse beşer kendini ve başkalarını yakarak ısınıp yaşayabilme kabiliyetine kavuşturuldu.
-...gökten su namına tek damlanın düşmediği, aç bir mezar insanları beklermiş gibi bütün tabiatın çürük ve toz koktuğu o kurak yazın bulanık sıcağına zor katlanıyordu. O yaz çiçekler bile metal yongasından fazla kokmuyordu; tarlalarda, toprağın bedeninde zayıf bir iskeletin kaburgaları arasındaki boşluklara benzer derin çatlaklar oluşmuştu.
-...kendi bile bilemezdi ki içinde olabilecekleri; hoşnut, dertsiz, korkusuz yaşayan kişi kendini kontrol edemezdi.
-...ihtiyacın mevcudiyeti, tatminin mutlak mevcudiyetine bağlıdır. ...tatmin olanağı mevcut değilse zevk arzusu bile üretilmez.
November 10, 2011
I sense (and translators attest to) great problems in translating Platonov. Nevertheless this is powerful stuff - some of the heaviest writing I've ever read, and shot through with moments of beauty that defy both the stark moonscapes described and the leveling effect of the translation. Like any poetry in translation, these stories will probably never shine as brightly in English, but shine they do. And thanks to their author's big heart, even when they are heartbreaking they are never cold.
July 21, 2015
Çok iyi...
September 17, 2017
Yaşamı boyunca hem doğayla hem de kendisiyle mücadelesi bitmeyen ve kahır çekmeye mahkum insanların öykülerini anlatıyor Platonov. O sert koşulların içinde tutunmaya çalışan, yumuşak ruhlu insanlardan bahsediyor. Ben, Dönüş'teki öyküleri çok sevmiştim. Bu kitaptakileri okurken ise, sanki tamamlanmamış öyküler olduğunu hissederek okudum. Bu sefer ne kitap beni sardı; ne de ben kitabın içine girebildim.
January 24, 2015
Platonov'un ruhu, öykülerinin Rus olmayan okurlar tarafından kendi dilinde okunamadığı için yazıklanıyor olsa gerek. Benzer şekilde, bizim de onun kendi öykülerini Günay Çetao Kızılırmak'ın Türkçesi ile okuyamamış olmasına üzülmek için nedenimiz var. Kitap bir çeviri odasında değil adeta bir kuyum atölyesinde çevrilmiş. Eski Rusça'nın rayihası eski Türkçe'den yararlanılarak korunmuş. Bunu yaparken üstün bir beceri ile öykülere Osmanlı havasının sızması önlenmiş. Daha az özenli bir çeviri olsa öyküler kolaylıkla Tanpınar'ın kaleminden çıkmış izlenimi edinebilirdik. Günay Çetao Kızılırmak çevirisi yüzük taşı gibi parlıyor. Türkçe'nin bir anlatı dili olarak ne kadar aydınlık ve geniş bir bahçe olduğuna ilişkin inancımızı tazeliyor.
Platonov öyküleri ise alışıldık temaların çeperini yırtarak, okuru bir iki satırla izahı zor bir düşünsel alanının zenginliği ile tanıştırıyor. Hararetle tavsiye.
Platonov öyküleri ise alışıldık temaların çeperini yırtarak, okuru bir iki satırla izahı zor bir düşünsel alanının zenginliği ile tanıştırıyor. Hararetle tavsiye.
August 23, 2011
Deeply disturbing, powerfully insightful and highly memorable. Platonov has an almost non-literary style that reminds me at times of Walser, Shalamov, Grin or Hamsun. Platonov's Fro would be completely incapable of mustering any romantic defense against Hamsun' Thomas Glahn character from Pan.
It would be hard to usurp Shalamov's role as the ultimate writer of soviet death because after reading his Kolyma Tales I felt that I had already died a few times in the process. But if someone did outdo it - there's a great chance that writer would never be known either inside or outside Russia. Platonov was rarely published in his life, he died without money but what he achieved in his vision, depth and clarity is absolutely stunning.
This collection of short stories makes a much easier read than The Foundation Pit which is stunning but quite difficult to follow at times. Nothing in Platonov makes any type of linear progress - in fact - events and the beings that negotiate them seem to sort of bounce into each other long enough to take a bite, have a screw, share a meal and then spread out away from those origins.
What I want to communicate in this review is the depth of understanding Platonov has in such interactions. Even tumbleweeds scratch the sand they transverse, camels know our true intentions and love us accordingly - even when we are forced to eat them uncooked to survive.
If you can understand that, at times, hallucination can bring us closer to the true essence of things - you're going to have a new favorite writer for a while at least. Maybe only Turgenev has better skill at writing about people talking about love - but he didn't understand those people any better than Platonov. You have to sometimes unfocus your eyes or look at a puddle to see if it's still raining - Platonov's view is permanently trained on those reflective surfaces that often tell us more than the direct view.
Zoschenko is another writer of this period that seems to share the same depth of understanding of his fellow man. But where's Zoschenko's bee-keeper hilariously attempts to regather his flock despite the pace of progress - Platonov would probably be more concerned about how the people stung by those bees continued their life after that unforeseen swarm at the train station. Are you, like Platonov able to know enough compassion to think about the family members of the birds that are waiting to devour your corpse?
It would be hard to usurp Shalamov's role as the ultimate writer of soviet death because after reading his Kolyma Tales I felt that I had already died a few times in the process. But if someone did outdo it - there's a great chance that writer would never be known either inside or outside Russia. Platonov was rarely published in his life, he died without money but what he achieved in his vision, depth and clarity is absolutely stunning.
This collection of short stories makes a much easier read than The Foundation Pit which is stunning but quite difficult to follow at times. Nothing in Platonov makes any type of linear progress - in fact - events and the beings that negotiate them seem to sort of bounce into each other long enough to take a bite, have a screw, share a meal and then spread out away from those origins.
What I want to communicate in this review is the depth of understanding Platonov has in such interactions. Even tumbleweeds scratch the sand they transverse, camels know our true intentions and love us accordingly - even when we are forced to eat them uncooked to survive.
If you can understand that, at times, hallucination can bring us closer to the true essence of things - you're going to have a new favorite writer for a while at least. Maybe only Turgenev has better skill at writing about people talking about love - but he didn't understand those people any better than Platonov. You have to sometimes unfocus your eyes or look at a puddle to see if it's still raining - Platonov's view is permanently trained on those reflective surfaces that often tell us more than the direct view.
Zoschenko is another writer of this period that seems to share the same depth of understanding of his fellow man. But where's Zoschenko's bee-keeper hilariously attempts to regather his flock despite the pace of progress - Platonov would probably be more concerned about how the people stung by those bees continued their life after that unforeseen swarm at the train station. Are you, like Platonov able to know enough compassion to think about the family members of the birds that are waiting to devour your corpse?
July 17, 2018
Platonov, bitmek bilmez bir şefkatin, iyi niyetin, umudun ve insanın özünün yazarı. Karakterleri, korkunç ve zorlayıcı, yoksunluk ve yoksullukla dolu koşullar altında yaptıkları seçimler, gösterdikleri çaba ve naiflikleriyle, çalışkanlıklarıyla inşa oluyor ve bu naiflik, bu çalışkanlık ve iyi niyet aslında Sovyetler halklarının, Sovyet aydınıyla birlikte Sovyet Rusya'yı inşa ederken gösterdiği o yüksek çabaya da bağlanıyor. Tükenmişlikle ve yıkılanın yeniden ve yeniden, inat ve azimle inşası için çabalayan epik kahramanlarıyla Platonov, bugünün dünyasında bile vicdanımızı ve aklımızı dönüştürebilecek, bizi yine ve hâlâ akla, iyiliğe davet edebilecek güçte bir yazar. Platonov gerçekten de Muhteşem Vahşi Dünya'nın muhteşem yazarı. Özellikle Afrodit öyküsünün kahramanının hikayesinde, Elektriğin Yurdu'nda, İnsanlar ve Hayvanlar Arasında'da aynı şevkli, azimli, çalışkan ve ilkesel öz hissedilebiliyor. Metinleri o kadar güzel ve umut verici, o kadar betimleyici ve şiirsel ki, Platonov'u okurken uyanan, ruhumuzun bir köşesinde yıkılmış kalmış o inancı yeniden ayağa kaldırma isteğine direnmek mümkün değil.
"İnsanların sadece umutlarla ve kaderlerinin değişeceğine dair beklentiyle yaşadıkları zamanlar olur; ancak geçmişe duyulan hasretin yaşayan nesli avuttuğu zamanlar vardır; bir de mutlu zamanlar vardır ki yeryüzünün tarihi gelişimi insan yüreklerindeki kıpırtıyla denk düşer. Nazar Fomin, halkın mutlu zamanlarının insanıydı ve başlarda birçok akranı ve yoldaşı gibi tüm dünyaya yavaş yavaş yayılacak uysal bir sevinç, barış, kardeşlik ve saadet çağının geldiğini düşünüyordu. Bunun böyle olması için sırf inşa etmek ve emek vermek yeterliydi: O zamanlar buna inanıyordu genç adam Fomin."
"İnsanların sadece umutlarla ve kaderlerinin değişeceğine dair beklentiyle yaşadıkları zamanlar olur; ancak geçmişe duyulan hasretin yaşayan nesli avuttuğu zamanlar vardır; bir de mutlu zamanlar vardır ki yeryüzünün tarihi gelişimi insan yüreklerindeki kıpırtıyla denk düşer. Nazar Fomin, halkın mutlu zamanlarının insanıydı ve başlarda birçok akranı ve yoldaşı gibi tüm dünyaya yavaş yavaş yayılacak uysal bir sevinç, barış, kardeşlik ve saadet çağının geldiğini düşünüyordu. Bunun böyle olması için sırf inşa etmek ve emek vermek yeterliydi: O zamanlar buna inanıyordu genç adam Fomin."
September 24, 2023
Revolutionary optimism turns to personal disappointment but also acceptance of things being as they are. Highlights: Soul; Homecoming.
September 9, 2015
Platonov is not well known in the States, and has only recently begun to resurface as one of the greatest writers of the Soviet period. This new collection, published under the name of one of Platonov's short stories ('V Prekrasnom i Yarostnom Mire'), contains the novella 'Dzhan' along with the stories 'Fro', 'The River Potudan', 'Homecoming', 'The Third Son', 'Aphrodite', and 'The Fierce and Beautiful World'. Each story is a gem all its own, highlighting a life within the apparatus of the brave new world of Soviet society.
Reading Platonov in translation, one can see why his works were banned for a very long time. He writes with total and complete freedom, jumping from perspective to perspective, sometimes within the same sentence. As Tolstaya notes in the introduction, "[He] writes as though no one before him had ever written anything, as if he were the first person to take pen to paper". The way in which Platonov reveals this beautiful and fierce world to us - literally painting a scene out of thin air, a-la Genesis - was intriguing to me as a reader.
Thematically, Platonov's work touches upon the faults and values of Communism, but also explores a variety of basic human emotions and experiences. War, orphanhood, marriage, doubt, invalidity, and death all make appearances here. But what is intriguing is the depth of these themes in this type of medium. One could make a three-hour film out of 'Aphrodite', which runs barely twenty pages in length. The scope of Platonov's work seems unlimited in spite of the medium.
Being one of my all time favorite writers, I would recommend Platonov to anyone interested in Russian literature, but who wants to delve into Soviet themes or venture away from the classics. This collection I can highly recommend, along with the translator, Joseph Barnes, who has brought previously unknown works to the American publishing world and offered Americans a chance at exposure to the verse of a complex, emotionally stirring writer.
Reading Platonov in translation, one can see why his works were banned for a very long time. He writes with total and complete freedom, jumping from perspective to perspective, sometimes within the same sentence. As Tolstaya notes in the introduction, "[He] writes as though no one before him had ever written anything, as if he were the first person to take pen to paper". The way in which Platonov reveals this beautiful and fierce world to us - literally painting a scene out of thin air, a-la Genesis - was intriguing to me as a reader.
Thematically, Platonov's work touches upon the faults and values of Communism, but also explores a variety of basic human emotions and experiences. War, orphanhood, marriage, doubt, invalidity, and death all make appearances here. But what is intriguing is the depth of these themes in this type of medium. One could make a three-hour film out of 'Aphrodite', which runs barely twenty pages in length. The scope of Platonov's work seems unlimited in spite of the medium.
Being one of my all time favorite writers, I would recommend Platonov to anyone interested in Russian literature, but who wants to delve into Soviet themes or venture away from the classics. This collection I can highly recommend, along with the translator, Joseph Barnes, who has brought previously unknown works to the American publishing world and offered Americans a chance at exposure to the verse of a complex, emotionally stirring writer.
June 10, 2018
9 seçme öyküden oluşan bu kitap yazarın okuduğum 4. kitabı.
Platonov'un başarısı anlatmak istediklerini, Rus coğrafyası ve kültürüyle kurgularken halktan seçtiği karakterleri de olduğu gibi aktarması. merkezden uzaklaştıkça zorlaşan bir coğrafyada, yalnızlaşan insanların doğayla mücadelesi, kalkınabilmesi için çaba sarfeden aydınları ve yenilgileri..
Kitaptaki diğer öykülerden farklı olan 'Antisexus' bilimkurgu bir öykü gibi dursa da antisexus için gerçek karakterleden kurgu değerlendirmeler öyküyü toplumcu yapıyor.
Platonov okurunu pişman etmiyor.
Platonov'un başarısı anlatmak istediklerini, Rus coğrafyası ve kültürüyle kurgularken halktan seçtiği karakterleri de olduğu gibi aktarması. merkezden uzaklaştıkça zorlaşan bir coğrafyada, yalnızlaşan insanların doğayla mücadelesi, kalkınabilmesi için çaba sarfeden aydınları ve yenilgileri..
Kitaptaki diğer öykülerden farklı olan 'Antisexus' bilimkurgu bir öykü gibi dursa da antisexus için gerçek karakterleden kurgu değerlendirmeler öyküyü toplumcu yapıyor.
Platonov okurunu pişman etmiyor.
June 5, 2019
Sanayi Devrimi'nden tam anlamıyla nasiplenememiş, yaşadığı coğrafya mı yoksa tepesindeki demir yumruk mu daha acımasız diye düşünmeye bile dermanı olmayan halkların sonu hep yürek burkan hikayeleri. Kitabı bitirince Platonov'un ne kadar cesur bir yazar olduğunu göreceksiniz.
May 19, 2025
fascinating pieces of fiction from a working class Soviet who through his own writing makes you understand why communism was such a driving force in the emotional and philosophical front of Eastern Europe
November 1, 2017
"Il tempo migliore ￨ quello che passa in fretta, allorché i giorni non riescono a lasciare il segno della loro infelicità." (Takyr, p. 39)
March 8, 2021
Bu sefer de bırakın Platonov dokunsun kalbinize... tadı damağınızda kalsın, keşke öykü değil upuzun romanlar olsaymış her biri dedim.
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November 29, 2024ʀᴇꜱꜱᴇɴʏᴀ ᴅᴇ ᴇɴ ᴜɴ ᴍᴏ́ɴ ᴘʀᴇᴄɪᴏ́ꜱ ɪ ꜰᴜʀɪʙᴜɴᴅ ᴅ'ᴀɴᴅʀᴇɪ ᴘʟᴀᴛᴏ́ɴᴏᴠ (@Edicions1984 ). ᴜɴ ᴇꜱᴄʀɪᴘᴛᴏʀ ᴍᴀʟᴛʀᴀᴄᴛᴀᴛ ᴘᴇʟ ᴘᴏᴅᴇʀ ꜱᴏᴠɪᴇ̀ᴛɪᴄ
https://sonograma.org/quadern-de-llib...
https://sonograma.org/quadern-de-llib...
June 3, 2025
Veel treinen. Erg goed.
April 22, 2013
“…anxious that her household goods should be intact because she had no other links at all with life or with other people. Since a person needs something to be thinking about all the time, it was clear that she was imagining something while she worked at her small, almost useless, tasks…” (51).
“…the old man was not asleep but just keeping his eyes shut as if he were saving his vision and didn’t want to waste his spirit on impressions of the visible real world” (64).
“But men live because they’re born, not by truth or by intelligence, and while the heart goes on beating it scatters and spreads their despair and finally destroys itself, losing its substance in patience and in work” (70).
“ ‘Citizen engineer!’ the old man said sometimes, articulately and with dignity, addressing himself personally, and in reply he kept a highly significant silence, as if he were listening to a distant ovation” (120).
“The musician was still a little boy, he had not yet chosen some single thing out of the whole world for eternal loving, his heart beat empty and free, stealing nothing just for itself out of the goodness of life” (134).
"'You won't forget me now?' Lyuba asked as she said good-bye to him.
'No,' Nikita said. 'I have nobody else to remember'" (157).
“It’s not possible to comfort every grief, there is some grief that ends only after the exhaustion of the heart, in long oblivion or in the distraction of the cares of daily living” (175).
“The constancy and patience showed the fidelity and the immutability of the female heart, at any rate in relation to her baggage and to her home to which this woman was probably returning” (186).
“It had already grown cold, autumn was in the courtyard” (201).
“All love springs from need and grief; if a person didn’t need anything and didn’t grieve he would never love anyone” (214).
“All six of them and their father stood quietly around their dead mother and mourned her wordlessly, hiding from each other their despair, their memories of childhood, of the vanished happiness of that love which had welled up without interruption and freely in their mother’s heart and which had always found them—across thousands of miles. They had felt this constantly and instinctively, and been made stronger for feeling it and bolder in achieving success in their lives. Now their mother had been transformed into a corpse, she could no longer love anyone, and she lay there like any indifferent, strange, old woman” (219).
“Later on, he called Natalya Vladmirovna his Aphrodite, because her image had appeared rising above the foam, although not of ocean waters but of another liquid” (227). *That is, she was drawing a beer for him.
“…then there is opened to his spirit that secret spring where a man must drink to win strength without limit for what he does, and the power of really believing that his own life is important” (231).
“…take breath and celebrate, and play its part in the general assembly of all existence, succeed in loving all living things and then once more part forever from them. The young Nazar Fomin felt at that moment the great, dumb, and universal grief which only man can understand, express, and overcome, and this is precisely what man is for” (232).
“…there was no interest to be seen there, no sympathy for man, because nature, despite its bigness, is all the same, knowing nothing except itself” (238).
“ ‘Which is better—to be a free blind man or to see everything inside a prison when you’re innocent?’” (260).
“I was as frightened of leaving him alone as if he were my own son, without any protection against all the sudden, hostile forces loose in our fierce and beautiful world” (264).
“…the old man was not asleep but just keeping his eyes shut as if he were saving his vision and didn’t want to waste his spirit on impressions of the visible real world” (64).
“But men live because they’re born, not by truth or by intelligence, and while the heart goes on beating it scatters and spreads their despair and finally destroys itself, losing its substance in patience and in work” (70).
“ ‘Citizen engineer!’ the old man said sometimes, articulately and with dignity, addressing himself personally, and in reply he kept a highly significant silence, as if he were listening to a distant ovation” (120).
“The musician was still a little boy, he had not yet chosen some single thing out of the whole world for eternal loving, his heart beat empty and free, stealing nothing just for itself out of the goodness of life” (134).
"'You won't forget me now?' Lyuba asked as she said good-bye to him.
'No,' Nikita said. 'I have nobody else to remember'" (157).
“It’s not possible to comfort every grief, there is some grief that ends only after the exhaustion of the heart, in long oblivion or in the distraction of the cares of daily living” (175).
“The constancy and patience showed the fidelity and the immutability of the female heart, at any rate in relation to her baggage and to her home to which this woman was probably returning” (186).
“It had already grown cold, autumn was in the courtyard” (201).
“All love springs from need and grief; if a person didn’t need anything and didn’t grieve he would never love anyone” (214).
“All six of them and their father stood quietly around their dead mother and mourned her wordlessly, hiding from each other their despair, their memories of childhood, of the vanished happiness of that love which had welled up without interruption and freely in their mother’s heart and which had always found them—across thousands of miles. They had felt this constantly and instinctively, and been made stronger for feeling it and bolder in achieving success in their lives. Now their mother had been transformed into a corpse, she could no longer love anyone, and she lay there like any indifferent, strange, old woman” (219).
“Later on, he called Natalya Vladmirovna his Aphrodite, because her image had appeared rising above the foam, although not of ocean waters but of another liquid” (227). *That is, she was drawing a beer for him.
“…then there is opened to his spirit that secret spring where a man must drink to win strength without limit for what he does, and the power of really believing that his own life is important” (231).
“…take breath and celebrate, and play its part in the general assembly of all existence, succeed in loving all living things and then once more part forever from them. The young Nazar Fomin felt at that moment the great, dumb, and universal grief which only man can understand, express, and overcome, and this is precisely what man is for” (232).
“…there was no interest to be seen there, no sympathy for man, because nature, despite its bigness, is all the same, knowing nothing except itself” (238).
“ ‘Which is better—to be a free blind man or to see everything inside a prison when you’re innocent?’” (260).
“I was as frightened of leaving him alone as if he were my own son, without any protection against all the sudden, hostile forces loose in our fierce and beautiful world” (264).
April 21, 2016
platovun kendisi elektrik mühendisi. bu sebepledirki "teknik"e hakim. hikayelerinde de bunu kullanarak açıkça belli ediyor. tabi ki kuru kuruya anlatmıyor başından geçen "teknik" hikayelerini. bunu kendi çağının ve intikal edebildiği çağların sosyopolitik meselleri ve bunun sıradan insana etkisiyle harmanlayabiliyor. mesela yepifan savakları hikayesinde rusların meşhur çarı deli petro'nun 'çılgın' ama bir hevesten ibaret su kanalı projesine başmühendislik yapan bir ingilizin hikayesini anlattığında coğrafi konumları verirkenki netliğine bakılırsa alana tamamen hakim, savakların yapımındaki teknik ayrıntılar da kusursuz. bu ayrıntılara hakimiyet muhteşem vahşi dünya hikayesinde de ortaya çıkıyor. fazla ayrıntıyı sevmem. dedik ya platonov usta. dozajı hep kararında veriyor. ki bu da bizi okurken diri tutuyor.elektiriğin yurdu ve hayvanlar ve bitkiler arasında hikayesi de teknikle bezeli sosyal hikayeler. bunların dışında dünya savaşları ve ardında kalanlar hakkında da iyi hikayeler var: afrodit, yedinci kişi. lobskaya dağı ise baştaki hayvanlar ve bitkiler arasında bağlantılı bir nevi nehir öykü ama bitmemiş bir hikaye.
kitabın en değişik hikayesi ise antisexus.hem biçim hem de konu itibariyle farklı. bilim kurgu diyebileceğimiz bir hikaye. antisexus, cinsel arzuların tatminini sağlayarak, ekonomik tasarruf, bundan yolla sinirsel rahatlığa ve hatta kadın kaprislerinden kurtulmaya yarayan mekanik bir alet. alet hakkında diğer öykülerdeki ayrıntıcılığa girilmemiş. platonov "ürün yorumları" altında çeşitli mevzilerden belli hacmi olan insanları kendi meşrebince ürün hakkında konuşturmuş. kimler yokki; henri ford, gandi, mussolini, chamberlain, c. chaplin.. deneysel ve üzerine düşünülebilir bir hikaye.
gelelim kitabın en iyisine: iki kırıntı. böyle nitelemek diğerlerine haksızlık biliyorum ama kitabın en kısa öyküsü olmasına rağmen yere bu kadar sağlam basmasından dolayı bunu söylüyorum.hatta masal mı yoksa öykü mü bu eser adına bu ikisinin farkını söyleyemem ama bildiğim tek şey şu ki, iki kırıntı harika bişey.
hasılı, platonov "güzel ve sağlam bir öykü okuyayım ama vıcık vıcık drama verip beni boğmasın" diyen bir edebiyatseverin başı sıkıştığında elini atacağı bir yazar ve bunlar da onun eserleri.
edit: çevirmenin hakkını vermeyi unutmuşum. günay çetao kızılırmak harika çevirmiş. bence iyi çeviri, eserin çeviri olup olmadığını farketmeyeceğiniz çeviridir. teşekkürler.
kitabın en değişik hikayesi ise antisexus.hem biçim hem de konu itibariyle farklı. bilim kurgu diyebileceğimiz bir hikaye. antisexus, cinsel arzuların tatminini sağlayarak, ekonomik tasarruf, bundan yolla sinirsel rahatlığa ve hatta kadın kaprislerinden kurtulmaya yarayan mekanik bir alet. alet hakkında diğer öykülerdeki ayrıntıcılığa girilmemiş. platonov "ürün yorumları" altında çeşitli mevzilerden belli hacmi olan insanları kendi meşrebince ürün hakkında konuşturmuş. kimler yokki; henri ford, gandi, mussolini, chamberlain, c. chaplin.. deneysel ve üzerine düşünülebilir bir hikaye.
gelelim kitabın en iyisine: iki kırıntı. böyle nitelemek diğerlerine haksızlık biliyorum ama kitabın en kısa öyküsü olmasına rağmen yere bu kadar sağlam basmasından dolayı bunu söylüyorum.hatta masal mı yoksa öykü mü bu eser adına bu ikisinin farkını söyleyemem ama bildiğim tek şey şu ki, iki kırıntı harika bişey.
hasılı, platonov "güzel ve sağlam bir öykü okuyayım ama vıcık vıcık drama verip beni boğmasın" diyen bir edebiyatseverin başı sıkıştığında elini atacağı bir yazar ve bunlar da onun eserleri.
edit: çevirmenin hakkını vermeyi unutmuşum. günay çetao kızılırmak harika çevirmiş. bence iyi çeviri, eserin çeviri olup olmadığını farketmeyeceğiniz çeviridir. teşekkürler.
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September 11, 2023 In the harsh light of later history it's difficult to imagine the enormous burst of optimism which the establishment of communism in Russia must have been met by many. The hope that a rationalist technocracy would not only improve the economic circumstances of the average citizen but catalyze a cultural and even spiritual evolution, and the realization of how false that hope would prove to be, are the themes of these suite of stories. I confess my feelings are mixed. It's slow going. Platonov's plots are deliberately bare, and his language reputedly impossible to effectively translate. But there is a tenderness and beauty to them which crosses language barriers, and by the end of these eight stories I found myself touches and wanting to continue.
July 27, 2023
The issue with translation makes the reading difficult, but I was completely drawn to the clashes between the beautiful though stubborn soul of a human and the fierce real world, as the book's name reveals.
There's something intriguing about the way Platonov wrote, as if the words came from the hands of an engineer, which strike a remarkable balance between scientific rigor (but not the same kind as a sci-fi novel), realism, and literariness. Raw and masculine.
There's something intriguing about the way Platonov wrote, as if the words came from the hands of an engineer, which strike a remarkable balance between scientific rigor (but not the same kind as a sci-fi novel), realism, and literariness. Raw and masculine.
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