This book is so short and yet so amazing. The characters are so real, so human. An accurate depiction of how we delude ourselves to think we're livingThis book is so short and yet so amazing. The characters are so real, so human. An accurate depiction of how we delude ourselves to think we're living the life we want only to eventually realize it wasn't as great as we made ourselves believe and that it's a little too late to start changing it now. The denial and desperation the main character experiences when faced with death is real and timeless. This is the only book I've read by Tolstoy, I'm glad we finally found each other....more
When I got this book I had close to no idea what it was about, only that it had an interesting title and featured a con man. I was expecting somethingWhen I got this book I had close to no idea what it was about, only that it had an interesting title and featured a con man. I was expecting something darker, not the aristocratic quality of the characters. The writing is good, old-fashioned to the point I had to have a dictionary at hand while reading, yet it didn't feel too tiring. I liked Part 1 better than Part 2 of the book. I had no idea the original hadn't been finished so I was somewhat disappointed with all the missing parts of the story, yet not too disappointed to be honest, for it felt that things were starting to get stretched and repetitive: Chichikov meets a new landowner, story of said landowner is told in unnecessary detail, silly argument about the selling of souls ensue, Chichikov gets away with murder and leaves the place, driver gets lost and Chichikov ends up meeting a new landowner... and so on and on. It was peculiar how the author made it clear throughout the story that the whole thing was something written by him and a mere vehicle to express his thoughts about Russia and its people. I'm no historian so I can't completely grasp the satirical importance of Gogol's work. Most of his characters were fools or annoying people, I do hope that's not how most Russians behaved back in the days....more
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