Product Description

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of ‘N’, visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these ‘souls’ as collateral to re-invent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. Dead Souls, Russia’s first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12242 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-29
• Original language: Russian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

About the Author
Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was born in the Ukraine and left for St Peterburg at the age of 19 where he published a collection of short stories and for a short time held the post of professor of history at the university. Gogol's experience of life in St Petersburg informed his savagely satirical play, The Government Inspector, and a series of brilliant short stories including Nevsky Prospekt and Notes of a Madman. From 1836 to 48, Gogol lived abroad, mainly in Rome, where he was working on his comic epic Dead Souls - a work he wrestled with for the rest of his life before renouncing literature and burning parts of the manuscript shortly before he died. Robert A Maguire is Professor and Head of Department at Columbia University. He is the prize-winning translator of Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Indiana UP, 1979) and several contemporary Polish poets, author of Exploring Gogol (1996) and editor of Gogol from the Twentieth Century (1995). He has received a Ford Foundation Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and several awards for his service to his field of study and his published works.

Customer Reviews

Classic Russian lit that's funny and very readable
This is a deservedly famous book by a great but troubled author. 'Dead Souls' was in fact just the first novel in a planned trilogy, as Gogol went mad and died, having destroyed most of part two, before completing his grand plan.

What's left is a bizarre, unique and often amusing story about a man travelling through provincial Tsarist Russia, buying dead souls (ie serfs who had died but were still listed as alive), as part of a large scale con. The characters he encounters on his way are very memorable and brilliantly drawn, and the style teeters on the edge of absurdity without ever quite toppling over. Also included are tantalising fragments of the beginning of book two, but this novel stands on its own, and has the most wonderful, magical ending.

'Dead Souls' is well worth a read as it is an accessible classic of Russian literature without the heavy, doom laden psychology of Dostoyevsky or the vast panorama and cast of characters employed by Tolstoy. You will never read anything else like this one.

Tragically unfinished
Gogol toppled into madness and died before he could finish this novel, and only the first book of the three is fully completed. The second he purportedly completed, before destroying in a moment of religious fanaticism. Consequently there is only about a third of what he apparently composed here, and a tiny fraction of his proposed third part.
I've long been a fan of Russian literature, and have recently been plodding through Lermontov and Turgenev, who are made to seem pale beside Gogol, although they are undoubtedly brilliant authors. 'Dead Souls' is more comic than many a Russian novel, and sits more in line with Dostoevsky in his more existential themes (there are big parallels with Kafka thematically too). I won't cover the plot of the novel here (others have already done that), but simply recommend this as one of the essential works of Russian literature. Tragically, one can only imagine how phenomenal the completed version would have been.

A distinctively Russian classic
One of the finest works of Russian literature, Gogol's DEAD SOUL epitomizes Russian soul at its purest, funniest, finest, richest, dreaririest, most charming and most hopeless state. Gogol utterly ridicules the Russian gentry in the middle of the 19th century in this story, centering on some dreadfully banal people who are trying to pull off a fraud. Exemplified by Chichikov who may be dividedly considered a scoundrel and a hero, Gogol portrayed to what length people can go to secure interests or benefits against over fellow humans considered to be of a lesser class. It is unfortunate that Gogol never finished this story. Overall, this amazingly entertaining classical novel deserves the highest of respects. In addition to UNION MOUJIK, TARAS BULBA, I also recommend classic Russian Stories like DEMONS, FATHERS AND SONS, and THE CHERRY ORCHARD. Once you get into Russian literature, you get to appreciate its supremacy.