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Review
"startlingly prophetic novel ... As a foretaste of the horrors of the gulag, that's pretty hard to beat"--Mail on Sunday
"While earlier efforts to render The Foundation Pit in English made perhaps too much sense of Platonov's classic, the new translation by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Meerson, which was first published by the visionaries at New York Review Books, preserves all the ambiguities and woodenness of Platonov's Russian prose"--Artforum
"Andrey Platonov is one of Russia's greatest modernist scribes. Like his fellow science-fiction writer Yevgeny Zamyatin - author of the astonishing futurist novel We, published in the 20s - he was also among that tortured country's most prescient literary artists...The Foundation Pit, written in 1930 and now published for the first time in English, is his most striking attempt to convey the extreme estrangement suffered by ordinary people as collectivisation in agriculture proceeded across the USSR...one of the most prophetic nihilistic tales of this ruined century."--The West Australian
"Completed in 1930 but unpublished during his lifetime, Platonov's masterpiece, a scathing satire of the Soviet attempt to build a workers' utopia, gauges the vast human tragedy of Stalinism, portraying a society organized and regimented around a monstrous lie, and thus bereft of meaning, hope, integrity, humanity...His dark parable is a great dirge for Mother Russia as well as a savage analysis of the split consciousness fostered by an oppressive system. Platonov's books are still being unearthed in Russia decades after his death."--Publishers Weekly
"Andrey Platonov's absurdist parable The Foundation Pit is a masterly achievement... Much of the genius of The Foundation Pit lies in Platonov's objective style and the lively invariably abusive dialogue, contrasting with oddly moving, isolated asides of brittle beauty. It is a Russian Waiting for Godot crossed with Lewis Carroll and Maxim Gorky - there is even a bear working as an apprentice blacksmith, frantically making horseshoes as if there were no tomorrow. And in this book, there isn't. According to the late Joseph Brodsky, Platonov 'simply had a tendency to see his words to their logical - that is absurd, that is totally paralyzing end. In other words, like no other Russian writer before or after him Platonov was able to reveal a self destructive, eschatological element within the language itself.' The Foundation Pit is extraordinary: strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences."--The Irish Times
"These books are indescribable. The power of devastation they inflict upon their subject matter exceeds by far any demands of social criticism and should be measured in units that have very little to do with literature as such."--Joseph Brodsky
“A 20th-century Russian masterpiece... The Foundation Pit is a savage satire on collectivisation, a nightmarish vision of humanity trapped by the infernal machinery of totalitarianism... Platonov's grimly comic vision of a brave new world is as universal in its implications as any other account of a hellish utopia our century has produced... the dance of madness in The Foundation Pit is articulated as the suppression of anything human - sorrow and joy, hope and despair."--The Sydney Morning Herald
"Like Candide, Platonov's novel is a plotless allegory of human striving...The forced industrialisation of Russia, which began in 1928 and is the historical background of The Foundation Pit, left an estimated 15.2m dead. Even if one considers Platonov's masterpiece merely as a conte philosophique, one may note that his model universe was more amply observed than Voltaire's. He was also a writer perhaps the only writer to have advanced Russian prose beyond what had been achieved by Chekhov..."--The Times
"Brilliant...Obviously a masterpiece."--Paul Theroux
“Among the greatest Russian prose writers of this century.”--New York Times
“In Russia it is Platonov who is increasingly described as the best writer of the post-revolutionary epoch.”--Times Literary Supplement
"While earlier efforts to render The Foundation Pit in English made perhaps too much sense of Platonov's classic, the new translation by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Meerson, which was first published by the visionaries at New York Review Books, preserves all the ambiguities and woodenness of Platonov's Russian prose"--Artforum
"Andrey Platonov is one of Russia's greatest modernist scribes. Like his fellow science-fiction writer Yevgeny Zamyatin - author of the astonishing futurist novel We, published in the 20s - he was also among that tortured country's most prescient literary artists...The Foundation Pit, written in 1930 and now published for the first time in English, is his most striking attempt to convey the extreme estrangement suffered by ordinary people as collectivisation in agriculture proceeded across the USSR...one of the most prophetic nihilistic tales of this ruined century."--The West Australian
"Completed in 1930 but unpublished during his lifetime, Platonov's masterpiece, a scathing satire of the Soviet attempt to build a workers' utopia, gauges the vast human tragedy of Stalinism, portraying a society organized and regimented around a monstrous lie, and thus bereft of meaning, hope, integrity, humanity...His dark parable is a great dirge for Mother Russia as well as a savage analysis of the split consciousness fostered by an oppressive system. Platonov's books are still being unearthed in Russia decades after his death."--Publishers Weekly
"Andrey Platonov's absurdist parable The Foundation Pit is a masterly achievement... Much of the genius of The Foundation Pit lies in Platonov's objective style and the lively invariably abusive dialogue, contrasting with oddly moving, isolated asides of brittle beauty. It is a Russian Waiting for Godot crossed with Lewis Carroll and Maxim Gorky - there is even a bear working as an apprentice blacksmith, frantically making horseshoes as if there were no tomorrow. And in this book, there isn't. According to the late Joseph Brodsky, Platonov 'simply had a tendency to see his words to their logical - that is absurd, that is totally paralyzing end. In other words, like no other Russian writer before or after him Platonov was able to reveal a self destructive, eschatological element within the language itself.' The Foundation Pit is extraordinary: strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences."--The Irish Times
"These books are indescribable. The power of devastation they inflict upon their subject matter exceeds by far any demands of social criticism and should be measured in units that have very little to do with literature as such."--Joseph Brodsky
“A 20th-century Russian masterpiece... The Foundation Pit is a savage satire on collectivisation, a nightmarish vision of humanity trapped by the infernal machinery of totalitarianism... Platonov's grimly comic vision of a brave new world is as universal in its implications as any other account of a hellish utopia our century has produced... the dance of madness in The Foundation Pit is articulated as the suppression of anything human - sorrow and joy, hope and despair."--The Sydney Morning Herald
"Like Candide, Platonov's novel is a plotless allegory of human striving...The forced industrialisation of Russia, which began in 1928 and is the historical background of The Foundation Pit, left an estimated 15.2m dead. Even if one considers Platonov's masterpiece merely as a conte philosophique, one may note that his model universe was more amply observed than Voltaire's. He was also a writer perhaps the only writer to have advanced Russian prose beyond what had been achieved by Chekhov..."--The Times
"Brilliant...Obviously a masterpiece."--Paul Theroux
“Among the greatest Russian prose writers of this century.”--New York Times
“In Russia it is Platonov who is increasingly described as the best writer of the post-revolutionary epoch.”--Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
New translation of this powerful political satire set in Stalinist Russia
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For those who have already read Platonov and finished a book by him, I imagine the feeling upon completion must be the same as mine: astonishment. How could such a writer not be well known, as well known as Tolstoy and Chekov? How could such a writer have remained dormant when he has essential things to say about Russia and existence in general? Because he says them beautifully, and profoundly. Because I imagine Platonov to be the prose equivalent of Scriabin, both essentially mystics and whose work swings into and out of fashion according to the taste of the times. However, both were exceptionally talented - and if not geniuses, certainly almost - and because of their singlemindedness seem to have slipped from (modern) view.
Whilst not being of the `daily bread' (like Tolstoy or Dostoyevski) ilk of literature, Platonov's prose is like unleavened bread: it is dense, poetic, didactic and precise. More philosophical than political, the words seem to be sourced from a truly sacred place. The syntax is startlingly original and almost makes you read in a completely different frame of mind, savouring all of the idiosyncracies and subtle nuances that the author evokes. Indeed, some of the images contained in this work are brilliant, beautiful, resounding and really compelling. The poetic touches, such as when he describes the snow which does not melt, falling on a mare's head is a touch of the sublime! Even the minute details of the landscape - the frost, the burdock, the congealing coldness of rivers - are laden with such positive descriptive elements as to leap into your mind as live images.
This is certainly the work of a philosopher, if not a mystic. Truth is the reason and the goal for such writing and Platonov makes not bones about hiding such aims and intentions. Passages such as this reinforce this idea: `without ideology Voshchev too had grown so weak in body that he could not raise his ax and he lay down in the snow: like it or not, there was no truth in the world - or maybe there had been once, in some plant or heroic creature, but then a wandering beggar had come by and eaten the plant, or trampled this creature down on the ground in lowliness, and then the beggar had died in autumn gully and the wind had blown his body clean into nothing'. Such powerful descriptions as this really make this an existential novel about angst, but not in a whining sense like Satre, but of a total, unutterable shattering realisation which could only come about in Russia; the acknowledgement of emptiness in all things. Poetic, lamentable and yet despairing but not depressing, this work is an illumination of an entire era previously, at least to me, shrowded in darkness. Platonov's voice is unique: it is as if we are being lulled and charmed by a filial voice but there remains in his tone something uncanny, something slightly off-kilter. Yet, with the sadness of this work, there is always humour to be found, especially in what seemed to me to be slap-stick violence. Further, who else could have invented the character of a bear who plays a blacksmith in a part of the story which is especially poignant and points towards the future destruction of the country?
Chandler (the translator) is a pioneer of Platonov's work and has done a very fine job indeed of reworking this book into English: each word shines as if it has been chosen painstakingly over a thousand others and the result is magnificent: jewels shining in the night. There is a lengthy afterword too which affords the reader the context in which Platonov wrote. Chandler writes: `these works appear at first glance to be highly surreal. This impression, however, is misleading; they contain barely an incident or passage of dialogue that does not directly relate to some real event. Platonov's focus is not on some private dream world but on political and historical reality - a reality so extraordinary as to be barely credible'. Certainly, the greatest Russian author of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of all times, this is not to be missed. A most individual voice with important things to say! Maybe more accessible to those who are familiar with other esoteric Russian writers like Bulgakov etc.
Whilst not being of the `daily bread' (like Tolstoy or Dostoyevski) ilk of literature, Platonov's prose is like unleavened bread: it is dense, poetic, didactic and precise. More philosophical than political, the words seem to be sourced from a truly sacred place. The syntax is startlingly original and almost makes you read in a completely different frame of mind, savouring all of the idiosyncracies and subtle nuances that the author evokes. Indeed, some of the images contained in this work are brilliant, beautiful, resounding and really compelling. The poetic touches, such as when he describes the snow which does not melt, falling on a mare's head is a touch of the sublime! Even the minute details of the landscape - the frost, the burdock, the congealing coldness of rivers - are laden with such positive descriptive elements as to leap into your mind as live images.
This is certainly the work of a philosopher, if not a mystic. Truth is the reason and the goal for such writing and Platonov makes not bones about hiding such aims and intentions. Passages such as this reinforce this idea: `without ideology Voshchev too had grown so weak in body that he could not raise his ax and he lay down in the snow: like it or not, there was no truth in the world - or maybe there had been once, in some plant or heroic creature, but then a wandering beggar had come by and eaten the plant, or trampled this creature down on the ground in lowliness, and then the beggar had died in autumn gully and the wind had blown his body clean into nothing'. Such powerful descriptions as this really make this an existential novel about angst, but not in a whining sense like Satre, but of a total, unutterable shattering realisation which could only come about in Russia; the acknowledgement of emptiness in all things. Poetic, lamentable and yet despairing but not depressing, this work is an illumination of an entire era previously, at least to me, shrowded in darkness. Platonov's voice is unique: it is as if we are being lulled and charmed by a filial voice but there remains in his tone something uncanny, something slightly off-kilter. Yet, with the sadness of this work, there is always humour to be found, especially in what seemed to me to be slap-stick violence. Further, who else could have invented the character of a bear who plays a blacksmith in a part of the story which is especially poignant and points towards the future destruction of the country?
Chandler (the translator) is a pioneer of Platonov's work and has done a very fine job indeed of reworking this book into English: each word shines as if it has been chosen painstakingly over a thousand others and the result is magnificent: jewels shining in the night. There is a lengthy afterword too which affords the reader the context in which Platonov wrote. Chandler writes: `these works appear at first glance to be highly surreal. This impression, however, is misleading; they contain barely an incident or passage of dialogue that does not directly relate to some real event. Platonov's focus is not on some private dream world but on political and historical reality - a reality so extraordinary as to be barely credible'. Certainly, the greatest Russian author of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of all times, this is not to be missed. A most individual voice with important things to say! Maybe more accessible to those who are familiar with other esoteric Russian writers like Bulgakov etc.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
The hole we dig for ourselves
30 April 2012
Format:Paperback
I read an earlier translation by Robert Chandler. Platonov had been a long overlooked Soviet writer. His works had been banned for many years, but fortunately his daughter kept his manuscripts and was able to get The Foundation Pit and other stories published during the Perestroika era of the 80s. Chandler offers a faithful if not very lively translation of this important novel. Platonov was a contemporary of Orwell and shared many of the same misgivings about the rise of the Soviet state, which was one reason this book never found its way into print during the Stalin regime.
Volkov notes in Magical Chorus that Platonov might have met the same fate as his novel if it had not been for Vasily Grossman, who pleaded with Stalin to spare this gifted writer and got him a job as a war correspondent during WWII. But, Platonov could never get anything more than a few short stories published at the time.
The story goes back to the early years of collectivization when a group of construction workers are called into to rid a village of its Kulaks, and reform the farming town into an ideal collective. The foundation pit refers to a foundation that workers are digging for a large social housing project. It is never big enough, and work continues day and night, with the exhausted diggers returning to a cabin where they sleep on the floor. Unrest in the village leads the Soviet official to call in the workers. Platonov crafted his dialog from the slogans used during the time, creating a harsh and often repellent language, especially when spoken through a young orphan girl, which the construction workers have adopted. You can sense both the symbolism and the absurdity of the Soviet avant-garde at the time.
Chandler seems to warm up to the absurd nature of the story in the second half, when even the local animals become part of the action. The most amazing creature is a large bear that works as an iron smith, pounding away with all his force on the hot metal, singing songs to the collectivist state. He is also used to sniff out the Kulaks. Even the horses get into the action, collectivizing themselves. You would almost wonder if Orwell stole a few lines from this story had it not been printed at the time.
There is a strong theatrical sense to the story that left me imagining it played out on stage. He did write plays, including Fourteen Little Red Huts, which satirizes George Bernard Shaw's visit to the Soviet Union. Shaw had fallen under Stalin's spell and refused to accept the famine Stalin had engineered in Ukraine at the time.
Volkov notes in Magical Chorus that Platonov might have met the same fate as his novel if it had not been for Vasily Grossman, who pleaded with Stalin to spare this gifted writer and got him a job as a war correspondent during WWII. But, Platonov could never get anything more than a few short stories published at the time.
The story goes back to the early years of collectivization when a group of construction workers are called into to rid a village of its Kulaks, and reform the farming town into an ideal collective. The foundation pit refers to a foundation that workers are digging for a large social housing project. It is never big enough, and work continues day and night, with the exhausted diggers returning to a cabin where they sleep on the floor. Unrest in the village leads the Soviet official to call in the workers. Platonov crafted his dialog from the slogans used during the time, creating a harsh and often repellent language, especially when spoken through a young orphan girl, which the construction workers have adopted. You can sense both the symbolism and the absurdity of the Soviet avant-garde at the time.
Chandler seems to warm up to the absurd nature of the story in the second half, when even the local animals become part of the action. The most amazing creature is a large bear that works as an iron smith, pounding away with all his force on the hot metal, singing songs to the collectivist state. He is also used to sniff out the Kulaks. Even the horses get into the action, collectivizing themselves. You would almost wonder if Orwell stole a few lines from this story had it not been printed at the time.
There is a strong theatrical sense to the story that left me imagining it played out on stage. He did write plays, including Fourteen Little Red Huts, which satirizes George Bernard Shaw's visit to the Soviet Union. Shaw had fallen under Stalin's spell and refused to accept the famine Stalin had engineered in Ukraine at the time.
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