Understanding Russia
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Sign up todayDead Souls
Narrator
Tom Weiner
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Translator
D. J. Hogarth
Length
12 hours 57 minutes
Language
English
Regarded as the first great masterpiece of Russian literature, Dead Souls mixes realism and symbolism for a vivid and highly original portrait of Russian life.
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, thereby saving their owners from paying taxes on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"? What dubious scheme lies behind his actions?
Full of larger-than-life Dickensian characters—rogues and scoundrels, landowners and serfs, conniving petty officials, and the wily antihero Chichikov—Dead Souls is a devastating comic satire on social hypocrisy.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer often called the “father of modern Russian realism” because he was one of the first Russian writers to criticize his country’s way of life. The novels Taras Bul’ba and Dead Souls (1842), the play The Inspector-General (1836, 1842), and the short stories “Diary of a Madman,” “The Nose,” and “The Overcoat” (1842) are among his best-known works. With their scrupulous and scathing realism, ethical criticism, as well as philosophical depth, they remain some of the most important works of world literature.
Tom Weiner, a dialogue director and voice artist best known for his roles in video games and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Transformers, is the winner of eight Earphones Awards and is an Audie Award finalist. He is a former member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Reviews
“Considered one of the world’s finest satires, this picaresque work traces the adventures of the social-climbing Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant out to seek his fortune. It is admired not only for its enduring comic portraits but also for its sense of moral purpose.”
“Considered one of the great novels in the Russian canon, this book is a symbolic snapshot of nineteenth-century Russian life and an intense literary experience…Narrator Tom Weiner has a deep, robust, nasally tinged voice that captures the tone of the book.”
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