Dead Souls A Poem (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Nikolai Gogol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199554668 ISBN 13: 9780199554669

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2009

Synopsis

'Rus! Russ!...Everything within you is open, desolate, and flat; your squat towns barely protrude above the level of your wide plains, marking them like little dots, like specks; here is nothing to entice and fascinate the onlooker's gaze. Yet whence this unfathomable, uncanny force that draws me to you?'

Although Dead Souls (1842) was largely composed by Gogol during self-imposed exile in Italy in the late 1830s, his last work remains to this day the most essentially Russian of all the great novels in Russian literature. As we follow its hero Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned unscrupulous confidence man, about the Russian countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise, there unfolds before us a gallery of characters worthy in comic range of Chaucer, Rabelais, Fielding and Sterne. With its rich and ebullient language, ironic twists and startling juxtapositions, Dead Souls stands as one of the most dazzling and poetic masterpieces of the nineteenth century. This brilliant new translation by Christopher English is complemented by a superb introductory essay by the pre-eminent Gogol scholar, Robert Maguire.

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About this title

Review:

A socially adept newcomer fluidly inserts himself into an unnamed Russian town, conquering first the drinkers, then the dignitaries. Everyone finds him amiable, estimable and agreeable, but what exactly is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov up to? Something, it transpires, that will soon throw the town "into utter perplexity".

After more than a week of entertainment and "passing the time, as they say, very pleasantly", he gets down to business--heading off to call on some landowners. More pleasantries ensue before Chichikov reveals his bizarre plan. He'd like to buy the souls of peasants who have died since the last census. The first landowner looks carefully to see if he's mad, but spots no outward signs. In fact, the scheme is innovative but by no means bonkers. Even though Chichikov will be taxed on the supposed serfs, he will be able to count them as his property and gain the reputation of a gentleman owner. His first victim is happy to give up his souls for free--less tax burden for him. The second, however, knows Chichikov must be up to something, and the third has his servants rough him up. Nonetheless, he prospers.

Dead Souls is a feverish anatomy of Russian society (the book was first published in 1842) and human wiles. Its author tosses off thousands of sublime epigrams--including, "However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man," and is equally adept at biting satire: "Where is he," Gogol interrupts the action, "who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life?" Flannery O'Connor, another writer of dark genius, declared Gogol "necessary along with the light". Though he was hardly the first to envision property as theft, his blend of comedy, the fantasy and morality is sui generis. --Kerry Fried

About the Author:

Robert A. Maguire is Bakmeteff Professor of Russian Studies at Columbia University, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199554668
• ISBN 13: 9780199554669
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496