Wednesday, October 16, 2013

"Story of a Little Girl
With No Father or Mother
About a Cow"

There are few cows, since they get eaten.  A cow has legs at its four corners.  Beef patties are made from a cow, everybody gets one patty, but potatoes grow separately.  A cow gives milk herself; other animals try, but can't.  It's a pity they can't, it would be better if they could.  The girls are full of meat patty; they've gone to bed by themselves and they smell.  I'm bored.
--Andrey Platonov in a draft for Happy Moscow, reprinted in a footnote to the New York Review of  Books edition of the novel, "translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler and others," at 234-5.

2 comments:

The New York Crank said...

"The girls are full of meat patty; they've gone to bed by themselves and they smell. I'm bored."

He's bored? What about those of us who have to read him?

Very Crankily Yours,
The New York Crank

Buce said...

She. The little girl