I was recommended this book by a friend, and I'm very glad she did. It's a marvellous, though unfinished, study of Russian country society in the nineteenth century - their characters, their characteristics, their foibles and their concerns. Running through it all is the quest by the protagonist to purchase the so-called dead souls of each estate he passes through, so as to claim for a mortgage based on how many people he reports as his. It's all very clever, and twisted too, in that typically Russian way. ( )

Some have compared this book to the Divine Comedy. The main characters journey through early 19th century Russia. Dead Souls refers to serfs (slaves) that have died. In Russia, landowners had slaves that were counted decennial for the cenus. The landowners were taxed for these slaves, also referred to as souls, every year, even if they were dead. Chichikov, our "hero", develops a scheme to purchase these dead souls as if they were living. Therefore, relieving the burden from the landowners who can then reduce their tax load. The secret is the main character can cash in on these souls by mortgaging them to buy land, although he only wants to appear as a good citizen who is relieving the tax load from landownders. The plot is only to display Russia during this time period, very much like Huckleberry Finn does for late 19th century. more to come.//.. ( )

An entertaining read. Gogol depicts feudal Russian society in excruciating detail and makes fun of all the landowners and their love of the fraudulent protagonist, a man whom I can't empathize with at all. Add a very self-referential narrator who interjects things like "and now it is time for us to continue our story..." after lengthy diatribes and it felt very modern. OTOH, not the kind of introspective poetic work I like to read. I didn't see it go beyond social satire. ( )

Chichikov, a portly, middle-aged former civil servant, travels around the Russian countryside with his driver and footman buying up the names of dead peasants so that he can mortgage them later and thus improve his position, fraudulently, in society. This basic premise is less a plot than an excuse to present to the reader the real matter of the story: encounters with humorous and eccentric landowners. The novel is a picaresque, a ludic compendium of irrelevant but highly rewarding and entertaining detail and digression.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this strange book is its structure, and the huge disparity between parts one and the incomplete part two. From the beginning we are immediately plunged into the story with Chichikov’s arrival in the town of N...

Read the full review on The Lectern:

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2008/1... ( )

1761 Dead Souls, by Nicolai V. Gogol translated by George Reavey (read 22 Jan 1983) This was published in the 1840's and Gogol died in 1852. I surely did not think much of the book. It is a tale that tells me nothing profound. But I guess I don't get much from 19th century Russian works. ( )