Nicolas Gogol: Tschitschipows Reiseerlebnisse, oder Die toten Seelen (German language, 1921, Insel-verlag)
626 pages
German language
Published April 17, 1921 by Insel-verlag.
Dead Souls is a socially critical black comedy. Set in Russia before the emancipation of serfs in 1861, the "dead souls" are dead serfs still being counted by landowners as property, as well as referring to the landowners' morality. Through surreal and often dark comedy, Gogol criticizes Russian society after the Napoleonic Wars. He intended to also offer solutions to the problems he satirized, but died before he ever completed the second part of what was intended to be a trilogy. The work famously ends mid-sentence.
Enjoyable read, and I do remember distinctly being really interested in just about every character. However, this really didn't hit very hard. Pages flowed, I loved the subtle humor, and the rants from the author. Feels a bit disjointed at times but that makes sense because Gogol kinda went schizo mode and burnt some pages, or something.
available here for free: www.gutenberg.org/files/1081/1081-h/1081-h.htm#link2H_4_0005
