Thursday, June 11, 2020

Peter's Big Russian Project #1: Nikolay Gogol's Dead Souls (1)


Let's start with Gogol's novel, shall we? I know zilch about Gogol and his works, so I'm amused by the text at the back of this cover, which says that Dead Souls the greatest comedy in Russian literature. Them big words, no? So does this mean that, if I don't find this book funny at all, then there's no hope for other Russian comedic novels? So, as I'm not a big fan of setting myself up for failure, I'll erase that heavy label attached to this book and have no expectations whatsoever. One thing I'm sure though—there will be snow.

This Gogol guy, he seems a real character. When he burned the second part of the manuscript of Dead Souls, all he had to say was that it was a practical joke played upon him by the devil. Seriously. Then after that, he just chose to stay in bed and refused all food given to him. He died soon after, and as reports would have it, "in great pain." It's no surprise really, yes?

Also, remember that main character in the book/movie of The Namesake, the one played by Kal Penn? He was named Gogol because his father survived a very nasty train crash while holding a book by Gogol. This got me thinking about my name, and how I have this absurd concept in my head that my parents were reading Anna Karenina when they were pregnant with me. I would have loved to be a Vronsky or Alexei. Or even Pyotr, which is quite close to my actual name.

I just started on Dead Souls last night, and I have to say that I'm amused at how Gogol describes his character using negatives:
Seated in the britska was a gentleman – not good looking, but not uncommonly in appearance either , not overly fat, nor overly thin. You couldn't say that he was old, yet you could not say that he was overly young either. His arrival created no stir whatever in the town, and was not accompanied by anything  out of the ordinary. 
I counted 10 nots in that text, and I even didn't count the no and the nor. For some reason, this has got me excited.

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