After my wonderful start to the #1937club with some lovely reads, I have to confess that I hit a bit of a wall… I had a great pile of possible reads, a mixture of old favourites and books which had been lurking on the TBR for a while. However, I picked up and put down several titles, and none were really gelling with my reading mood. So I had a bit of a search around online, checking out favourite authors to see if they had anything published in 1937 and *did* find a few extra books I had which would fit in (these ended up being the last image on my March round-up post). I was particularly pleased to find that there was a Russian author I could choose for the year, and that’s the great Andrei Platonov. His “Chevengur” was a standout read at the turn of the year, and according to Wikipedia he was publishing short stories in the 1930s, including two I can be fairly sure came from 1937. And fortunately, I had access to them…

The River Potudan

Apparently there was a whole collection which appeared in 1937 under this title, but I haven’t been able to find out which stories it contained. However, I do have this story, translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler and Angela Livingstone, in a Platonov collection called “The Return” and it was the perfect choice, as I adore Platonov’s writing.

“Potudan…” concerns a young man called Nikita Firsov who is returning home from fighting in the Civil War. He makes his way back to his home, near the titular river, and finds his father is the only surviving member of his family. It’s hard for him to adjust to a non-combative role, but he gradually does, reconnecting with Lyuba, a women he remembers from when they were both children. They eventually marry, but the War has left psychological scars on Nikita and he cannot consummate the marriage for fear of hurting Lyuba. Both he and his wife consider death, and there will be a period of separation while Nikita runs away and struggles both physically and mentally. The ending is perhaps a little ambiguous, but I’ll let you make up your own mind if you read this one!

“The River Potudan” is a moving, muted story which focuses on those who survive a major conflict and have to try to put life back together. Both Nikita and Lyuba have suffered and lost much, looking to each other for comfort. Yet it’s not easy to reconstruct a normal setting after such major upheaval. It’s a beautifully written story which really lingers in the mind.

The Fierce and Beautiful World

In contrast, “The Fierce and Beautiful World”, translated by Joseph Barnes (and from an older collection released in 1970), tells the story of an apprentice train driver, and his mentor Maltsev; the latter is an experienced and competent worker who has an almost symbiotic relationship with his engine and won’t let his apprentice touch it. However, events and nature conspire against Maltsev, and the narrator tries to help him when there is a near disaster and he’s investigated. Things do not go as planned, though, and the science he tries to employ just makes things worse.

Maltsev drove the locomotive on, throttle wide open. We were now headed straight for a big stormcloud which had appeared above the horizon. From our side the cloud was lighted up by the sun, but its interior was being ripped by severe, angry bolts of lightning, and we could see how the shafts of lightning plunged vertically down onto the quiet distant earth and we were racing madly toward that distant ground as if hurrying to its defense. It was clear that the sight appealed to Alexander Vassilievich; he leaned far out of his window as he stared ahead, and his eyes which were used to smoke and flame and distance were glittering now with excitement. He realized that the work and the power of our locomotive were comparable with the might of the storm, and perhaps this idea made him feel proud.

However, despite tragedy, the story has a beautiful and emotional ending; and its exploration of natures versus science is very thought-provoking.

*****

Interestingly, I felt resonances between both of these stories and “Chevengur”, in that both contain elements which feature in the larger work. The love of machines, the clash between old and new, science and nature is a strong theme at the start of that novel. And the need to reconstruct things after conflict also appears in “Chevengur”, so I did end up feeling that Platonov wove most of his recurring obsessions into his great novel.

But that’s by the by. These two stories were powerful and memorable, and I’m so glad that I had the chance to read them for for 1937. It’s sometimes the easy option for our clubs to focus on English-language originals, but so far this week I’ve managed to get some translated works in – and hopefully that will continue as the club progresses!!