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Abstract:

The article examines some absurd structures in A. Platonov’s novel “The Foundation Pit.” As there is no elaborated definition of the absurd yet, we propose that the effect of the absurd results from the incommensurability of two levels, the level of common sense and rationality and the level of phenomena that lie beyond our everyday experience and logic. As Joseph Brodsky argues, Platonov’s variant of the absurd differs from the individualistic absurd of Beckett or Kafka, being determined by the consciousness of the masses of his epoch. According to Brodsky Platonov reveals the philosophy of the deadlock in the language itself. An oustanding example of Platonov’s absurd is his novel “The Foundation Pit” which might be looked upon as the author’s answer to the absurd situation of reality around him. It is not by accident that the novel focusses on the search for truth and sense. On this basis the paradoxical semantics of inedequate surrogates of truth / sense such as ideological consciousness, enthusiasm or the movement of the proletariat, appears.