Dead Souls - Mille feuilles

Russian language

Published June 1, 1987

ISBN:: 978-5-05-001128-2

(1 review)

Dead Souls (Russian: «Мёртвые души» (pre-1918: Мертвыя души), Mjórtvyje dúshi) is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adventures of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov (Russian: Павел Иванович Чичиков) and the people whom he encounters. These people typify the Russian middle aristocracy of the time. Gogol himself saw his work as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book characterised it as a "novel in verse". Gogol intended the novel to be the first part of a three-volume work, but burned the manuscript of the second part shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is regarded by some as complete in the extant form.

5 editions

4thace@books.theunseen.city reviewed Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Fascinating use of language to criticize social conventions

4 stars

This is different from the other nineteenth century novels I have read because what it chiefly concerns itself with has nothing to do with plot or grand themes or family dynamics. It travels restlessly through the Russian countryside showing extraordinary characters in all their obsessive preoccupations and self-destructive ways leaving no class out. The author delights in skewering the pettiness of his characters, not leaving the the main character Chichikov out, frequently through their own utterances. Only after a few hundred pages of this does the reader learn what the Dead Souls scheme Chichikov has been putting together was about and understand what kind of avarice and laziness he embodies. Towards the last section there are several gaps in the story, either destroyed by the author or simply lost to us, so one is forced to piece together the other crimes this character is accused of as falls to his …

This is different from the other nineteenth century novels I have read because what it chiefly concerns itself with has nothing to do with plot or grand themes or family dynamics. It travels restlessly through the Russian countryside showing extraordinary characters in all their obsessive preoccupations and self-destructive ways leaving no class out. The author delights in skewering the pettiness of his characters, not leaving the the main character Chichikov out, frequently through their own utterances. Only after a few hundred pages of this does the reader learn what the Dead Souls scheme Chichikov has been putting together was about and understand what kind of avarice and laziness he embodies. Towards the last section there are several gaps in the story, either destroyed by the author or simply lost to us, so one is forced to piece together the other crimes this character is accused of as falls to his lowest point. And then as things are turning, it all comes to a stop. The reader just has to imagine how things might play out from the hints left behind and know what a monumental work the complete story could have been if it had been finished. It has influenced writers ever since, including Mikhail Bulgakov whose work The Master and Margarita I reread not long back. The economy and precision of the language was a pleasure to listen to, so I did not feel too upset not to receive a proper ending.