Dead Souls

De: Nikolai Gogol, C. J. Hogarth - translator

Narrado por: Arthur Morey

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town and visits a succession of landowners to make each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these "souls" as collateral to reinvent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Nikolai Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.

Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy. This version of Dead Souls is the translation by C. J. Hogarth.

Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Admired not only for its enduring comic portraits but also for its sense of moral purpose." ( Encyclopedia of Literature)

A Marvelous Portrayal of True Russia

Gogol, in his tragically uncompleted magnum opus, tells a wonderful episodic tale of a man on the prowl for souls. While the character of Chichikov is more than a little under-developed, he is not the man of interest to Gogol, the interest to him, and to use is the myriad of people that inhabit the worlds of Russia. While the may often come across as stereotyped somehow, they are no less vivid and no less delightful to watch as Chichikov attempts to gather his dead souls.

Morey does an admirable job bringing life to this admittedly dated translation. He breathes life into each of Chichikov's encounters. Sobakevich was a personal favorite, but one cannot go wrong with any of them.

The parts of the second book, while interesting, are missing so many large chunks, to my mind, unless you are looking to find the bits of inspiration that found Dostoevsky in his final, and arguably greatest work Brothers Karamazov, can be skipped without any real loss. There is a desperation to it. It was as if he realized that the first part had struck a chord and that expectation had made whatever he produced somehow perpetually unacceptable.

Gogol is a delight to read, I heartily recommend people start here for Gogol. It may be his longest world, but it wonderful and paints a wonderful, almost ethereal portrait of grand Mother Russia in the 19th century.

Precursor to crime and punishment and brothers K

Great narrator. Moral ideologies are very prevalent to modern times. The writing style is funny but can feel boring compared to novels that come even 20 years after. For its time period and ideology it’s definitely 10/10. As far as the noble millionaire I still believe it happens but only rarely. I believe that was Gogals opinion as well.

Captures absurdity of mid 19th century Russia

An absurd and brilliant satire. To think I avoided reading this novel for years because I thought it was going to be depressing. Ha! Dead Souls reminded me in many ways of the Odyssey + Don Quixote written by Mark Twain in a Russian prose poem. Gogol captures the absurdity of the mid-19th century Russia. Included in Gogol's satire/farce is an absurd and brilliant look at the corruption of the government, the stratification of society, the pretentiousness of the Russian middle-class, etc.

Anyway, the writing was amazing and D.J. Hogarth's translation seems to have held up very well. Arthur Morey narrates this text with both clarity and humor.

Dead Souls feels like a dead book

Thin plot, only sporadically comic, lots and lots of social commentary done without much nuance of lightness of touch. Plodding stuff.

Hilarious despite the textual difficulties

I've read a number of Russian authors over the years but for some reason had never read Gogol till I listened to this audiobook. I've been cheating myself. Gogol draws a sharply satirical and (at times) laugh-out-loud funny picture of the dysfunctional Russian society of the early 19th century. As a long-time fan of Arthur Morey, I found his narration congenial and entertaining.

There *are* some difficulties in the book. Some are the result of the translation: it's by C. J. Hogarth, who was active (some info in Wikipedia notwithstanding) in the early years of the 20th century. It's not old-fashioned so much as it is (sometimes) awkwardly literal. Many Russian terms are untranslated. A barin, for example - pronounced here bah-REEN - is a baron. A koliaska is a carriage. A chinovnik is a minor government official. At one point two characters make "osculatory salutations" - in other words, they kiss. It might be helpful to download one of the free ebook editions of the novel; at least one has footnotes explaining many of these terms and other references in the text.

The other major problem is that the novel is unfinished. The first part is intact and more or less complete in itself, but the second part has a number of significant gaps. As much as I like Morey's narration in general, I think it's a fair criticism, as others have said here, that he jumps over some of the gaps in the text without sufficient pause. (Of course, that may have been dictated by the producer or director rather than Morey himself.) At one point, just before a hiatus, the main character Chichikov is hurrying off to mediate a dispute involving a landowner named Lienitsin; after the hiatus, he and Lienitsin are discussing a possible partnership in Chichikov's scheme to commit massive fraud. It's not incoherent, but it does take some adjustment.

Despite the difficulties of Part Two, I recommend listening to the whole audiobook. The characters are wonderful, the dialogue is sparkling (despite the literalness of the translation), and I really did, on several occasions, laugh out loud.