Date Started: 8/9/13
Date Finished: 8/15/13
Returning to reading after such a long absence has been like returning to life. Oooh, analogy to the book I just finished! Ok, so as I mentioned on my twitter account, this was a recommendation out of People Magazine. Read ahead for full spoilers but if you don't want the entire plot ruined, my thoughts on this book are this: I enjoyed it but was disappointed with the ending.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
Date Started: 6/24/13
Date Finished: 8/7/13
FIRST BOOK READ SINCE BABY!*
*Ugh. It pains me to write this but I have to asterisk this completion because of a Kindle FAIL. I was at about 89% completion and the book just skipped ahead. Not sure how much, but enough. Oh well. I mean, I finished basically all of it. But for summary purposes, I'm taking Wikipedia on this one, other than to say, this was a much funnier Russian novel than most. I really like Gogol's style of writing - he directly addresses his audience, talks freely about Russians/Russia in a way that makes you understand what that meant in the mid-1800s, and has a great sense of humor. I would most definitely read more of his work.
See full Wikipedia summary here. But here is the basic summary from that page:
Dead Souls (Russian: Мёртвые души, Myortvyje dushi) is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The purpose of the novel was to demonstrate the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and character. Gogol masterfully portrayed those defects through Chichikov (the main character) and people which he encountered in his endeavours. Those people are typical of then Russian middle-class. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form.
Endnote: I'm reading something "easy" next!
Date Finished: 8/7/13
FIRST BOOK READ SINCE BABY!*
*Ugh. It pains me to write this but I have to asterisk this completion because of a Kindle FAIL. I was at about 89% completion and the book just skipped ahead. Not sure how much, but enough. Oh well. I mean, I finished basically all of it. But for summary purposes, I'm taking Wikipedia on this one, other than to say, this was a much funnier Russian novel than most. I really like Gogol's style of writing - he directly addresses his audience, talks freely about Russians/Russia in a way that makes you understand what that meant in the mid-1800s, and has a great sense of humor. I would most definitely read more of his work.
See full Wikipedia summary here. But here is the basic summary from that page:
Dead Souls (Russian: Мёртвые души, Myortvyje dushi) is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The purpose of the novel was to demonstrate the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and character. Gogol masterfully portrayed those defects through Chichikov (the main character) and people which he encountered in his endeavours. Those people are typical of then Russian middle-class. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form.
Endnote: I'm reading something "easy" next!
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