Product Description

When Pushkin first read some of the stories in this collection, he declared himself "amazed." "Here is real gaiety," he wrote, "honest, unconstrained, without mincing, without primness. And in places what poetry! . . . I still haven't recovered."

More than a century and a half later, Nikolai Gogol's stories continue to delight readers the world over. Now a stunning new translation--from an award-winning team of translators--presents these stories in all their inventive, exuberant glory to English-speaking readers. For the first time, the best of Gogol's short fiction is brought together in a single volume: from the colorful Ukrainian tales that led some critics to call him "the Russian Dickens" to the Petersburg stories, with their black humor and wonderfully demented attitude toward the powers that be. All of Gogol's most memorable creations are here: the minor official who misplaces his nose, the downtrodden clerk whose life is changed by the acquisition of a splendid new overcoat, the wily madman who becomes convinced that a dog can tell him everything he needs to know.

These fantastic, comic, utterly Russian characters have dazzled generations of readers and had a profound influence on writers such as Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Now they are brilliantly rendered in the first new translation in twenty-five years--one that is destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's most important stories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28697 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-29
• Released on: 1999-06-29
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

The New Yorker, James Wood
...a superb ... translation...

The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Leonard Michaels
This is the Gogolian surreal. Unlike most of what we call surrealism, it doesn't feel gratuitous, meretricious or trivial. It has the mysterious cogency of a dream, and the quality of realness that we hesitate to say is merely a dream.

From Kirkus Reviews
Pevear and Volokhonsky continue their remarkable conquest of 19th-century Russian fiction with this lively new translation of 13 of ``the Russian Dickens's'' wildest and finest stories. Excluding only lesser pieces from Gogol's earliest volumes (though one misses the madly romantic novella ``Taras Bulba''), this selection offers richly colloquial versions (which sound like spoken narrative) of such classic ``Ukrainian Tales'' as the imperturbably melodramatic ``The Terrible Vengeance'' and the memorably lurid vampire tale ``Viy,'' and also ``Petersburg Tales'' like the deliriously surrealistic ``The Nose'' and that uniquely dreamlike, and seminal, portrayal of a timid clerk's acquisition and loss of his only meaningful possession: ``The Overcoat.'' Pevear's informative Preface persuasively emphasizes the personal, nonpolitical, and, to some degree, haphazard nature of the distinctive alchemy by which a deeply flawed and troubled soul managed to create some of the most colorful and haunting fiction of his century. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Ukrainian country side folklore and tales on the Russian bourgeoisie
The book has 2 parts: the ukrainian folklore stories - witches, devils, ogres and what not - interacting with the peasants living in the Ukraine countryside. Nice story telling with a quaint sense of humor. The second part is from St. Petersburg detailing the Russian bourgeoisie life. Mildly funny.
Some stories are a prelude to the surrealism to come out of Europe later - like Kafka. But make no mistake: Gogol is no Kafka.
Only if you have nothing better to read at the moment or the above is something you have a special interest in.

Bad translation
A quick note to counterbalance all of the glowing reviews. Of course, everybody has an opinion, and one can't argue with taste as they say, so let me provide - for your consideration - a representative passage from the first few pages of this translation. From the second page of "St. John's Eve": "I remember like now - the old woman, my late mother, was still alive - how on a long winter's evening, when there was a biting frost outside that walled us up solidly behind the narrow window of our cottage, she used to sit by the comb, pulling the long thread out with her hand, rocking the cradle with her foot, and humming a song that I can hear as if it was (sic) now." I don't speak Russian, and maybe this "I remember like now" expression represents a literal translation of some Russian idiom, but it would have made a lot more sense to translate the phrase into something along the lines of "I remember as if it were yesterday" - a corny expression, but one that at least makes sense in English. If this seems like a petty criticism, take into account that that kind of awkward, bizarre phrasing is repeated in just about every other sentence. The translators are fond of corny, archaic words like "mug" (for face) and "drubbing" that seem like they belong in a British translation from the 30s, not something copyrighted in 1998. I just wanted to give a warning to anyone who was actually expecting this to be a "modern" translation, i.e., a translation into something resembling contemporary English. For the record, "Dead Souls" is one of my favorite novels and "Ivan Ivanovich / Ivan Nikiforovich" one of my favorite short stories, so this isn't about disliking Gogol.

Can read repeatedly without becoming bored.
As well known in the east as the "Wizard of Oz" series is in the west (which was also argueably inspired by a russian tale "The Wizard of the Emerald City", this collection is every bit as enjoyable - especially for children or grandchildren.

The Night Before Christmas is an insighful look at human nature - the desire of each person to have prince/princess and live happily ever after. The stories are full of hope, humor, sadness, and tragedy.

Overall, the stories are masterpieces that can read repeatedly.