Rating: 
Summary: funny book
Review: this is a very funny story of philistinism, of dreadfully banal people trying to pull of a perfectly dreadful crime. gogol rivals dickens for creating hilarious characters. i especially loved nozdryov, the russian 'everyman'. and gogol's portrayal of russian provincial society is delightful. too bad gogol never finished the book.
Rating:
Summary: excellent, witty and entertaining
Review: This is an amazingly entertaining novel-- and a classic of world literature.
Chichikov, a likable anti-hero, is buying up the deads to dead serfs so that he can use them as security on a large mortgage from the state. On the surface, this cunning, modern plot is entertaining. But what really is amazing is the characterization and narrative style-- it not only strikes chords in gread works in the Modernist school... it has features that are definitely post-modern. Without this book, it is likely that Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller or any of the great satirists of our time would have had to break the ground that Gogol broke.
Read this book!!!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This is my grandpa's Bible. He is Russian and claims that only other like-minded Russians could ever compute the pitter patter of Mother Russia's beating drum that resonates throughout the beautifully spun pages of Dead Souls. I started reading it myself and am totally blown away so far. I can't really comment on it further as I am opposed to analyzing great art.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly wonderful.
Review: This is not just a great story. This is not a dreary academic work your professor makes you read, afterwards exclaiming "Ah, but can you see ze PASSION! ze GENIUS!" This is the pinnacle of Russian literature, of the Russian language. Gogol intended this to be a ground-shattering, lasting epic in the style of Dante, with three books detailing Chichikov's evil, repentance and salvation, but we only have the first and bits of the second; Gogol was a very angst-ridden man, plagued with doubts about his self-worth, and a manipulative priest he knew convinced him to burn the second part and never start the third.So as a result, we're only left with the first part, a vicious, biting attack on the stagnation and hopelessness of Russian rural life. Gogol makes it come to life - the stupidity of the landowners, their utter dullness and incompetence, their avarice and worthlessness. It's amazing - but it should probably be read in Russian, as Russian is not something you can easily translate to English. Chichikov's crafty convoluted, Devilish scheme (Gogol intended to make him a sort of modern manifestation of the Devil) quickly becomes just a vehicle to take him around the country and meet all of these intellectually bankrupt scumbags who would have been really funny if they weren't drawn directly, 100% from real life. The book is given force by its _relevance_ to Russia and its truthfulness. It will amaze you - you will be appalled by the fact that such utter ignorant nonentities of the rural aristocracy still had land, power, and were considered owners of human beings. Social commentary never got better than this. Pushkin may have been an utter genius of literature all around, but Gogol can truly be called the father of Russian literature. Dostoyevsky, in fact, once said just that. This book is a work of unadulterated genius. In fact, it _is_ Russia in that time - it so perfectly captures the problems of the times. And yet, Gogol clearly loves his country despite hating the things that went on in it - just look at some of the beautiful, poetic passages when Chichikov is riding across the steppe. It's a beautiful, wintry story that has lost none of its appeal or relevance.
Rating:
Summary: A pilgrim's progress of a different sort.
Review: This is probably the best translation available. Guerney, who has Russian roots, is able to fully capture Gogol's masterwork. Guerney also provides valuable background information in helping to understand the nexus for Gogol's strange journey into the heartland of Russia. Gogol was apparently given the idea of "Dead Souls" by Pushkin, so the story goes, because Pushkin felt Gogol could do a better job with this theme than he could. However, it was an uncle who had seemingly first concocted the scheme of using dead souls to boost the number of registered serfs on his estate so that he could get a license to distill vodka. This seems more likely the case, because Gogol appears to draw much from biographical sources in creating this quixotic set of characters, which the enigmatic Chichikov comes across on his pursuit of "Dead Souls." The first book is filled with so much robust humour, that you are left dying for more. However, the second book is not as satisfying as the first, much like that quixotic knight errant, who apparently served as a literary inspiration for this "poema." Gogol is part of the basis for any serious undertaking of Russian literature. He was of the same literary period as Pushkin and Lermontov, and in many ways is more satisfying than either of them. One should also read Gogol's short stories, such as "The Nose" and "The Overcoat," which tumble into the theatre of the absurd.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very funny...
Review: This novel was one of the funniest books I have read from this time period, and easily the funniest book by a 19th century Russian author. Although there are moments of dialogue in Dostoyevsky's books that are humorous, they cannot compare to the prospective serf sellers in Dead Souls. Sobakevich seeks to sell his dead souls based on their merits when they were alive. Nozdrev is a gambler, drunk and compulsive liar who even cheats at checkers. Throw in the overly affectionate Manilov and the miserly and paranoid Plewshkin and one is provided with an entertaining cast of characters. It is due to the idiosyncracies of these characters and the gossip mongering of the neighborhood that leads to a result in which a sort of justice occurs to get rid of the protagonist Chichikov. Of course, in the world created by Gogol, there does not seem to be a moral authority and as a result a sequel would definitely have been feasible. Chichikov did not learn the error of his ways (nor did the town notice amid its idle speculation) and I would have enjoyed Gogol's follow-up.
Rating: 
Summary: An Unfinished Masterpiece?
Review: unfinished -yes! masterpiece-no! i didn't like this book. you can read the other reviews to get the flavor of the plot. i didn't think it was laugh out loud funny like "catch 22" or "the world according to garp". it did in areas make me smile though. it does also give the reader a feel for tsarist russia. the problem is it has no meaning. it is not satirical. There is no moral. chichikov has no redeeming qualities. russian society is painted as lazy, drunk, and corrupt--not necessarily in that order. but gogol never finished the book leaving it meaningless. what is his message to russian society? who are the good characters and who are the bad? the most interesting character is kostanzhoglo whom we meet in part 2. he is hard working, intelligent and successful. he helps chichikov buy an estate, but we never know what happens as that part of the book is missing. the inference is that chichikov used him as he did everybody else. what we end up with is a self centered antihero who uses everybody to satisfy his greed. his corruption is insatiable, but we never learn of his denouement. gogol worked on this book and a sequel (which he repeatedly destroyed) for much of his life. he clearly had difficulty bringing any meaning to the story and must have also felt unfulfilled by it. It was an interesting premise that lead him nowhere. there are too many great russian novelists to waste your time on this book. if you want a flavor of gogol, try his short stories.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious social humor, with dark undercurrents
Review: While I was reading this, I couldn't help but compare it to Laurence Sterne's "Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy." I later found out that Gogol was a fan of that book, so perhaps the parallels are intentional. The protagonist, Chichikov, is a shaggy dog of sorts an average guy from a below-average background, who manages to use his schmoozing skills to get ahead in life, but is ultimately a bit of an insecure charlatan. (Lots of parallels to Jay Gatsby as well.) But, as in Sterne's book, we don't find out much about Chichikov until the very end of the novel -- otherwise, we only see small glimpses of Chichikov in action, and hear the mostly untrue things said about him by those he encounters. (Are these falsehoods of his own making, or of his observers' making? Or of ours, the readers' own making? Not an easy question.) The novel takes us through various parts of Russian society, with many bits of the author's mockery obviously being things Gogol had wanted to get off his chest for quite a while. There are some excellent observations about "the Russian character," human nature, personality types, what different languages are good for, and many, many other bits of Gogolian brilliance. By the way, the financial scheme Chichikov is running is very clever, even by today's standards of financial wizardry. The narrator does a lot of Sterne-like "stepping out of character"; in one of the more hilarious passages, he complains that his pen has suddenly become too heavy to write anything more about a certain character, and that he will take a rest. There are many comments to the effect of "So what kind of a novel were you expecting this to be, dear reader?" perhaps playing upon the shock with which the book was initially received. Also lots of teasing the reader, with back-and-forth to the effect of "should I reveal any more to you, or shouldn't I?" Ultimately, the big question in the book becomes exactly who the "dead souls" are -- and the astute reader will realize that paradoxically, the dead serfs that are being bought and sold are the least dead of all the souls in the book. This book is hilariously funny, and is rewarding even if read for humor alone. However, the literary and narrative experiments it undertakes, as well as its subtle social criticisms, make it even more worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: A Stale Translation of a Great Classic
Review: While this translation is better than some I've read, it's still quite pedastrian and fails to capture any of the magic of the original. A good translation, however, may be an impossible task. When the New York Times calls this translation "fresh," does it mean they've actually read the original? I doubt it.
| 
