Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol
A stranger comes to the Russian floodplain community with a peculiar offer for local landowners: money for their "dead souls", serfs who die in service. Funny masterpiece. "Dead Souls" are meaningful in some cases, lyrical in others, and religious and respectful in others. Nikolai Gogol was a master of parody. American students of our time aren't the only readers they embarrass. Russian literary history captures interpretations of Gogol that are perhaps different from other classics.
