Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett

Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett

Category: Classic

Narrator: Nicholas Boulton

Tags: Classic, Literature

Duration: 14 hrs and 54 mins, [Translated by Constance Garnett], Dead Souls takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead souls, or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogols characters. Gogols obsession with attempting to display the untold riches of the Russian soul eventually led him to madness, religious mania, and death. Dismissed by him as merely a pale introduction to the great epic poem which is taking shape in my mind, Dead Souls is the culmination of Gogols genius. Despite supposedly completing the trilogys second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence, it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form., ******, Please s