Between the Forge and the Assembly Line: The Time of the Tool in the Work of Andrei Platonov

Drawing on the novel Chevengur, as well as the short stories "The Old Mechanic," "In the Wonderful and Furious World," and "The Homeland of Electricity," the essay describes a fabricistic chronotopos in Andrei Platonov's prose. This chronotopos is characterized by a tension between two temporal models of technical operativity: one based upon craftsmanship, and the other upon industry. Platonov's technicians are divided between these incompatible models. The ideal of an almost Heideggerian "caring" and "careful" contact with the tool captured by a notion of craftsmanship (umenie) results in monstrous discrepancies to dysfunctional aestheticism. Platonov's technicians act "anachronistically": they do not find adequate time for a synthesis of handicraft and industry.