Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. This lively, idiomatic English version by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky makes accessible the full extent of the novel's lyricism, sulphurous humor, and delight in human oddity and error. Views: 51
Amazon.com ReviewA socially adept newcomer fluidly inserts himself into an unnamed Russian town, conquering first the drinkers, then the dignitaries. All find him amiable, estimable, agreeable. But what exactly is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov up to?--something that will soon throw the town "into utter perplexity." After more than a week of entertainment and "passing the time, as they say, very pleasantly," he gets down to business--heading off to call on some landowners. More pleasantries ensue before Chichikov reveals his bizarre plan. He'd like to buy the souls of peasants who have died since the last census. The first landowner looks carefully to see if he's mad, but spots no outward signs. In fact, the scheme is innovative but by no means bonkers. Even though Chichikov will be taxed on the supposed serfs, he will be able to count them as his property and gain the reputation of a gentleman owner. His first victim is happy to give up his souls for free--less tax burden for him. The second, however, knows Chichikov must be up to something, and the third has his servants rough him up. Nonetheless, he prospers. Dead Souls is a feverish anatomy of Russian society (the book was first published in 1842) and human wiles. Its author tosses off thousands of sublime epigrams--including, "However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man," and is equally adept at yearning satire: "Where is he," Gogol interrupts the action, "who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life?" Flannery O'Connor, another writer of dark genius, declared Gogol "necessary along with the light." Though he was hardly the first to envision property as theft, his blend of comic, fantastic moralism is sui generis.--Kerry FriedReviewPraise for previous translations by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, winners of the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club PrizeThe Brothers Karamazov“One finally gets the musical whole of Dostoevsky’s original.” –New York Times Book Review“It may well be that Dostoevsky’s [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now–and through the medium of [this] new translation–beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader.” –New York Review of BooksCrime and Punishment“The best [translation] currently available…An especially faithful re-creation…with a coiled-spring kinetic energy… Don’t miss it.” –Washington Post Book World“Reaches as close to Dostoevsky’s Russian as is possible in English…The original’s force and frightening immediacy is captured…The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard version.” –Chicago TribuneDemons“The merit in this edition of Demons resides in the technical virtuosity of the translators…They capture the feverishly intense, personal explosions of activity and emotion that manifest themselves in Russian life.” –New York Times Book Review“[Pevear and Volokhonsky] have managed to capture and differentiate the characters’ many voices…They come into their own when faced with Dostoevsky’s wonderfully quirky use of varied speech patterns…A capital job of restoration.” –Los Angeles TimesWith an Introduction by Richard Pevear Views: 50
Although it may read to modern audiences like a hilarious slapstick comedy, The Inspector-General is actually much more than that. Famed Russian writer Nikolai Gogol intended it to be a veiled but pointed satire of the ineptitude, corruption, and greed that exemplified the Russian bureaucracy in the nineteenth century. The witty play was later used as the basis for a movie version starring Danny Kaye (1949). Views: 49
STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.
The important thing is this: The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I'm sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. ________________________________
David Wong has updated the Lovecraft tradition and infused it with humor that rather than lessening the horror, increases it dramatically. Views: 43
Fan favorite David Wong takes readers to a whole new level with this blistering sequel to the cult sensation John Dies at the End, soon to be a movie starring Paul GiamattiOriginally released as an online serial where it received more than 70,000 downloads, John Dies at the End has been described as a "Horrortacular", an epic of "spectacular" horror that combines the laugh out loud humor of the best R-rated comedy, with the darkest terror of H.P. Lovecraft. The book went on to sell an additional 60,000 copies in all formats.As the sequel opens, we find our heroes, David and John, again embroiled in a series of horrifying yet mind-bogglingly ridiculous events caused primarily by their own gross incompetence. The guys find that books and movies about zombies may have triggered a zombie apocalypse, despite a complete lack of zombies in the world. As they race against the clock to protect humanity from its own paranoia, they must ask themselves, who are the real monsters? Actually, that would be the shape-shifting horrors secretly taking over the world behind the scenes that, in the end, make John and Dave kind of wish it had been zombies after all. Hilarious, terrifying, engaging and wrenching, This Book Is Full of Spiders, the next thrilling installment, takes us for a wild ride with two slackers from the midwest who really have better things to do with their time than prevent the apocalypse. ReviewPraise for This Book is Full of Spiders:“[A] phantasmagoria of horror, humor--and even insight into the nature of paranoia, perception, and identity.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review“Violence, soy sauce and zombie survivalists abound in this clever and funny sequel to John Dies at the End (2009). One of the great things about discovering new writers, especially in the narrow range of hybrid-genre comedic novels, is realizing that they’re having just as much fun making this stuff up as you are reading it. Sitting squarely with the likes of S.G. Browne and Christopher Moore, the pseudonymous Wong (Cracked editor Jason Pargin) must be pissing himself laughing at his own writing, even as he’s giving fans an even funnier, tighter and justifiably insane entry in the series.… The humor here is unforced and good-naturedly gory. Anyone who enjoyed the recent films The Cabin in the Woods or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil will find themselves right at home. An upcoming (cult?) film adaptation of John Dies at the End promises to lure new readers. A joyful return to the paroxysms of laughter lurking in the American Midwest.” –KirkusPraise for *John Dies at the End "The rare genre novel that manages to keep its sense of humor strong without ever diminishing the scares; David is a consistently hilarious narrator whose one-liners and running commentary are sincere in a way that makes the horrors he confronts even more unsettling." --The Onion AV Club "John Dies at the End is like an H.P. Lovecraft tale if Lovecraft were into poop and fart jokes." –Fangoria “Sure to please the Fangoria set while appealing to a wider audience, the book's smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next.” –Publishers Weekly “…strikes enough of a balance between hilarity, horror, and surrealism here to keep anyone glued to the story.” –Booklist "A loopy buddy-movie of a book with deadpan humor and great turns of phrase...Just plain fun." --Library Journal *“You can (and will want to) read JOHN DIES AT THE END in one sitting.” –BookReporter.com“Wong blends horror and suspense with comedy—a tricky combination—and pulls it off effortlessly.” –FashionAddict.com“It’s interesting, compelling, engaging, arresting and--yes--sometimes even horrifying. And when it’s not being any of those things, it’s funny. Very, very funny.” –January Magazine“This is one of the most entertaining and addictive novels I’ve ever read.” –Jacob Kier, publisher, Permuted PressAbout the AuthorDAVID WONG is the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, Senior Editor and columnist for humor megasite Cracked.com. Views: 37
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)From the acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov, a brilliant translation of Nikolai Gogol’s short fiction.Collected here are Gogol’s finest tales—stories that combine the wide-eyed, credulous imagination of the peasant with the sardonic social criticism of the city dweller—allowing readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostoevsky and Kafka. 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. The wholly unique blend of the mundane and the supernatural that Gogol crafted established his reputation as one of the most daring and inventive writers of his time.From The New Yorker...a superb ... translation... From Kirkus ReviewsPevear 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 novellaTaras Bulba''), this selection offers richly colloquial versions (which sound like spoken narrative) of such classic Ukrainian Tales'' as the imperturbably melodramaticThe Terrible Vengeance'' and the memorably lurid vampire tale Viy,'' and alsoPetersburg 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. Views: 12
