Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol

Posted on November 27, 2007
Filed Under Classical novel, Fiction Books, World literature |

Dead Souls is a wonderful book, clearly one of the best in world literature (Dead Souls is ranked #21 in Leserglede’s ranking of the best books of all time). Whatever and whereever the soul may or may not be, however, is not the concern of Gogol. His concern, as I read it, is with satire, humor, and social criticism. His book really is about serfs, often denoted simply as souls, in Russia in the early part of the nineteenth century, and how they are viewed and exploited by the nobility for the sake of their totally empty lifestyles. Gogol’s plot in this book, from 1842, and his fierce satire and gorgeous humor, has made Dead Souls a reader’s delight.

The plot of the book revolves around a con operation. The scheme is one that was theoretically possible in Gogol’s day. The government loaned money to landowners, feeling that this class was its strongest support. However, lands owned were measured not by acres of land, but by the number of “souls” (i.e. serfs) that resided on them. Landowners were really serf owners, and the government was willing to accept the serfs of an individual as collateral for loans.

The main character of Dead Souls, Chichikov, understands all of this. He also understands that the more souls a man owns, the higher his esteem and social ranking. And, being smart and devious, he finds a creative, new way to work the system in order to achieve higher status and wealth.

Chichiov arrives in a small town and immediately sets about making a good name for himself by impressing the many petty officials of the town. Despite his somewhat limited funds, he spends extravagantly on the premise that a great show of wealth and power at the start will gain him the connections he needs to live more easily in the future. He also hopes to befriend the town so that he can more easily carry out his bizarre and mysterious plan. The plan entails buying up the ‘dead souls’ - that is, the names of serfs who have died since the last census and are not yet officially listed as dead - from their previous owners. If he succeeds, he can establish himself as the owner of many ‘ souls’, and by using the souls as collateral for government loans, become a wealthy man. Dead souls, he reasons, are cheaper than live ones.

To achieve this, he travels through Russia and meets odd and interesting characters. The greedy Korobotchka makes a bargain of fifteen rubles per soul. Manilov gives his souls free of charge, as they are all dead anyway. Sobakevitch, a rude and arrogant man, demands a hundred rubles, but his unpleasantness yields only two and a half rubles per soul. Chichikov manages to pull if off for a time, becomes recognized as wealthy, has the ladies running after him, and all seems well. Then, at the worst possible time, he is exposed by Nozdrev, who refused to make a bargain with him.

Dead Souls is a remarkable, very special work. Gogol must have viewed much of what went on in Russia as absurd. The reactions to the book have been many and varied. Dead Souls has been praised for its critical boldness in exposing the inequities of an unjust social order, and also condemned as vicious slander, and so forth. To me, Dead Souls is a beautiful, elegant, and satirical account of Nikolai Gogol’s contemporary reality. To write social satire with such humor, elegance, and irony, making it real with characters like the ones we meet here, playing out such a devious little plot, is pure genious and high art. This truly is a Russian diamond.

When you read it, make certain that you read the translation by Robert Maguire, which according to Russian readers is the best one so far. Robert Maguire was a Gogol specialist and had an intimate understanding of this particular work. While I do not read Russian and cannot judge how well and how closely it follows the Russian original, I do know that the language is great. His translation is superb and a great joy to read!

– Peter

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