Collected here are Gogol's finest tales - from the demon-haunted'St John's Eve'to the strange surrealism of'The Nose',from the heart-rending trials of the copyist in'The Overcoat'to those of the delusional clerk in'The Diary of a Madman'- allowing readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostoevsky and Kafka. To this superb new translation - the first in twenty-five years and destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's short fiction - Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky bring the same clarity and fidelity to the original that they brought to their brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's works and to War and Peace.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Granta BooksISBN: 9781847084217Number of pages: 464Weight: 319 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 27 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Gogol's occasional weirdness is just as weird today,of such a strange order of invention,that even a word like "exuberant" doesn't begin to cover it...Gogol is strangely timelessThis was,for me,an electric introduction to Russian literature.Nabokov was right about Gogol's greatness,and right to point out that he was a creator of a new realityGogol's narratives take on a compelling logic of their own and the details are by turn comic,sinister,and even touching ...Gogol doesn't ignore the conventions of realism,but,rather,jumbles them up,as in a dream. His stories build their hilarious fantasies on solid observational foundationsOne of the most unfathomable minds and most spellbinding narrators in literary history. Shrewd observer,Romantic dreamer,idiot savant,parodist,or a comic Dante,Gogol still eludes all categoriesThe "father of Russian Modernism" came to fame very early which possibly burned him out,as he wrote little in the last 10 years of his life. His tales might have been written weeks ago though,so fresh and vibrant are they,a testament to the youth of their author when he wrote themSuch is Gogol's all-pervasive influence on European writing that both of these new editions are great value
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