It takes a little while to figure out what is going on in Andrey Platonov's The Foundation Pit , but about midstream this seemingly dry story takes an unlikely absurdist turn, when he describes how the horses had begun to under collectivism and were now taking their straw and putting it into a communal pile where they all ate together. Like Tolstoy and Chekhov, Platonov recognizes the value of conveying his themes through animals as well as people, although in the case of this short novel, it seems all life forms and even the dead have been reduced to the same level of abject poverty as collectivism sweeps the Bolshevik nation. The original translation feels a bit dry, but Robert Chandler eventually captures the absurd spirit.of the novel, as Platonov skewers the ambitions of the early Soviet state by showing how a small town tries to come together in a collective spirit after purging the notorious Kulaks. As is noted in this article by Karen Vanuska, Platonov relies hea...