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Nikolai Gogol

Dead Souls

Dead Souls is Nikolai Gogol’s last novel, and follows the tale of Pavel Chichikov, a down-on-his-luck gentleman determined to improve his lot in life. The story charts his scheme to purchase dead souls—the titles of deceased serfs—from wealthy landowners.
The novel’s satirical take on the state of Russian society at the time leads Chichikov into increasingly difficult circumstances, in his attempts to cheat the both the system and the cavalcade of townspeople he meets along the way.
Originally planned as a trilogy, Gogol apparently only completed the first two parts, and destroyed the latter half of the second part before his death. The novel as it stands ends in mid sentence but is regarded as complete.
529 printed pages
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
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Impressions

  • Heine Melkevikshared an impression7 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    🎯Worthwhile
    🚀Unputdownable

    The masterpiece of Gogol - until 90% into the book it is truly amazing and then the growing lunacy of Gogol can be seen and the book fall a bit apart.

  • Leenashared an impression3 years ago
    👍Worth reading

Quotes

  • rebeklyhas quoted3 days ago
    “To at­tain any­thing, Paul Ivan­ovitch, one needs to have been born un­der a lucky star.”
  • rebeklyhas quoted3 days ago
    Ah, it is a com­mon thing for a man who is tak­ing a sol­it­ary walk so to de­tach him­self from the irk­some real­it­ies of the present that he is able to stir and to ex­cite and to pro­voke his ima­gin­a­tion to the con­cep­tion of things he knows can never really come to pass!
  • rebeklyhas quoted3 days ago
    He also dreamed of little des­cend­ants who should per­petu­ate the name of Chichikov; per­haps a frol­ic­some little boy and a fair young daugh­ter, or pos­sibly, two boys and quite two or three daugh­ters; so that all should know that he had really lived and had his be­ing, that he had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for him and his the coun­try should never be put to shame

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