Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Gogol, Dead Souls
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Part 1: Chapters 6-7
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I’ve been enjoying the comments throughout. Who do people think is the narrator?
The marvelous opening pages of chapter 6 compose an unforgettable picture of the decadent state of the world and then merge into a similarly vivid description of Plyushkin as part of this decay. Gogol's assortment of items and objects of disrepair entangled with Nature that he sees a harmonic composition of man and nature that could be a gothic novel.
The opening pages of Chapter 6 are so poignant. The narrator compares his youthful lens that saw the world with imagination and wonder and vitality with his now aging lens that perceives the world with boredom and indifference. He laments the passing of his youthful exuberance. I loved these pages and can relate to the sentiments expressed. But they come out of nowhere and seem completely out of place. As soon as this beautiful little interlude is over, our narrator returns to the wiles of Chichikov. He does touch on the theme a little later in the same chapter:
The fiery youth of today would start back in horror if he could be shown his portrait in old age. So hold on to the human emotions of the gentle years of youth, throughout the journey into grim manhood; hold on to them, for if you let them go, you will never retrieve them later. Old age looms ahead, forbidding and terrifying, and it will never give anything back to you!
Again, I have no idea where he is going with this, but I’m beginning to wonder if dead souls can possibly refer to all our past selves that have been lost (“died”) while we stumbled along the rocky road to old age.
Thomas wrote: "Should we then view Dead Souls as a comedy?.."Perhaps comedy with a smidgen of satire.
Tamara wrote: "Perhaps comedy with a smidgen of satire."I think of it as a minor epic poem. I feel that it is satire designed on the model of Dante. It was Gogol's religious advisor who insisted that the second part was not adequately spiritual to be printed, (which resulted in its being burned,) but perhaps we can speak more of this at the end.
Tamara wrote: "I loved these pages and can relate to the sentiments expressed. But they come out of nowhere and seem completely out of place. .."There's some thematic continuity in the introductions to chapters 6 and 7, but the narrative intrusion is weird (then again, a lot of this book is weird). The reflections on aging are a fitting prelude to Plyushkin's aura of decay, and the narrator's complaint about "contemporary judgment" not appreciating writers who focus on the mundane makes sense before a chapter about legal formalities. I'm not sure what the function is, but I think it works thematically at least.
Rhonda wrote: "Tamara wrote: "Perhaps comedy with a smidgen of satire."I think of it as a minor epic poem. I feel that it is satire designed on the model of Dante. It was Gogol's religious advisor who insisted ..."
Gogol actually mentions Dante in Chapter 7. Chichikov's "Virgil" is a functionary in a legal office who leads him to the magistrate and Sobakevich. Funny stuff.
I also love the talk about "relocating" souls. It makes me wonder if Sam is right about Chichikov's relation to the Devil.
Anyone recall Goethe's Faust's Profession? He was a developer, of properties. Here is some resonance with Chichikov.
I was initially confused about chapter six with its long reminiscence of youth. I confess that it did not dawn on me until I had thought about the chapter for a while that it dawned on me that Gogol was giving us the lesson before he writes the reason for it. Yet he speaks in a kind of generality about youth and age which makes it seem as if this narrator were some sort of businessman. Now it is with indifference that I approach any unknown estate, and with indifference that I gaze on its trite appearance; my chilled glance finds no refuge, I do not laugh, and that which in earlier days would have awakened a lively movement in my face, laughter and unceasing talk, now flits by, and my motionless lips preserve an impassive silence. Oh, my youth! Oh, my freshness!
Gogol, it seems to me, after giving us an interesting story in which the reader wonders whether he should have more background to understand, is showing us what it means to be dead, what it literally means to be a dead soul.
Plyushkin's character would be a funhouse for any psychologist, and, although names of mental aberrations are only a shorthand for discussing things between professionals and would-be students of psychology, it is easy to characterize him as a hoarder. It is interesting to note that although his etymology results in "cinnamon bun" or perhaps the word for plush, I don't think it gives a great deal of insight. It is more interesting that in Russia, "Plyushkin's Syndrome" refers to hoarding. Simply through this, one might suggest that the Russian people reacted with the same horror that we do today when reading the story.
Hoarding, in my opinion, typically begins with some sort of triggering event, usually a catastrophic change in social interaction, such as with the death of a close relative or spouse. In our case, when his wife dies, his behavior becomes irrational, probably growing little by little each year. In any case, Plyushkin cannot seem to let go of anything and he starts and stops a thousand or more things. When Chichikov meets him, he thinks of beginning by complimenting him, "as, having heard of his virtue and the rare qualities of his soul." However even Chichikov cannot manage this and decides to replace the words with "economy" and "order," neither of which our host knows much about.
Plyushkin cannot abide taking responsibility for his own predicament and continuously blames those around him for the failure which he barely sees. When he complains about how much it will cost for a clerk to create the deed of purchase, he complains that the priests should admonish the clerks for their greed. In an ultimate fit of misappropriation, Plyushkin says, "say what you will, no one can stand against the word of God." Indeed, these words are indicative of the crucial difference between being on the side of God and having God on one's side.
Plyushkin mentions that he knows the magistrate and his countenance changes.
And some warm ray suddenly passed over his wooden face, expressing not a feeling, but some pale reflection of a feeling, a phenomenon similar to the sudden appearance of a drowning man on the surface, drawing a joyful shout from the crowd on the bank.....So, too, Plyushkin's face, after a momentary passage of that feeling, became all that trite.
Later the narrator says, To such worthlessness, pettiness, vileness a man can descend So changed he can become! Does this resemble the truth? Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.
More than any other line, I think, this summarized what I think is the purpose of the book, or at least, one of the greater purposes. It is a powerful statement and this lesson left me feeling somewhat chastised.
When Chichikov has his contract and is back in his britzka, Gogol describes the scene coming into tow, but in so doing, describes another other-worldly scene instead: " Shadow and light were thoroughly intermingled, and objects themselves also seemed to mingle.
Everything is as it should be for the world of the dead souls.
Sam wrote: "Anyone recall Goethe's Faust's Profession? He was a developer, of properties. Here is some resonance with Chichikov."Chapter 7 has Chichikov recite from The Sorrows of Young Werther, so it seems likely that the Faust references throughout are intentional.
It is humorous (or grotesque) that Chichikov quotes Werther's letter to Charlotte to Sobakevich, after Sobakevich has just consumed an entire sturgeon and sits quietly, blinking. On one hand, perhaps Chichikov is just being dramatic, but on the other, perhaps he is encouraging Sobakevich to take his own absurd life.
One can find no greater absurdity in Kafka. Roman Karst, in a paper on the subject, said, The basic difference is that Kafka makes illusion real while Gogol makes. reality illusory—the former depicts the reality of the absurd, the latter the. absurdity of the real. While I apologize for using outside sources, this seems to aid in understanding Gogol's characters.
Rather to my surprise, I find that I love this book, so much so that I’m re-reading chapters as we go. That I am using the PV translation has something to do with this I’m sure. When I began reading Dead Souls the theme seemed obvious and straightforward and, I thought, without much potential. Indeed the episodic plot is simplistic and the main characters more exaggerated than real. We know them by their characteristic traits. No character changes or grows; they are personas rather than personalities. Commedia dell'arte, anyone?
But still I love the book. Why? First of all, the setup is both ludicrous and offensive; on the surface the very idea of buying and selling dead people is preposterous; yet the idea of people (even dead people) as things, as objects to be bought and sold like shares of stock, is deeply disturbing especially so in our century.
For me there’s also a certain surrealness in the characters and settings, which appeal to me. This is, after all, a fiction and that it’s not too tethered to what we call “real” is mind expanding and a joy.
I also sense an underlying bitterness in Dead Souls. Our author, I suggest, has come to understand his own time and place with disappointment and righteous anger, and this comes out as the implicit bitterness I find here.
The book is also funny—a tragicomedy, if you will—which is what makes the book so readable. Its smiles and tears bring Shakespeare to mind. The narrator writes that he sets out “to view the whole of hugely rushing life, to view it through laughter visible to the world and tears invisible and unknown to it!”
There's more. I hope to followup with more of what makes this book so wonderful to me.
Rhonda wrote: "Gogol, it seems to me, after giving us an interesting story in which the reader wonders whether he should have more background to understand, is showing us what it means to be dead, what it literally means to be a dead soul."I found Rhonda's and Gary's posts especially helpful--thank you both! I like what Rhonda said about the narrative intrusions, which I admit I did find intrusive. I don't mind a couple of smart asides from the narrator, but the soliloquy at the beginning of chapter 7 seemed a bit much. I would still question whether we need so much direct (though still indirect) instruction as readers. But maybe we do because I was struggling to make sense of them, and I found Rhonda's observations really helpful. What makes one's soul dead? Am I in danger of that fate? (We have obviously stepped over the line between literal and figurative that was being debated earlier.)
I appreciated Gary's list of what he's really enjoying about the novel as well because I confess I'm starting, 150 pages in, to find it a bit tiresome. I don't need a page-turner and I love a good, slow read, but this is becoming slow in the wrong way for me. I think one problem for me is the two-dimensional nature of the characters, which is appropriate to satire (I think there's even more than a smidgen!) but leaves me feeling cold. I will be interested to hear more about what Gary finds interesting and moving here because I would like to rethink my attitude!
The opening fo Chapter 6 and then the transition to Plyushkin made me think this was a representation of a transition in literature from the Romantic period evoked by the intertwining of the organic and the manmade, the Rosettis and Mary Shelley, and then Gogol's beginning efforts at realism in the detailed observations of Plyushkin's estate and then the at first unrecognizable state of Plyushkin. The observations lead to the discovery of identity beneath the layers of rags.
Gogol seems to write a kind of fake realism. He focuses on the superficial for comic effect, but it winds up being a parody of village philistinism. I agree with Kathy that the characters are two-dimensional; they're more caricatures than characters, and sometimes Dead Souls is called a picaresque novel. I wonder if this sense of flatness comes from the "dead souls" of the living people in the book -- they're more like types, or even stereotypes, (like Plyushkin "the hoarder") than living breathing people.
Yes I agree. The "dead souls" may be the very characters from whom he buys them. Interesting reversal,
Interesting theory about the souls!But a picaresque novel? I guess Chichikov is experiencing a string of episodic adventures, but that doesn't seem to be the point here the way it is with a novel like Tom Jones. I feel like, at this point, our focus isn't really on Chichikov so much as it is on Russian society. Are two-dimensional characters considered to be a hallmark of the picaresque?
From Sobakiev's glowing descriptions of his dead souls, like the carriage maker, there is genuine admiration. Seems they represent real people. And I take it this is Gogol's Gogol's opinion, not Chichikov's.
Kathy wrote: "Interesting theory about the souls!But a picaresque novel? I guess Chichikov is experiencing a string of episodic adventures, but that doesn't seem to be the point here the way it is with a novel ..."
I can see how it might be picaresque -- a morally questionable protagonist, a series of adventures among strangers, a very loose plot, if there is one at all, and a pronounced satirical element. The episodic quality of the book lends itself to two-dimensional characters, though I don't think it's necessary for them to be that way. They're caricatures, and caricatures tend to be two-dimensional. They're exaggerations for effect, and I think that effect is Gogol's hallmark.
Sam wrote: "From Sobakiev's glowing descriptions of his dead souls, like the carriage maker, there is genuine admiration. Seems they represent real people. And I take it this is Gogol's Gogol's opinion, not Ch..."Gogol also gives more warmth and feeling to Chichikov's servants than he does Chichikov himself. Or the other landownders, for that matter. Selifan shows more love for his horses than people show for other people in this book, with the possible exception of Sobakevich's feelings for his dead serfs. And that is weird.
A while back there was a conversation about "our hero." The consensus was that the word "hero" here could be ironic. I'm not sure it's used ironically here but, the narrator tell us he walks “hand in hand with my strange heroes.” He sets out to write a strange book with a strange hero “to view the whole of hugely rushing life, to view it through laughter visible to the world and tears invisible and unknown to it!”I appreciate Rhonda's reference to Kafka. I don't think Dead Souls is nightmarish enough to be called Kafkaesqe but both are surrealistic. I like Kafka; perhaps that's in part why I like Dead Souls.
I have been away and am just working on catching up. I was taken with the absurdity of the bureaucracy at the court, each clerk working within their own silo despite that it appeared they all were working in the same space just each in their corners! Unfortunately there are still organizations that work in this manner!!
Thomas wrote: "Selifan shows more love for his horses than people show for other people in this book, with the possible exception of Sobakevich's feelings for his dead serfs. And that is weird."Sobakevich is a materialist. He values everything that has measurable worth. His furniture is massive, all the food put on the table has to be of the best quality. He remembers what material contributions his dead serfs made. These are his memories of them. He doesn't recount their characters or dispositions, he doesn't recount who they were as people.
Isn't it strange though that Sobakevich remembers their material contributions with fondness when they are no longer capable of making those contributions? He's a materialist indeed, but not entirely. He's sentimental about his dead serfs, which is sort of surprising. Chichikov is sensitive to this when he refers to his dead serfs as "nonexistent" rather than dead. The unspoken assumption is that "dead soul" is a contradiction in terms. Even though the carpenter is dead and can no longer produce anything valuable for Sobakevich, he still haggles over the price. The underlying question is absurd and self-contradictory: what is the value of a soul? I think that absurdity is what makes the novel funny.
The only thing I can add to your comment, Thomas, is that the carpentry that was produced by the serf within his lifetime survives himself. These objects have a longer "life" than the person who made them. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. We all have cherished mementoes of people who are no longer with us, especially if they were handmade.
Both Chapters 6 and 7 begin with comments by the narrator/author that are too intrusive to miss. Is this narrative technique, or does the narrator add something essential to the story with these comments?
Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man...No one equals him in power -- he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see -- all the terrible, stupendous mire of trivia in which our life is entangled... Ch. 7 (P&V)
The author bemoans the fact that contemporary judgment does not value "the depth of soul needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse..."
Should we then view Dead Souls as a comedy?