Dead Souls - Wyrms.de

Paperback, 354 pages

English language

Published Nov. 5, 2017 by Alma Classics.

ISBN:: 978-1-84749-628-7

A mysterious stranger named Chichikov arrives in a small provincial Russian town and proceeds to visit a succession of landowners, making each of them an unusual and somewhat macabre proposition. He offers to buy the rights to the dead serfs who are still registered on the landowner's estate, thus reducing their liability for taxes. It is not clear what Chichikov's intentions are with the dead serfs he is purchasing, and despite his attempts to ingratiate himself, his strange behaviour arouses the suspicions of everyone in the town.

A biting satire of social pretensions and pomposity, Dead Souls has been revered since its original publication in 1842 as one of the funniest and most brilliant novels of nineteenth-century Russia. Its unflinching and remorseless depiction of venality in Russian society is a lasting tribute to Gogol's comic genius.

A mysterious stranger named Chichikov arrives in a small provincial Russian town and proceeds to visit a succession of landowners, making each of them an unusual and somewhat macabre proposition. He offers to buy the rights to the dead serfs who are still registered on the landowner's estate, thus reducing their liability for taxes. It is not clear what Chichikov's intentions are with the dead serfs he is purchasing, and despite his attempts to ingratiate himself, his strange behaviour arouses the suspicions of everyone in the town.

A biting satire of social pretensions and pomposity, Dead Souls has been revered since its original publication in 1842 as one of the funniest and most brilliant novels of nineteenth-century Russia. Its unflinching and remorseless depiction of venality in Russian society is a lasting tribute to Gogol's comic genius.

52 editions

nerd teacher [books] reviewed Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Definitely Not For Me

2 stars

I do not have the patience to deal with this book, and I think it requires a great deal more than patience to endure it. I like the concept of it, but I find it tedious beyond measure. The repetition is fine until it feels excruciating. Reading this felt like my ability to enjoy a book was being destroyed, even as I kept pushing myself to read because the premise is something I know I enjoy.

I have to wonder how much of that is the responsibility of the translation. I often find myself wondering this with Russian books because the translations often feel so incredibly flat and dull in their presentation, even of interesting events, that I'm baffled by it. This has rarely been the case for me with books translated to English from any other language, so I do have to wonder to what extent this translation …

I do not have the patience to deal with this book, and I think it requires a great deal more than patience to endure it. I like the concept of it, but I find it tedious beyond measure. The repetition is fine until it feels excruciating. Reading this felt like my ability to enjoy a book was being destroyed, even as I kept pushing myself to read because the premise is something I know I enjoy.

I have to wonder how much of that is the responsibility of the translation. I often find myself wondering this with Russian books because the translations often feel so incredibly flat and dull in their presentation, even of interesting events, that I'm baffled by it. This has rarely been the case for me with books translated to English from any other language, so I do have to wonder to what extent this translation made the story less enjoyable (because I cannot know, as I can't read Russian).