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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
I'd heard Gogol's name referenced in so many different cultural settings lately, it seemed time to check out the actual writing. I've heard that his short stories are great and maybe I'll give them a whirl someday, but Dead Souls never grabbed me and I finally put it down about 2/3 the way through. I'm sure that in the time of its publication the social satire was razor sharp, but it's a tough sell in 21st century America. I was hoping for the universality of such Russian greats as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but ole' Nikolai just didn't deliver.
adventurous
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
medium-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
One of my favorite works of Russian Literature. I was expecting the book to be stiff and formal, as it was one of older Russian classics. I was surprised to find it to be the opposite. The writing felt more modern than many books published decades or even hundreds of years later. I could also tell that the author was especially original and Inspired. The characters were witty and wise. The story was intriguing. This felt like a truly creative work.
I liked the message of forgiveness and honesty for those we perceive as scoundrels. It can be easy to think of someone as being malevolent without looking deep into their circumstances. Most unjust actions are not performed with evil intentions.
Another message I appreciated was that one’s happiness and one’s wealth are not as connected as might be thought. The way to wealth was not the blind pursuit of access itself, but adherence to sound principles and self temperament. Those who had found this would not be perturbed by the loss of what they had built up.
An excellent work, it was only a pity that so many pages of the manuscript had been lost.
I liked the message of forgiveness and honesty for those we perceive as scoundrels. It can be easy to think of someone as being malevolent without looking deep into their circumstances. Most unjust actions are not performed with evil intentions.
Another message I appreciated was that one’s happiness and one’s wealth are not as connected as might be thought. The way to wealth was not the blind pursuit of access itself, but adherence to sound principles and self temperament. Those who had found this would not be perturbed by the loss of what they had built up.
An excellent work, it was only a pity that so many pages of the manuscript had been lost.
Based on the English translations I've read of Gogol's works, I am pretty confident that he is among the greatest prose stylists of the 19th century. "Dead Souls," his masterpiece, is a mordantly funny picaresque tale of Czarist Russia during the tumultuous period following the Napoleonic Wars. The main character, Chichikov, is a middle-class gentleman of uncertain background who devises a preposterous business scheme, involving the purchase of dead serfs (a.k.a "souls"), to climb up the ranks of society. At this time, the gentry had to pay a per capita tax on the serfs they owned, and the tax rate was based on the last census--so if any of your serfs died in the interim, you still had to pay taxes on them. As Chichikov goes around buying up dead serfs from the gentry, who are portrayed as eccentric, larger-than-life caricatures (e.g. the miser, the glutton, the card sharp, etc.), the details of his scheme are gradually revealed to the reader. There are painterly descriptions of Russian country houses and bureaucratic offices that provide a feast for your imagination. Gogol also interjects with long passages of metacommentary on subjects ranging from alleged national traits of Russians, French, etc. to the then-contemporary controversies about literary naturalism--in fact, in the last thirty pages or so, the plot is more or less suspended in favor of a free-flowing riff of lyricism and commentary. Gogol spent years working on a sequel to this novel, but could only manage to produce a rough and incomplete draft before he died--what a shame. As it is, Dead Souls stands as a unique work of fiction that is both wonderfully innovative and broadly accessible.
"And for a long while yet am I destined by some wondrous power to go hand-in-hand with my strange heroes, to contemplate life in its entirety, life rushing past in all its hugeness, amid laughter perceptible to the world and through tears that are unperceived by and unknown to it! And still distant is that time when, in another tonality, awesome inspiration will break forth like a storm from my head that is clothed in sacred horror and refulgence, and when one will sense, in abashed trepidation, the majestic thunder of other eloquent words....
Let us be getting on—on! Away with the frown that has overcast the brow and with the countenance of austere gloom! Let us plunge suddenly
and head first into life, with all its hollow clatter and jingle bells, and see what Chichikov is up to. "
Let us be getting on—on! Away with the frown that has overcast the brow and with the countenance of austere gloom! Let us plunge suddenly
and head first into life, with all its hollow clatter and jingle bells, and see what Chichikov is up to. "
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Incredibly boring and dull. The translation, I hope, fails to do justice to the original. The prose is clunky, tedious, exhausting. I laughed precisely once while reading this supposedly hilarious book. The narrator's calling attention to himself and his technique, the characters he enjoys drawing, and those he doesn't, is mildly entertaining, and was probably wildly innovative at the time, but the charm and novelty of that wears off very quickly, as the ridiculous and pointless story slogs on towards its utterly unrewarding "conclusion." I couldn't wait for this to be over.
funny
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
clever and funny... I laughed out loud so many times while reading. some passages are also so beautifully written, especially the one describing Plyushkin's garden and house.
Interesting notes: an underlying devil theme (chichikov as a devil? Plyushkin's estate as Hell, etc.), parallels to Dante's "Inferno" (apparently but I haven't read this), reading as a society tale, character representations of the deadly sins
I'm quite sad that Gogol didn't finish writing the entire story and burned part 2 but I appreciate what does exist
(I read half of the Guerney translation and half Maguire translation. enjoyed the Guerney translation way more; it reads more easily...Maguire has long continuous paragraphs)
Interesting notes: an underlying devil theme (chichikov as a devil? Plyushkin's estate as Hell, etc.), parallels to Dante's "Inferno" (apparently but I haven't read this), reading as a society tale, character representations of the deadly sins
I'm quite sad that Gogol didn't finish writing the entire story and burned part 2 but I appreciate what does exist
(I read half of the Guerney translation and half Maguire translation. enjoyed the Guerney translation way more; it reads more easily...Maguire has long continuous paragraphs)