Confluyen en Chevengur la atroz experiencia colectiva de la terrible sequía que golpeo las regiones mas ricas en cereales, en la primera mitad de la década de 1920, la idea de que el hombre es un ser metafísico y la visión apocalíptica -profundamente rusa- que no concibe la existencia de grandes esperanzas sin los holocaustos que las acompañan

(Original review, 1981-04-10)

Dino Buzzati's “The Tartar Steppe” disturbed me in the most elemental way. I found it extremely hard to finish yet I couldn't put it down. McCarthy's “Blood Meridian” is also unsettling, but in a glorious way. In some respects I found it very similar to “Moby Dick.” Finally, I'd nominate Andrei Platonov's novel Chevengur as one of the most parodic ans horrific horror stories that disturbs because of its truth:

"Chepurny and Piusya went off to make a personal inspection of the dead bourgeoisie. The dead were lying in clumps, in groups of three or four or even more, evidently trying to get close to one another, if only with parts of their bodies, during the last minutes of mutual separation. Chepurny touched the throats of the bourgeois with the back of his hand, the way a mechanic tests the temperature of a bearing, and it seemed to him that the bourgeois were all still alive.
'I knocked the soul out of Duvailo's neck just for good measure!' said Piusya.
'Quite right. The soul's in the throat,' Chepurny recalled. 'Why do you think the Cadets string us up by the throat? So the soul gets burned up by the rope - then you die good and proper! It's no good messing about, killing a man's not easy.'
Piusya and Chepurny felt every one of the bourgeois and remained unconvinced of their definitive death. Some of them seemed to be sighing; while others had their eyes half-closed as if they were shamming, meaning to crawl away in the night and continue their lives at the expense of Piusya and the rest of the proletariat. Chepurny and Piusya then decided to additionally insure the bourgeoisie against any continuation of life. They loaded their revolvers to the full and shot each prostrate property-owner, one by one, straight through the glands in their neck.
'Now our cause is assured!' said Chepurny once he'd got his task out of the way. 'No proletarian in the world can be poorer than a corpse.'"

Not since I read Isaac Babel's great story "Salt" did I encounter a more disturbing explication of the dehumanized mind of the would-be communist. ( )

E Letteratura.
Ci penso. Assimilo.
Una lettura pienamente soddisfacente.
Ci devo pensare :-) ( )

Men probeert in het fictieve Tsjevengoer de eerste jaren na de Russische revolutie het ware communisme te installeren. De bezittende klasse en de tegenstanders worden geliquideerd of weggestuurd, enkele mensen maken er de dienst uit, de nieuwe heersende klasse. Ze schaffen het werk af, want dat lijkt hun niet communistisch. Wat daarvoor in de plaats komt is de zaterdagse vrijwilligersdienst. De overblijvers hebben er geen idee van wat socialisme is. Ze halen andere proletariërs naar de verlaten stad om die wat te bevolken. De stad wordt uiteindelijk aangevallen.
Het boek is lang verboden geweest in de Sovjet Unie, omdat het een aanklacht tegen het communisme is, maar werd in de jaren tachtig toch uitgegeven. Platonov mocht vanaf de jaren dertig haast niets meer publiceren. ( )