The Foundation Pit - Andrey Platonov, Robert Chandler (trans)

 

The Byzantine and the Disenfangled

I bought this edition, even though I was originally hunting anything translated by Mirra Ginsburg. Those who have read her translation of Master and Margarita know she is of inestimable talent. (I don't read Russian)

A few beers later, I bought the Ginsburg translation, too. I read this version, NYRB, first... loved it. The dialogue is funny, surreal, and I am pretty positive it reads with the bizarre ideological fixity the author intended.

I liked it so much I read it again with the Ginsburg translation, right away! That one was good in a different way, but I have to say the NYRB is superior if you are only going to read one version. The dialogue, the added "cut" material, the poetic phrasing, the introduction, and the extra deleted scenes at the end--well worth it.

However! I will say Ginsburg's version is very rewarding. She offers a literary warmth and consistency, not in the characters themselves, but in the flow of the story. It may be Platonov's text, but something is strange about this story... about halfway through, the tone changes, the actions of the characters change, and I noticed it distinctly with the NYRB... it's not that it gets bad, but I wondered why the emphasis of the story changed so much. With Ginsburg, I followed more of the details in the room, so to speak--the narrator's voice, people's actions, and relationships as a whole came to the fore.

So yes: The NYRB is the definitive. But it might be interesting for you to try the Ginsburg and see what cuts had been made before Mirra even got the text, and the artful way she gave forth of it. You can witness your own Soviet censorship of the story, and I don't doubt you will take more value away from the second reading. And if you haven't read her Master and Margarita... my goodness. Get that one, too.

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