Dead Souls

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:30:42 -0500

Gogol is one more of those Russian authors (actually born in Ukraine) that was an inspiration to many other authors (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Kafka, etic) I thought it was about time to take the old boy out himself. Dead Souls follows a mysterious character that the reader gets to know as the book unfolds who just as mysteriously wants to buy dead serfs from Russian aristocrats. The writing style was easy to digest, and the book is filled with many charming and ridiculous characters. This book was somewhat unique as the author would break the fourth wall from time to time and give his own views about things. Full of insightful social commentary and awkward predicaments the book was called the Russian Pickwick Papers, but I wouldn’t go that far, I would say this book is a lot less ridiculous and more surreal, which I would guess is why it appealed to Kafka. The book surprisingly ends in mid-sentence leaving scholars to argue whether or not it was supposed to be that way. Whether it was or not it definitely felt like the rug was pulled from under you. Gogol was another one of those Russian authors that seemed to live like a character from his books. A complete chad that wanted to teach Cossack history but instead was offered a job teaching Medieval History at the university of St. Petersburg a subject of which he had no qualifications.

Fourth_wall on George's Blog

Dead Souls