The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol

by Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett (Translator), Leonard J. Kent (Editor)

Volume 2 of The Complete Tales includes Gogol's Mirgorod stories—among them that masterpiece of grotesque comedy, "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich," the wonderfully satiric "Old World Landowners," and the Cossak epic "Taras Bulba." Here also is "The Nose," Gogol's final effort in the realm of the fantastic, as well as "The Coach," "The Portrait" (in its final version), and the most influential of his Petersburg stories, "The Overcoat."

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Classics, Short Stories, Russian Literature, Short Story Collection, Literature

364 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1836

About the author

People consider that Russian writer Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Николай Васильевич Гоголь) founded realism in Russian literature. His works include The Overcoat (1842) and Dead Souls (1842).

Ukrainian birth, heritage, and upbringing of Gogol influenced many of his written works among the most beloved in the tradition of Russian-language literature. Most critics see Gogol as the first Russian realist. His biting satire, comic realism, and descriptions of Russian provincials and petty bureaucrats influenced later Russian masters Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, and especially Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Gogol wittily said many later Russian maxims.

Gogol first used the techniques of surrealism and the grotesque in his works The Nose , Viy , The Overcoat , and Nevsky Prospekt . Ukrainian upbringing, culture, and folklore influenced his early works, such as Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka .
His later writing satirized political corruption in the Russian empire in Dead Souls .

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

The early nineteenth-century, Russo-Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol is a delight for all of a Freudian disposition. Here released his complete short stories as translated by Constance Garnett, on the whole I'd recommended a shorter one volume selection rather than a complete collection like these two volumes simply because for those of a non-Freudian disposition the interest and quality of the stories is variable. Like many of his contemporaries he lived at a moderate pace and died young and had a huge impact on the next generation of writers for his interest in grotesque, bizarre and insane situations and characters, a certain robust humour and tendency to write about lower social orders (though not necessarily the lowest or most typical).

Anyhow this volume contains the following.

Old World Landowners - remarkable for the substitution of food for sex indeed all forms of affection, regard or medical attention in the relationship between husband and wife, food is consumed to the point of sickness and then some. Unsurprisingly both die as a rule heterosexual relationships in Gogol end in death, surprisingly despite this implicitly reproduction appears to occur .

Taras Bulba - there's a film version of this with Yul Brynner, which if anything is less exuberant than the original, if you were Sigmund Freud , the ending would have you sitting up in delight and starting a new cigar or two.
Viy - dubious semi-sexual encounter between seminarian on his way home with an old woman who is actually a disguised young woman who is actually a witch in league with the devil, the appropriate response of seminarian is the vigorous application of violence.
The tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich this a relatively normal story about two friends who due to remarkable stubbornness, can never be reconciled once they begin to quarrel.
The Nose there is plainly nothing Freudian at all in this story of male appendage separating itself from the rest of the body and going on to have more successful career and life than the rump person.
The Coach don't remember anything of this
The Portrait nor this, some of Gogol's stories are striking and so odd in their expression of the author's anxieties that they are hard to forget, others aren't.
The Overcoat - hmm the Overcoat is a feminine object Russian is a gendered language Gogol opted for an overcoat of the female gender as opposed to the alternative neuter overcoat that surrounds completely a masculine object which happens to be longer than it is broad. The feminine object of desire is warm, comfortable and makes life suddenly worth while for the hero. Even before Marx had a chance to get going, Gogol has not simply transformed a woman into a sex object, but has gone further in replacing the figurative object with an actual one. The cat fur collar you can take your pick if this is a social realistic or just plain grotesque detail is a lucky association in English - ie the hero's head emerges from the pussy. Indeed the relationship with a coat is a substitute for marriage which naturally can't survive to the end of the story as above heterosexual relationships tend sharply in Gogol towards death which becomes a crude sexualised joke on Pushkin's Bronze Horseman, the actual romantic interest replaced by a literal sex object, Pushkin's political criticism replaced by Gogol's leer.

These volumes chop up and intermix Gogol's Ukrainian and Petersburg stories which maybe isn't the best approach as it isn't true to the chronology of his development and self conception as a writer which was strongly from regional to Capital then back to the regions with Dead Souls, in which his religious drive comes more to the fore at least in the conception of that work if not apparent in its detailing.

[Jan-Maat]

The editor decries the now slightly less aged translation for the penguin classics series complaining that the translator changes roubles and kopeks for pounds, shillings and pence, well pay your money and take your choice. Garnett's translation remains as fluid as one might imagine for the woman who allegedly was observed translating casually directly from original to paper.

Both volumes of this translation of the complete short stories feature a mixture of the Ukrainian and Petersburg tales. Notable in volume one are Ivan Fiodorovich Shponka and his Aunt & Diary of a Madman, both of which feature marriage. In the first the prospect of marriage is represented as a nightmare, in the second the impossible object of desire is associated with the decline into insanity.

Both have a delight in odd details, I like Shponka's socks - so much darned that they have become very tight.

Otherwise featured are a fat clutch of the Ukrainian stories that I've entirely forgotten, apart from a vague memory of a story with the unsurprising (for Gogol) message of beautiful young women are frightening and dangerous particularly when dead, there is for those interested in Gogol's unsubtle attitude to heterosexual sex and sexuality a book entitled The Sexual labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol no prizes for guessing what you might find at the centre

in addition to Diary of a Madman there is another Petersburg tale included here Nevsky Prospect which I've also forgotten, over all I recommend for that reason a selection of his stories rather than any complete edition, as a writer he was still growing into himself by the time he died at the age of forty-two, possibly due to an excess of religion, which indeed can be fatal, if it leads you to refuse to eat.

[Beth Ohrenschall]

Every time I read Gogol, I love him more.

[Marsha Altman]

In my survey of Russian literature, Gogol is a lot of fun. The stories vary in quality and some of them just trail off or are unfinished, but the ones that are good are VERY good.

[Debbie]

This collection of charming and sometimes gory stories was enjoyable. Though reading it leaves me with questions regarding Russian culture, it was easy enough to assimilate advances in plots and comprehend character evolution.

Reading Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" made me curious about reading Gogol. Several times Lahiri mentioned "The Overcoat" and "The Nose." Since "The Overcoat" was the last story in the book, I read the other stories first to get a better feel for Gogol's work. "The Portrait" was my favorite story because it illustrated how Western art had affected Russia, or at the very least Gogol, at the time. Gogol's penchant for the supernatural (mainly that of the devil or the undead) reminded me much of "The Master and Margarita," and "The Overcoat" was the perfect culmination for this collection of his stories.

[elderfoil...the whatever champion]

I take The Overcoat over Bartleby, the Scrivener.
I take Viy over Frankenstein.
I take The Portrait over your favorite Cortazar.
I take The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
over The Real Housewives of Orange County.
I even like Taras Bulba.
Then there is The Nose.
And I take Old World Landowners over them all, in joy and tears.

[Dan Kugler]

this is the only place i know to read his first book: evenings on a farm near dikanka--or dikyanka--or something---gogol uses--or makes up--ukrainian folk tales, and a narrator---and then--breaks them apart---stretches them---magic is what you get---

[Pinko Palest]

Considered to be the best edition of Gogol's shorter fiction, it is the edition used by Nabokov in his book on Gogol. A pure joy to read, even though the texts in it are very uneven, including both some of Gogol's worst and best. Most of the Dikanka tales are variations on the fairy tale. Shponka and Diary of a Madman are the amazing pieces, Shponka hinting at Dead Souls and Diary being an absolutely surreal piece

[Rosalía]

Deceptive. The book, a collection of "tales," started in an overly descriptive, flowery style, but as I got into it, it felt beautifully written. Poetic. I thought I may have to read a War & Peace-like tome, but really enjoyed the first 2 stories. And then I realized that the tales were all interconnected. It was like reading a novel and each "tale" was really a chapter of the same story. The characters gave me a glimpse of the kerchief-wearing blond Ukrainian girl and the dark cossack in their moment of wooing in the countryside. I can't really promote it, but I'm glad I've now experienced Gogol.

[Tejas Desai]

For some reason the boring "Dead Souls" gets all the press, but I far prefer Gogol's tales of the countryside, the peasants and the Cossacks. "Old World Landowners" "Taras Bulba" "Viy" and many more in this book are the absolute best of Gogol, if extremely politically incorrect for our time (which is why I like it). An artist who documented his time and expanded his nation's literary horizons.

[Tejas Desai]

For some reason the boring "Dead Souls" gets all the press, but I far prefer Gogol's tales of the countryside, the peasants and the Cossacks. "A Terrible Vengeance" is a good one.

[Rock]

The scene where the protagonist steals the batch of letters from the dog is one of my favorite scenes in literature. Also the Ukrainian tales blew me away by their inventiveness.

[Mark Reece]

The volume mostly comprises Gogol's early tales, although a few of the stories are written more in his later style.

Gogol's early stories are Ukrainian folk tales. The heroes are generally fantasized Cossacks who are hard drinking, constantly fighting, and willing to take up a crazy adventure on the slightest pretext. All the characters are superstitious to an absurd degree, ready to believe that the Devil has taken the form of their relatives when they notice a small detail out of place. Curiously, the Devil portrayed in these stories is usually unthreatening, bumbling when carrying out plans that amount to little more than practical jokes. Furthermore, the Devil or his minions can be foiled by making the sign of the cross when the heroes sees what is happening, making them akin to tricksters and giving the conflict in the stories an absurdist edge.

It is this element of farce that contains the essence of Gogol's style. The often unnerving tone of the stories comes from the fact that there is nothing unusual about people believing in talking animals or that settled life can be upturned in a moment. This is combined with moments of hyper realism, when a character or scene is described with striking detail.

The Arabesque stories more closely resemble Gogol's later style, in that the stories have a fantastic central premise rather than being folkloric fantasy. The Nevsky Prospekt starts with a remarkable description of the street of the same name, which was famous as a commercial district and as an example of modernity. There is both a wondrous fascination of the wealth on display and its concordance cosmopolitanism, combined with a conservative horror of the same things. The street forms the backdrop for a moralistic tale concerning the temptations of vice.

The diary of a madman is the other arabesque story, concerning a civil servant who starts to believe that he is the king of Spain. Wonderfully comedic and tragic by turns, this story contains one of Gogol's other trademark techniques, that of rapid tonal shifts, which heighten the poignancy of the story.

The other noteworthy story is Ivan Fiodorovich Shponka and his Aunt, which demonstrates another Gogolian staple: a comically mediocre man whose inadequacies are horribly revealed. In this instance, the protagonist faces existential horror when his aunt tries to arrange for him to be married (another of Gogol's obsessions).

I really like this edition of the tales, as it includes a table of the civil, military, and court ranks that were in use in the Russian empire at the time of the stories, which provide essential context. The notes are also useful, giving details such as the construction of stoves, which is an obscure but necessary detail to stories where characters regularly climb on stoves to keep warm.

These are remarkable stories, highly original and skillfully constructed.

[Stephen Griffith]

I bought this a long time ago and figured I'd read it sometime. Well as part of reading the biography of Nabokov and everything he wrote, I was reading his book on Gogol and thought this was the time. Nabokov didn't think very highly of these early works, as not being representative of his subsequent genius, but I think they're a bit better than that. The earliest volume of Evening on a Farm Near Dikanka contains his versions of Ukrainian folk tales his mother recounted to him to give him ideas on what to write about in Saint Petersburg that might interest readers there. They're all good in their own way but get successively more bizarre and surreal. The final two Arabesques take place in Saint Petersburg and are very surreal. I find them interesting because you can see the development or his writing style gradually.

[Sara!]

The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Vol 1)
Nikolai Gogol

What a joy to encounter these wonderful works again. It’s been a few years since I first read Gogol, and it felt like time to go back and reread. This volume includes all of the Dikanka tales, which are so brilliantly suited to “Cold Months During a Pandemic” reading. It also includes “Nevsky Prospekt,” “Diary of a Madman,” and “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt.”

I can’t add any new observations about Gogol that haven’t been said a million times, but he was a true genius and I realize it more with each read! So darn brilliant. Maybe it is time to reread “Dead Souls” again as well.

[Robert Morgan Fisher]

Necessary to understanding Russian lit. Nik Gogol had absolutely no fucks left to give. He was the right writer for the times. Just religious enough to pass muster but wildly irreverent. His psychosis was a feature not a flaw. Much silliness but also some beautifully descriptive reflections and digressions. He was a freak but he was the people's freak.

[AL]

A great translation that is worthy of revisiting often. I hope to read it again in the future.

[Daniel Callister]

I think I liked Vol 2 more. From this volume I enoyed A Terrible Vengeance and the first third of Nevsky Prospekt.

[Michael]

There's plenty of humor. There is also a lot of attention to the devil, witches and Cossack culture.

[Mark Reece]

One of the best short story collections of any time period, this book contains stories in a range of styles that display all of Gogol's talents.

'Taras Bulba' and 'Viy' show several continuities with Gogol's early works, in that they are highly romantic folk tales with a Russian nationalist tone. Taras Bulba is a remarkable story, describing the Cossacks in mythical terms as carousing, hard drinking warriors always ready to fight to the death to protect Russian orthodoxy. The tone is mystical and full of adventure, but contains curiously tender moments, such as when it briefly describes the grief of Taras Bulba's wife when she realises that she cannot do anything to prevent her husband and sons going to war.

These stories contain several crudely antisemitic scenes (which are common across Gogol's works). Such sequences are very naive and often child-like in their depiction of Jewish characters, giving them a startling rather than grotesque tone.

The other stories in this collection are written in Gogol's mature style, which often involves a character experiencing a surreal or supernatural event which is seemingly accepted by everyone he meets, leading to events that are first comic then tragic. Strong tonal shifts heighten the mood, often generating a strong sense of irony. Furthermore, Gogol's characters are often described as grossly mediocre before they display a startling sense of suffering that serves to partially redeem them.

Perhaps the best example of this is 'The overcoat', which tells the story of Akaky Akakievich, who is so simple minded that he thinks of little else other than copying official documents. At first a pathetic caricature, the reader is suddenly encouraged to sympathize with him when he cries out piteously against the bullying of his colleagues. Akaky engages with the world more fully when saving to buy a new overcoat, but his focus also leads to his undoing.

Gogol is a very witty author at times, and several of the comedic scenes are very memorable. One instance I always remember is in 'The nose', in which the protagonist's nose falls off their face and parades around by itself. The protagonist goes to a local newspaper to place an advertisement asking for the return of his nose, only to engage with an obstructive clerk, who tells the character that the newspaper cannot take such advertisements because of the damage to its reputation.

Many of the stories have a striking conservative tone, with the stories warning against obtaining material possessions, and satirizing character who try to change their social rank. However, these themes are inconsistent, with several points where the author portrays sympathy with the difficulties the (typically impoverished) characters find themselves in. It is this dramatic and stylistic tension that make the stories outstanding works of art.

[John]

Gogol is a gifted storyteller! He manages to create an intimacy between storyteller and reader which survives the almost two centuries from when these stories were written. These stories are hugely enjoyable.

The stories in this volume are among Gogol's earliest. The collection under the name of "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka" is about Cossack villagers and peasants in what is now the Eastern Ukraine. These rambling stories constitute a window into early nineteenth-century village life where the devil and the supernatural are ever-present and real. (The flight of the blacksmith Vakuna on the back of the devil to the Czarina's palace in Petersburg in "Christmas Eve" foreshadows scenes in Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" written a century later.)

The last two stories, "Nevsky Prospekt" and "Diary of a Madman," take place in Petersburg, as do his most well-known later stories, "The Nose" and "The Overcoat," both of which appear in volume 2 of this collection. "Nevsky Prospekt," which is the name of the most famous street in Petersburg, starts with a masterful description of daily activity on the eponymous street, and then deals with the two distinctly different fates of two young bachelors who pursue two attractive young women whom they encounter on the street.

"Diary of a Madman" is what it says, a series of diary entries of a junior bureaucrat who is infatuated with the daughter of his boss, the director. You soon realize that all is not well with the narrator/diarist when he begins to communicate with the daughter's dog. The story descends from there.

How could I give Gogol, one of the most important figures in Russian literature, less than five stars.

[Tony Sciarra]

Surreal and absurdist. The only comment I will make is not necessarily about this book but rather about translations in general.I can't read Russian nor, for that matter, any language other than English, so I rely upon translations. These are the only works of fiction that can change with time to suit new sensibilities.

[Matt Sautman]

Those who know me well enough know that I greatly enjoy my share of Russian literature with a few exceptions- e.g. Anna Karenina and The Idiot. Gogol occupies a space for me somewhere in between. When he dabbles within magical realism, I am sucked in, and I can't stop reading, but when the magical element is missing, even though the writing is good, I find myself able to set down and the book and have little desire to return. Sometimes it is because the ending ultimately makes the story, such as "Old World Land Owners," and for these types of stories, I find that a second read would add much more richness to the narrative. Then there are ones like "Taras Balba," which in the first couple pages, I am greatly intrigued and my curiosity is piqued, but the narrative ends up being too streamlined and monocultural that some of the richness Gogol could unpack and put on display ends up being regulated to create a clear binary that doesn't challenge the reader to interpret the text as in depth as other works of literature. Thankfully, the presence of stories like "The Nose," "The Portrait," and "The Overcoat" succeed where some of these other tales are lackluster in my eyes. These stories that each would earn a 5 star rating from me and find a way to leave a fingerprint upon your mind's eye.

[Howard]

My review is of “Taras Bulba” only — the Cossacks in the story are brutal religious fanatics , martial with no feeling for the divine, and I think Gogol is making this point very deliberately.

The characterization of the Jewish people goes from incredibly offensive to surprisingly (if momentarily) sympathetic . . . The author is officially writing for an Orthodox readership, so one expects bias and some common bigotry, but the crude aspersions against “the Jews” bring some discredit upon the finished work nonetheless.

With a slight shift in emphasis the main character of the story could be Frankel — how he kept his head among a people who would not recognize his value as a person, but rather only as a source of gold, while projecting their own venality onto him as a scapegoat.

[Marg]

What fun to read the inventive stories of Gogol. His humor is sly and sometimes outrageous, but always intelligent. Some of these short stories remind me of the beautiful folk tales that I read as a child where a magical other world intrudes into the lives of the characters. In some cases there are sinister forces at work and at others more benevolent, including at one point the devil who helps a poor man woo the young woman of his dreams. Things don't always work out the way characters wish. Some stories wander but not in a way that loses the reader or is a negative. Other stories have are two stories in one - but related.

[Tomek]

Truly fantastical. I started with The Overcoat. Only in Russian literature can a story a man's death after his favorite coat is stolen be labeled as a "comedy." I personally preferred The Portrait, which was beautifully written, but still contains a touch of the absurd for which Gogol is famous. This contrasts starkly with the historical Taras Bulba, which I found difficult to enjoy due to its fairly overt anti-Semetism and anti-Polish sentiment (though parts were unquestionably beautiful and compelling).

[Kim]

1 1/4/15 This isn't the edition I read, but it's not on GR so this is close enough. His descriptions and his characters are great. He's very self-aware in his writing and I like that he's experimental but still interesting.
I find short story collections hard to read though, because as soon as I start to get interested in a character the story ends, but it was a nice little book.
I really enjoyed "The Nevsky Prospect", the way the two men chose two paths and how different they turned out.

[Phillip]

I read the more recent translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky, all bound together in one volume. I'm a huge fan of his writing, especially the stories. The early Ukrainian stories are included in this volume as well, and they are particularly earthy, more like folklore than his later, near-surreal works (The Nose, The Overcoat).

[Vanjr]

This is the second volume in the "Complete tales" of Gogol. The complete tails do not include Souls of the Dead. I found "Taras Bulba," "The Portrait" and "The Tale How of Ivan Ivanovich Quarrled with Ivan Nikiforovich" as particularly interesting, instructive (Taras Bulba finally gave me an idea about the Cossacks) or hilarious. Some all at the same time.

[Anastasia Steinbrunner]

You do yourself a disservice by not reading Gogol. He is a spectacular writer combining the brutal realism and moral suffering of many Russian authors with humor and mystical stories. Just read "The Nose" and you will be hooked.