Customer Reviews

Dead Souls: A Novel

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Perhaps no other novel requires a more exacting translation than Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls." This translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky isn't bad, but it gives the book the Pevear/Volokhonsky treatment ... read their translations of The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina and Dead Souls back to back and you'd think they were written by the same novelist (well, if you're from Mars and had never heard of the books beforehand, that is.)

But as Vladimir Nabokov pointed out in his lectures of "Dead Souls", the greatest of all translations was by Bernard Gilbert Guerney. This version of Dead Souls was recently revised by Susanne Fusso for Yale University Press and I recommend it highly.

So why does translation matter? Because as Nabokov points out in Lectures on Russian Literature, "Dead Souls" is more poem than novel. The plot to "Dead Souls" is almost entirely beside the point ... it all pretty much goes in a circle (by the way, The Wire - The Complete Third Season" was modeled on this style.) Where this novel shines is in its haunting and evocative language. Nabokov points out several mind-blowing techniques that Gogol employs ... one is to take an object, create a metaphor about that object to explain it's importance, introduce another object in that metaphor, then compare the second object to a person ... this being a new character, introduced via a highly elegant segue.

The Pevear/Volokhonsky version picks up most of this, but there are some dreadful "Dead Souls" adaptations out there (especially thisDead Souls version that truncates the action and misses the poetry altogether. Especially awful is this Dead Souls audiobook that Amazon.com correctly calls abridged, but both Audible.com and iTunes label unabridged.

"Dead Souls" is a deceptively dense book. I recommend reading it along with Nabokov's lectures to get the full effect. Also, don't be deceived into reading the so-called sequel ... Gogol wished these disjointed new tales to be burned at his death and most critics agree, for good reason.

Dead Souls is the finest Russian novel I have read. Its characters are vividly detailed and intensely amusing, yet Gogol spends the novel tempting the reader to peer behind the slapstick humor of the story and see something far more significant and sinister. I've bought the book for several friends and am reading it for the second time myself. The Pevear-Volokhonsky translation is best - it contains helpful, well written notes and uses words like 'snookums' to bring home the endearing hilarity of the original.

Gogol is the master of imagery; in _Dead Souls_ he also shows his skills at hyperbole and satire, showing the vanity and ridiculousness of the Russian gentry in the middle of the 19th century.

The plot of the story revolves around a newcomer to an unnamed Russian village (immeadiately under susupicion being an "outsider"), who manages to charm his way into the local scene as a "harmless fellow." Yet soon his plans are revealed: he wishes to purchase the "souls" of dead serfs, the better to establish himself as a member of the landed gentry.

Gogol's masterpiece is almost Dickensian in its character development (and in the personalities of some of the characters), but on a deeper level comments on the superfulousness of appearance. It is a wonderful, witty and thoroughly enjoyable read. Highly recommended.

Translators of Gogol are often said to do more harm than justice to his works - Russia's greatest humorist often end up more pompous than funny, and despite the many number of translations of his masterpiece Dead Souls, very few non-native readers can get at that elusive hilarity of Nikolai Gogol. So it is with this translation of Pevear and Volokhonsky. Accurate to the lexicon and syntax of the original, it yet fails to register the gripping tone of Gogol's original, and the most cardinal of sins - in Pevear's and Volokhonsky's hands, Gogol is just *not* funny. It's a little like translating Dickens without getting any of his comic genius across. Once again, Pevear and Volokohonsky's works get lauded to the skies (uncritically) all over America. To be very truthful, their translations of Dostoevsky is superb, but their translation of anything else in Russian classics - from Tolstoy to Chekhov to Gogol - is mediocre at best.

Before you go any further, please note that only the first "volume" of this novel is worth reading, and you can stop reading at that point without missing a thing. Apparently, Gogol had intended to write three full volumes, but several times in the middle of writing the second volume he burned his manuscripts and by then his "genius" period had passed. P and V's edition only has sketches of the second volume. There are missing pages and missing chapters and unfinished sentences. Reading the second volume was a huge let down. The spark was entirely gone.

Having said that, the first volume was an absolute pleasure to read. Spend time savoring the delicious descriptive flourishes of Gogol as he follows his protagonist, Chichikov, on his journey through rural Russia buying the legal rights to Russian serfs who have passed away. You can only imagine what he's up to.

You can almost hear Gogol chucking as he spins one short tale after another. There is not much action in the 250 page first volume. All the genius and all the pure reading pleasure comes in Gogol's writing style, attitude, and wry humor. It just overwhelms you.

I had a hard time figuring out if Gogol was trying to comment on the larger issue of the state of Russian serfdom in 1840, when he wrote this novel. There are definitely short sections where he stands up for the dignity of these poor souls. He definitely sees the serfs as human beings and not mere chattel. Read the book carefully, but it seems like Gogol may have been trying to slip this theme under the radar screens of the censors who initially made Gogol revise certain portions of his book.

I have no idea how others have translated this text, but I gather that Gogol is one of the more difficult Russian authors to translate. In this respect, P and V have done an excellent job capturing the spirit of Gogol. P and V have also done a translation of Gogol's short stories, which is excellent. You may want to consider buying this too. It includes his famous short story "The Nose" among many other worthwhile works.

Savor the first volume; it goes fast. It's a shame we will never have the second or third.

PS If you get a chance, the Kazimir Malevich painting reporduced multiple times on the cover of the book is in the "Russia!" exhibit at the MoMA. (The painting is supposed to represent a serf.) It was a great show. Go see it.

Pevear and Volokhonsky have done it again. Another fine translation of a Russian classic. The art of the Russian novel begins with "Dead Souls," although Gogol himself likened this great work to a poema. Upon its first release, "Dead Souls" immediately won a place in the Russian heart. Chichikov and the various characters that he came in contact with in this strange journey became Russian archetypes. Unfortunately, Gogol could never bring Chichikov's adventures to a close, but this novel does not suffer for it.

What makes the P&V translation stand out are the numerous reference notes, so that one can understand the many allusions that Gogol makes. P&V have masterfully rendered Gogol's protean metaphors and delightful similes, so that one can sense the poetic nature in which this novel has been written.

The "demonic" plot is most intriguing but what really carries this story are the many wonderful characters that Gogol has artfully rendered, each trying to figure out why Chichikov is so interested in buying their "dead souls," deceased serfs that are still on the census and therefore subject to taxes.

Years ago, I was in love with Jane Austen. Now, I love Gogol. I'll say it. He makes me laugh. He's a funny guy. He's the kind of guy that you want to meet when you're walking down the street. I will gladly sell my dead peasant souls to this Chichikov. I won't argue, I won't complain about the exchange rates. Gogol is a mad, runaway genius, and when I am on my deathbed I will say to my children: Gogol made it all worthwhile.

First things first: Was your mouth watering every time you read they were having "cabbage soup"? Not that cabbage soup is something to lust over but because Gogol can make it so. (Why, Gogol can make a vegetarian crave for a "sucking pig".)

Now, Dead Souls: What an incredible satire on Russian character and tradition!

When I read Gogol's stories, The Madman's Diary, The Coat etc. I called him "a crazy person". I meant it as a compliment. I was referring to his creativity, his choice of odd subject matters and characters, his unique ability to reveal problems in bureaucracy with hilarious satire. I did not know that he eventually really went mad, in the more common sense that we use the term.

Dead Souls has two parts. First part is complete (and published in Gogol's time) and as good as a satiric novel can get. Second part is interrupted with many notes by the editor such as: "Part of the manuscript is missing here". What a shame!

According to an explanation on the cover of the book, the first part of Dead Souls had taken Gogol eight years to write. While writing the second part of the book, Gogol expands his vision and the goal of the book. He imagines a great book consisting of three parts in which he will get to tell the story of Russians from all walks of life.

It is interesting to note that Balzac, who was Gogol's contemporary (Balzac: 1799-1850, Gogol: 1809-1852), also envisioned a similar massive work. From Herbert J. Hunt's introduction to Balzac's "Lost Illusions":

"By about 1830 he had already conceived the idea of presenting the social and moral history of his own times in a complex series of novels and short stories: he also intended it to be an interpretation of life and society as he saw it, ..."

The only difference between Balzac's and Gogol's ambitious grand projects was that Gogol's was going to have one character (Chichikov) that would connect all the sub-stories and essentially consist of one book (of three volumes), whereas Balzac's was going to contain many independent pieces combined under the title "The Human Comedy" but could be read as individual books.

It killed them both. Balzac literally worked himself to death. Gogol, obsessed with his to-be masterpiece, `a palace of colossal dimensions', he imagined to solve Russia's problems and with his work losing its boundaries, he lost his mind, burnt most of what he had written after the publication of part one, and committed suicide.

The idea of Dead Souls was initially Pushkin's. According to what Gogol has written in his "Author's Confession", Alexander Pushkin had given his own subject to Gogol and had said that he would not have given it to anyone else. I am sure all literature lovers are grateful to Pushkin for this. Nobody else could have done justice to Chichikov and nobody else could have given us such a magnificent black humour book filled with hilarious dialogues and observations of the absurd.

I can open the book up at random, and read a hilarious scene or a dialogue, and what I read will be ridiculous but true. Gogol was a very intelligent observer. He only needed to exaggerate just slightly to get the comic effect. Take for instance the episode where Chichikov's three-horse carriage gets tangled up with a six-horse carriage. Can't you just visualize the racket that followed? Uncle Mityay and Uncle Minyay trying to untangle the harnesses with an entire village shouting and giving advise? Ridiculously funny and ridiculously real.

Towards the end of the book, Gogol leans towards solving Russia's problems by choosing villages over towns, a simple existence over an educated one, and religion over everything else. This doesn't work of course, but doesn't take away from the brilliance of the book. In the character Kostanjoglo, we see Gogol idolizing the perfect landowner and the solution to all of Russia's problems. Here, it is hard to say if Gogol is pulling the reader's leg or if he is being serious. We know that Gogol was not against serfdom, which, one can easily argue, was the root of many of Russia's problems, but if Gogol is seriously offering us Kostanjoglo's philosophies as solutions, then why does he make him as comic a character as anyone else? Does he want us to take Kostanjoglo seriously, a man who doesn't believe in any advancement, any education, any new technology, any progress?

After Kostanjoglo, comes the religious solution in the shape of Murazov. In these fragmented parts of the book, we clearly see the religious obsession that took hold over Gogol and eventually caused him to burn the rest of his manuscript. Had Gogol finished his book (or had he not burnt the manuscript), then maybe Dead Souls was not going to be as immortal (pun intended) as we accept it to be today. Gogol was capable of ruining this masterpiece with pro-serfdom, anti-progress and religious "solutions".

However, regardless of Gogol's declining sanity that is being reflected in the last bits and pieces of the book, Dead Souls remains a masterpiece and Gogol a genius. I think if he had continue to do what he does best, observe acutely and narrate hilariously, he might have indeed be capable of solving all of Russia's problems.

Don't let the fact that this is an incomplete book stop you from reading it. Just think of it as typical Gogol, because even before going mad and burning manuscripts, Gogol had the habit of leaving his stories in the middle. One of his short stories start with a warning: "This story is missing the end." And Gogol is not kidding. When you get to the end, you find out that the end is missing.

This new translation of N Gogol's "Dead Souls", and a book of his short stories, are a major step forward in getting to the heart of Gogol's own writing of that great book. No other translation has been able bring out the humuor which so pervades the whole, in the original; it really is a laughing matter at last. It is also well worth reading the excellent Introduction to this Everyman edition.

Nikolai Gogol has a very creative mind as well as a unique style of writing. While reading Dead Souls, one is more likely to view the world from Gogol's point of view than his own. His writing contradicts everything Americans think they know about Russian literature. This book is a discussion of a world whose values are radically flexible. Though the concept can be frightening to those who do not take time to ask questions about their lives, Gogol has used crazy comic genius to exhibit an honest and impartial view on what is known today as "The Human Race." His book shows that humans' actions are motivated by greed and that the idea of money does not have any real significance because the value of everything that is sold is created by the human who is selling it. Gogol has also written the book in such a way that every single sentence is a universe of its own.

Dead Souls takes place in the Russia of the late 1800s, where, unlike in America, one must be born into a prosperous family in order to have opportunities. The main character, Chichikov, is clever enough to develop a scheme in which he can rise from being a petty clerk to a respected landowner. In order to do this, Chichikov moves into a new town, pretending to already be a landowner, and begins a quest to buy the names of dead serfs who have not yet been officially reported dead. Each person that Chichkov presents this offer to has a different reaction, starting with the shy and introverted Manilov. Though he does not understand Chichikov's need for the names of these dead serfs, Manilov is a character that is so desperate for company that it does not take any effort to trick him into selling his dead souls cheaply. However, as Chichikov continues his journey, he starts to deal with more clever landowners who become suspicious of his scheme.

Chichikov finds that the townsmen known as Sobakevich and Nozdrev are much harder to negotiate with. This is because they are more and attempt to trick Chichikov even though in truth, Chichikov is the one who is playing the trick on them. Nozdrev agrees to sell Chichikov his serfs under the condition that he can sell him something else along with the serfs, such as a horse or a pair of hunting dogs. Chichikov, of course, refuses the offer because he owns no land and has nowhere to keep any horses or dogs. Because of this, Nozdrev curses Chichikov and orders two of his guards to beat him up. However, by sheer luck, the police show up at that exact time to arrest Nozdrev because of crimes he committed in the past. Seeing this, Chichikov runs away and immediately sets off to visit Sobakevich. In his encounter with Sobakevich, Chichikov offers him less than one hundredth of what Sobakevich claims is the rightful price. However, the reason for Sobakevich's logic is that he claims the serfs have just as much value now that they are dead as they did when they were alive. In the end, however, Chichikov's stubbornness surmounts Sobakevich's absurd logic and Chichikov ends up buying the souls for the price he offered.

Unfortunately, as they say, "there is no such thing as a perfect crime." In the end of Dead Souls, Chichikov is stabbed in the back by the people he does business with, and does not get away with his ingenious plan. The main thing that Gogol is proving in his novel is that the entire human race is very similar to Chichikov; their interest lies in money and in prosperity. So if human beings are constantly trying to outsmart each other, a perfect society will never be obtained.