Dead Souls
ByPublisher Description
Dead Souls is Nikolai Gogol’s last novel, and follows the tale of Pavel Chichikov, a down-on-his-luck gentleman determined to improve his lot in life. The story charts his scheme to purchase dead souls—the titles of deceased serfs—from wealthy landowners.
The novel’s satirical take on the state of Russian society at the time leads Chichikov into increasingly difficult circumstances, in his attempts to cheat both the system and the cavalcade of townspeople he meets along the way.
Originally planned as a trilogy, Gogol apparently only completed the first two parts, and destroyed the latter half of the second part before his death. The novel as it stands ends in mid sentence but is regarded as complete.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesDead Souls Reviews
“4.5 ⭐ !!
"And it became clear just what sort of creature man is: wise, intelligent, and sensible in everything concerning others, but not himself."
I honestly had no idea whatsoever that a classic book displaying the roles of social hypocrisy in 19th-century Russia could cause me to laugh OUT LOUD on every other page, but here we are.
Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls follows the main protagonist, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a charismatic con-man, and how he tricks wealthy landowners to sell him the rights to their deceased serfs. Showing up in a small Russian town out of nowhere, Chichikov becomes very popular among the wealthy by putting on a cunning facade, tricking his new "friends" into involving themselves in illegal trading of their servants for his benefit. As the novel progresses, Gogol illustrates the effects of the fraudulence on not only the community, but Chichikov himself.
Ughhh, this book was just immaculate. I literally would be thinking about these characters IN CLASS, while trying to study, hanging out with friends... just all of the time. What always made me personally laugh out loud was the humor various characters unknowingly brought to the story. For example, my favorite character, Manilov, was obsessed with anything Chichikov was involved with. For example, after a long conversation with Manilov about buying the deceased serfs from his estate, Gogol wrote, "Manilov was so entranced by Chichikov"s phrases making that from sheer pleasure he merely shook his head from time to time in approbation, having lapsed into the state in which a lover of music finds himself when a soprano has outdone the violin and has squeaked out a note so delicate as to surpass the powers of even a songbirds throat.". (Gogol). He also "kisses Chichikov until his teeth hurt" on his head... so I am not sure what was going on there, but it was very funny.
Anyways, though, I would've probably rated this a 4.75-5 stars if it was completed, but if you didn't know, the latter half of Dead Souls' manuscript was destroyed in a fire days before Nikolai's death. Out of depression, religious guilt, and dissatisfaction of his work, he demolished the draft. It was so disappointing to me as Chichikov had just escaped jail due to his transgressions, and was turning a new leaf in his journey to becoming a better man, when the novel literally ends in the middle of the Prince's speech about morality. Like UGH!! I wanted to see his character arc so badly, but alas, I'll just have to accept that we'll never know if he finally achieved the life he strived to live.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to get into Russian literature, as it truly was easy to follow and very humorous.”About Nikolai Gogol
Petersburg Tales [fr] (1833–1842)
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (Russian: Никола́й Васи́льевич Го́голь, tr. Nikolay Vasil'yevich Gogol', Ukrainian: Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, romanized: Mykola Vasyl'ovych Hohol'; 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Other books by Nikolai Gogol
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