972 reviews for:

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol

3.79 AVERAGE


Souls

gogol BURNED the ending of this book?!

The cut-off came at the perfect time. I was going towards 4.5 stars in the last 50 pages for a variety of reasons but if you really, and I mean REALLY, understood what Gogol was intending in this book, even if the cut-off was not intended, you would know why this is a perfect end.

I feel this is the end of an era. I absolutely left a part of my heart in this book.

(There is a re-imagined continuation with 60 pages written 5 years after Gogol's death in my copy. It is not available in other translations I have seen. I am not usually into these kind of things. I considered the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series to have ended with Douglas Adams life and I fear ruining the magic this book has on me right now by reading the continuation in someone else's pen, which I also feel would be irrelevant. I think it ended where it should have unless Gogol himself have imagined it differently. I might go back in a few years and read that final chapter. But for now, for me, Chichikov's story is satisfactory in how I understood the author to have intended the manuscript to come across).


This book has taken a duplex apartment in my head, rent free.
mysterious reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
funny reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous dark funny medium-paced
dark funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark slow-paced
funny reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
funny reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No