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Dead Souls (Classics) (Paperback)

by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Author), D. Magarshack (Translator) "A FAIRLY smart, medium-sized chaise on springs rolled through the gates of an inn of the provincial town of N ..." (more)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New impression edition (28 Jan 1971)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140441131
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140441130
  • Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 58,696 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > The Classics > Gogol, Nikolai

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

A socially adept newcomer fluidly inserts himself into an unnamed Russian town, conquering first the drinkers, then the dignitaries. Everyone finds him amiable, estimable and agreeable, but what exactly is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov up to? Something, it transpires, that will soon throw the town "into utter perplexity".

After more than a week of entertainment and "passing the time, as they say, very pleasantly", he gets down to business--heading off to call on some landowners. More pleasantries ensue before Chichikov reveals his bizarre plan. He'd like to buy the souls of peasants who have died since the last census. The first landowner looks carefully to see if he's mad, but spots no outward signs. In fact, the scheme is innovative but by no means bonkers. Even though Chichikov will be taxed on the supposed serfs, he will be able to count them as his property and gain the reputation of a gentleman owner. His first victim is happy to give up his souls for free--less tax burden for him. The second, however, knows Chichikov must be up to something, and the third has his servants rough him up. Nonetheless, he prospers.

Dead Souls is a feverish anatomy of Russian society (the book was first published in 1842) and human wiles. Its author tosses off thousands of sublime epigrams--including, "However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man," and is equally adept at biting satire: "Where is he," Gogol interrupts the action, "who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life?" Flannery O'Connor, another writer of dark genius, declared Gogol "necessary along with the light". Though he was hardly the first to envision property as theft, his blend of comedy, the fantasy and morality is sui generis. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.



Product Description

Although largely composed by Gogol during self-imposed exile in Italy in the late 1830s, this work remains perhaps the most essentially "Russian" of novels. The reader follows Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned confidence man, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise.
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A flawed gem - caveat emptor, 30 Jun 2002
By D. Allan KING (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Not so much a review but a word of warning to other non-specialists out there, like myself.
I LOVED this book. Beautifully translated, with brilliant observations and wry humour, it is a very easy read ... until it stops. Gogol never completed the novel and a frustrating time is therefore had by the poor sap like me who wants to know "what happens next".
Don't give up on it because of this - what is there really IS worth it - just be warned!
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4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth it just for the laughs, 22 Jun 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Dead Souls (Paperback)
One of the drollest books imaginable.Drunkeness, absolute idiocy, and tender yet wildly misplaced poetry abound. It may be a bit macab, but the parables of manipulation and human foibles are so outrageously funny that one can skip much of the modernist movement and go straight for the fountainhead. What sets it apart is its originality, and what REALLY sets it apart is that Gogol, or the narrator, appears to be thoroughly unaware how droll the tone is, yet is still self-conscious and somewhat lyrical. Chichicov is the illegitimage grandson of Sancho. Kafka meets Beckett and gets runover by a tripping Marx. Nothing is sacred: A lying schemer is compared to a character in the Aeneid, and a group of men crowding around an pale faced demoiselle is compard to a bunch of flies flitting about sugar. Creative bliss to the maximum, and no need to wallow in meaning unless one is willing to write one's own parables as critiques. The outright antithesis of Hemingway.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Quite an easy read and humorous on one level, 29 May 2008
By John Hopper (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Despite its gloomy sounding title, this is actually quite funny on some levels, in terms of the verbal approaches Chichikov uses in order to deceive various landowners and make them give him money for the serfs who have died on their estates. At the same time, it is quite chilling in the casual assumptions of ownership over the lives and bodies of these serfs, treating them as so many possessions. I thought this book dragged slightly in the middle, but was mostly quite an easy read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A journey through characters
I got into this after reading some Dostoevsky and found Gogol does for rural Russia what Dostoevsky does for urban life. Read more
Published 21 months ago by nicholas hargreaves

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