Welcome to Litsy!

Almost instantly after injecting one syringeful of two-per cent solution, a state of calm sets in which turns straight away into delight and bliss. But this continues for only one or two minutes. And then it's all lost without trace, as if it had never been. Pain, dread, darkness set in. The spring roars, black birds fly from bare branch to bare branch, while in the distance the forest reaches towards the sky like bristles, broken and black...

...she undid a package, and out of it fell a long, snow-white towel with an artless red cockerel embroidered on it....

And for many years it hung in my bedroom in Muryino, and then it went with me on my wanderings. Finally it grew ragged, faded, became full of holes, and finally disappeared, fading and disappearing just like memories.

#PoetryMatters Day 16: #Unique

9th I have read on “tookies short perfect novels” this is beautifully written and terribly sad. is that not true of all great Russian literature. Interesting too in its structure of a retelling among friends over drinks. It‘s out of print and hard to find, took months to get from the library. Worth the wait and search. Wish I had a hard copy to keep. Maybe someday on travels I will stumble across a copy. It would be fitting.

I think he is right 😐

I had no idea about Andrey Platonov and his works; all I knew is that NYRB said that it‘s good and so I decided to read it. The Chandlers translated this novel and they translated Vasily Grossman‘s works so I trusted them. So I read the first chapter and thought “wow so this is about the famine period! This is going to be tough!” I then flipped to the translator‘s note and Robert Chandler‘s first sentence says 👇🏻

Quiet Tuesday evening 😍

Finally got to use the gift card I got for Mother‘s Day 😊

Recently I read the first part (as it was included in a book of Existentialist philosophers) and decided to go ahead and complete it.

As a work of fiction it is a tough read, being that it is essentially one long tirade. But as an audiobook narrated by George Guidall? It is fantastic. That‘s not to imply that it‘s not fantastic in both forms, but having it acted-and acted so expertly-greatly increased my comprehension