The return and other stories / Andrey Platonov ; translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler and Angela Livingstone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Platonov, Andreĭ Platonovich, 1899-1951.

Standardized Title:

Short stories. Selections. English

Language:

English

Russian

Physical Description:

xxiii, 215 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Harvill, 1999.

Summary:

People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection: coming home as in "The Return", tearing home as in "Rubbish Wind", travelling far away from their country as in "The Locks of Epiphan" -- trying to improve their rives and those of others, searching and fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives, which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the blackness of despair -- the hope against hope that a better life is still possible.

Combining realism with poetic vision and the deceptively simple language of fork tales, Platonov tights up his stories by using language in a way that renders it unfamiliar, making the ordinary seem unusual and the extraordinary logical. This new translation is the first to present Platonov's gift as a short-story writer to an English-language readership, showing why it is that Joseph Brodsky regarded Platonov as the equal of Joyce, Kafka, and Proust.

ISBN:

1860465161

OCLC:

60163946