Everyman's Library Classics Series: Dead Souls : Introduction by Richard Pevear (Hardcover)

from CBJames

I started off last year reading another Russian novel, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevesky which ended up being one of my favorite reads of the year. (Dakota enjoyed the book as well. She ate it last July.) I had very little experience with Russian novels, other than the first two thirds o...

from vanjr

This is absolutely brilliant humor. Gogol is better imo than even Cervantes. I have read all of Gogol's short stories and this surpass them all. Absolute hilarity at every turn and almost everyone gets made fun of. This is absolutely on my read again list. I read the Guerney translation. I cannot...

from kotwcs

At times sentimental, philosopical, melancholy, and hilarious, the book follows the adventures of Chichikov, a scoundrel who wants to become a man of class and stature. So, he begins a scheme to buy up the "dead souls" --those peasants who have died but whose landowners have not yet reported as d...

from colligan

Not what I was expecting but that's more than okay. Knowing nothing of Dead Souls or Gogol, stepping into the book was somewhat of a shock. Not at all what I was expecting. I think I expected something in the vein of Dostoevsky, serious and cerebral. Dead Souls is not that, but remains an excelle...

from hemlokgang

I am sorry I had not read Gogol before now! His writing is a blend of Dostoevsky and Dickens. Absolutely hysterical characters manage to highlight a satiric view of Russian country life in the late 1800s. The protagonist, Chichikov, manages to persuade a variety of landowners to sell him the name...