Огонь и дым

Огонь и дым : Aldanov, Mark Aleksandrovich, 1886-1957 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

"... Натуры такой "цельности" довольно редко встречаются за пределами домов умалишенных, и в этой цельности, до известной степени, заключается их сила, как это и демонстрирует пример Ленина."

Robert Chandler. 'Cardinal Points' literary journal: Platonov and Shalamov

Robert Chandler. 'Cardinal Points' literary journal

The first of Shalamov’s criticisms is that Platonov is too ready to indulge in loose talk about ‘the soul’. Shalamov prepares the ground for this theme in the first paragraph of the story; this is why he alludes to Platonov’s Dzhan. Dzhan is a Persian word that has been adopted by the Turkic languages of Central Asia; its meaning is ‘soul’. The Dzhan, according to Platonov, are able to survive because they have not - in spite of everything - lost their souls. Platonov makes this explicit in a passage from the penultimate chapter...

All this is based on (1) the main character of "Snake Charmer" having the same name as Platonov the writer, and (2) that the name of a mine mentioned in the story ("Djankhara") supposedly reminds the reader about "Djan", a story by Platonov that was published after "Snake Charmer", but that Chandler maintains Shalamov had probably seen or heard about when he was briefly out of prison in the 1930s.

Now a lot of what Chandler writes about so well would be very convincing if we had more direct evidence. But I feel the evidence he cites does not bear it out. After all, a fictional name for a Kolyma mine and the surname of a character (very wide-spread, to be sure) can not really serve as proof. As for apparent indirect references, stranger co-incidences have been observed in the past: R. Leibov has shown that the "Drummers's Tale" by A. Gaidar would appear to referece Pushkin and Plato by the same logic. Of course, Chandler or his learned colleagues could have better evidence that they had not cited or that I have overlooked...

There is also something else: personally -- for what it's worth -- I would doubt Platonov would have been in it at all. I must say I haven't read "Djan"; however, in his short stories and "Chevengur" Platonov seems to be a very different opponent of Shalamov as compared to what Chandler makes him to be. I would expect Platonov's criminals to be almost sympathetic, as opposed to infernal as in Shalamov's stories; Platonov seems to be one with the world and the language, Shalamov consistently takes sides. For me, this appears to mean that, had a literary dispute between the two really happened, it would be about what  is soul, not about the ways to write about it or ways to preserve it.

languagehat.com: LUBERON AND OTHER SHIBBOLETHS.

languagehat.com: LUBERON AND OTHER SHIBBOLETHS.

"An interesting piece by Olivier Razemon in Le Monde about the correct/local ways to pronounce various French place names (it's Luberon avec e comme dans "beurrer," pas comme dans "bébé," and Wissant (Pas-de-Calais) is "Uissant", et non "Vissant", encore moins "Ouissant")."

Les bons gens de montagne
Les gens de Luberon
En disent le "e" comme "beurre"
Et non comme "biberon"

languagehat.com: FODDER FOR ALLUSIONS.

Interesting thread on Language Hat that I couldn't fail to comment upon:

languagehat.com: FODDER FOR ALLUSIONS.

What I wanted to add was that, on top of obsession with classic literature, there seems to be an equally noticeable historicism in Soviet culture. For some reason, this seems to have been rarely commented upon.

Михаил Берг, Ежедневный Журнал: Кто там шагает правой?

Ежедневный Журнал: Кто там шагает правой?

"Левая идея — это не Ленин в башке и наган в руке, а идея справедливости без великодержавия и национализма, потому что человек, любой, важнее родины и нации, так как человек реален, а нация — иллюзорна, и патриотизм — это идеология обмана неимущих имущими, которые выдают свои интересы за интересы общества. Практически всегда и везде."

С этим-то я согласен, но Хомский? По-моему, все по существу сказал еще Рассел. А Хомский, действительно, просто маргинал. И насчет его вклада в лингвистику, сколько мне приходилось слышать, специалисты не так уж единодушны; во всех своих родах деятельности он, похоже, топорный упрощенец.

А вот что наш народ "правый", так сказать, на микропрограммном уровне, тут с Бергом нельзя не согласиться - кто видел наших в Америке, тот знает. Тут, действительно, есть о чем задуматься.