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Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends
Gogol, Nikolai Vasil'evich
200 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1969
12 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Nikolai Gogol
1,990 books5,633 followersPeople 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 .
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 .
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 17, 2022
Gogol w latach 40. XIX w., aż do przedwczesnej śmierci w 1852 (zagłodził się jak... Hungerkünstler z opowiadania Kafki) został apostołem chrześcijaństwa. Tak jak Mickiewicz w tym samym czasie, tyle że w Paryżu, głosił potrzebę przebudowy społecznej w duchu wcielonego Słowa. Jakby ci dwaj wielcy ludzie - Mickiewicz i Gogol (nota bene: rówieśnik Słowackiego) wyczuwali, że kultura Europy wzięła ostry kurs na materializm. W "Wybranych fragmentach..." Gogol przemawia z pewnością Pawła z Tarsu, upominającego, dającego zbawienne rady, wskazujacego drogi czynienia dobra w rosyjskim Micraim. Niebywałe, że te listy wyszły spod pióra człowieka 36-letniego (a wiele listów datowanych jest jeszcze wcześniej). To trochę tak, jakby Dorota Masłowska wydała we współczesnej Polsce jawnie autobiograficzny tekst, w którym zwracałaby się z imienia i nazwiska do rozpoznawalnych w Polsce osób, bez cienia ironii, śmiertelnie serio, zachęcając ich do praktykowania chrześcijaństwa: zaiste, byłby to głos wołającego na puszczy. U Gogola razi mnie jego bezwarunkowe uznanie caratu za objawiony, opatrznościowy system władzy, wynoszenie pod niebiosa systemu rang, literalne wykazywanie z Biblią w ręku podległości chłopa panu... Trochę tych miejsc nie do przełknięcia u Gogola w tej książce by się jeszcze znalazło. To co mnie poruszyło w tych listach, to ich przejmujacy, rozpaczliwy tragizm; głos człowieka, który zyskuje duchowy wgląd w kulturę swoich czasów, odkrywa w sobie jakąś pierwotną, apostolską żarliwość i jednocześnie rozumie... że publiczność nie przystanie aby posłuchać, lecz pójdzie sycić wzrok prężącą się w klatce panterą.
September 29, 2022
"I am glad that your health is better; as for my health - but let us put our health aside: we must forget it just as we must forget ourselves."
September 21, 2022
Терпеть не могу книги с советами, а тут ещё и советы совсем плохо состарились, невозможно. Гораздо лучше читать художественные произведения и не знать, что на самом деле думал автор.
November 26, 2020
Nikolai Gogol is one of my favorite writers ever. It was Gogol who made me fall in love with Russia and Russian literature. The Overcoat was the second real story that I read in Russian after Pushkin's Queen of Spades. All of Gogol's Petersburg stories are brilliant, particularly The Overcoat, The Nose and Nevsky Prospect, and Dead Souls is his masterpiece.
Selected Passages From Correspondence With Friends is the only one of Gogol's published works that I had not read. I put it off for years because it is notoriously bad. Those who have bothered to read it at all have generally found it seriously wanting, starting with the famous attack on Gogol from one of his previous admirers and champions, the famous 19th century Russian literary critic, Belinsky.
All of the people who hated this book did so with good reason. It is pedantic, tedious, didactic and often just plain silly. However, it does have flashes of Gogol's stylistic brilliance - his circumlocution, extended similes and minor characters who pop up in his descriptions of seemingly unrelated things. And he sometimes has real insights, like when he analyzes his own writer's block under the guise of discussing the painter Ivanov, who seems to be unable to finish his greatest painting.
This book made me feel great sorrow for Gogol because there was a high level of expectation for writers in Gogol's era in Russia to be leaders of reform, which obviously put enormous pressure on him. People like Belinsky mistook the the wonderful comic banality of Gogol's Petersburg stories and his play, The Inspector General, for the works of a social reformer. In fact, Gogol was deeply right wing and conservative. He was a believer in the three great pillars of tsarism -- autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality. From our perspective it seems a little crazy that anyone could ever believe in that blather, but in Gogol's time there were a lot of people on the same program. So trying to live up to his responsibility as a Russian writer, he ground out this book. He obviously meant well and took himself seriously, but this book had to seem a little silly even to people who shared his political and religious views.
Gogol may be the best argument for the position of post modern literary theory that authorial intent counts for nothing. The literary ideas that he expresses about his own works and the works of other Russian writers in this book have little to do with the qualities that make him one of the finest writers in the world.
Selected Passages From Correspondence With Friends is the only one of Gogol's published works that I had not read. I put it off for years because it is notoriously bad. Those who have bothered to read it at all have generally found it seriously wanting, starting with the famous attack on Gogol from one of his previous admirers and champions, the famous 19th century Russian literary critic, Belinsky.
All of the people who hated this book did so with good reason. It is pedantic, tedious, didactic and often just plain silly. However, it does have flashes of Gogol's stylistic brilliance - his circumlocution, extended similes and minor characters who pop up in his descriptions of seemingly unrelated things. And he sometimes has real insights, like when he analyzes his own writer's block under the guise of discussing the painter Ivanov, who seems to be unable to finish his greatest painting.
This book made me feel great sorrow for Gogol because there was a high level of expectation for writers in Gogol's era in Russia to be leaders of reform, which obviously put enormous pressure on him. People like Belinsky mistook the the wonderful comic banality of Gogol's Petersburg stories and his play, The Inspector General, for the works of a social reformer. In fact, Gogol was deeply right wing and conservative. He was a believer in the three great pillars of tsarism -- autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality. From our perspective it seems a little crazy that anyone could ever believe in that blather, but in Gogol's time there were a lot of people on the same program. So trying to live up to his responsibility as a Russian writer, he ground out this book. He obviously meant well and took himself seriously, but this book had to seem a little silly even to people who shared his political and religious views.
Gogol may be the best argument for the position of post modern literary theory that authorial intent counts for nothing. The literary ideas that he expresses about his own works and the works of other Russian writers in this book have little to do with the qualities that make him one of the finest writers in the world.
February 2, 2018
Заинтересовался этими письмами, узнав что в том числе из-за обсуждения ответа Белинского Достоевский попал на каторгу.
Белинского можно понять, но и Гоголя осуждать не могу - и сейчас-то не понятно, как надо бы устроить человеческое общество.
Не удивительно, что он почти 200 лет назад воспевал разумность царского строя, и как "всего лишь" надо быть людьми, каждому на своем месте, и все в России тогда будет замечательно.
С этой мыслью вообще глупо спорить, понятно, что даже (и особенно) при тирании, если тиран - прекрасный человек, то в государстве все будет просто наилучшим образом,
Вопрос - как устроить общество, чтобы оно нормально функционировало не со сферическими людьми.
Заметная часть писем выглядит как наставления святого старца. Который на каждом шагу поминая свое ничтожество, тем не менее, ни на секунду не сомневается, что все изреченное им - истина в последней инстанции.
Процент религиозного в текста - тоже примерно как у святых старцев.
Структуры в текстах нет - поток сознания.
Порой сложно сообразить, на какое, уже историческое для нас, событие реагирует автор.
Качество текста, как ни удивительно, учитывая его содержание, неплохое.
Гоголь в любом состоянии писал хорошо.
Но читать, пожалуй, никому не стал бы рекомендовать - печально видеть великого писателя в таком состоянии.. И, в общем, не нужно - писатель тоже человек, все может быть, зачем все это знать, если можно просто наслаждаться его произведениями.
Белинского можно понять, но и Гоголя осуждать не могу - и сейчас-то не понятно, как надо бы устроить человеческое общество.
Не удивительно, что он почти 200 лет назад воспевал разумность царского строя, и как "всего лишь" надо быть людьми, каждому на своем месте, и все в России тогда будет замечательно.
С этой мыслью вообще глупо спорить, понятно, что даже (и особенно) при тирании, если тиран - прекрасный человек, то в государстве все будет просто наилучшим образом,
Вопрос - как устроить общество, чтобы оно нормально функционировало не со сферическими людьми.
Заметная часть писем выглядит как наставления святого старца. Который на каждом шагу поминая свое ничтожество, тем не менее, ни на секунду не сомневается, что все изреченное им - истина в последней инстанции.
Процент религиозного в текста - тоже примерно как у святых старцев.
Структуры в текстах нет - поток сознания.
Порой сложно сообразить, на какое, уже историческое для нас, событие реагирует автор.
Качество текста, как ни удивительно, учитывая его содержание, неплохое.
Гоголь в любом состоянии писал хорошо.
Но читать, пожалуй, никому не стал бы рекомендовать - печально видеть великого писателя в таком состоянии.. И, в общем, не нужно - писатель тоже человек, все может быть, зачем все это знать, если можно просто наслаждаться его произведениями.
February 28, 2023
While many people dismiss this book and Gogol's 'Meditations on the Divine Liturgy' - earning himself in his later years a reputation as a stiff didactic moraliser, with an unchecked critiquing tongue - it gives a very complex picture of a passionate believer.
In this collection he essentially dismisses all of his past work as useless to society and unenlightening to the soul. Notoriously sensitive to criticism of his works, he on multiple occasions completely agrees with their words, and even looks back asking that they said more to help him refine his work earlier.
Many of these letters act more like devotionals, and while written in a style of spiritual guidance, Gogol I am sure is writing only what he believes to be true a Christian - not the stuffy moralising of a man who thinks himself better than anyone else.
An understanding of Gogol's Christianity is, I believe, essential to an understanding of the remnants we have of Dead Souls Part 2, and where the trajectory of the full planned project was directed. And for anyone interested in Gogol from a biographical perspective, this volume cannot be neglected.
Zeldin's translation can be a little clumsy and may feel somewhat dated to the typical modern reader, but it is completely serviceable, and his biographical/critical introduction is a jewel.
In this collection he essentially dismisses all of his past work as useless to society and unenlightening to the soul. Notoriously sensitive to criticism of his works, he on multiple occasions completely agrees with their words, and even looks back asking that they said more to help him refine his work earlier.
Many of these letters act more like devotionals, and while written in a style of spiritual guidance, Gogol I am sure is writing only what he believes to be true a Christian - not the stuffy moralising of a man who thinks himself better than anyone else.
An understanding of Gogol's Christianity is, I believe, essential to an understanding of the remnants we have of Dead Souls Part 2, and where the trajectory of the full planned project was directed. And for anyone interested in Gogol from a biographical perspective, this volume cannot be neglected.
Zeldin's translation can be a little clumsy and may feel somewhat dated to the typical modern reader, but it is completely serviceable, and his biographical/critical introduction is a jewel.
August 18, 2025
(قلبي يقول إن كتابي هذا ضروري وإنه يمكن أن يكون مفيدًا. لا أقول ذلك لأنني أُقدّر نفسي عاليًا وأتصور أن إمكاناتي مفيدة، بل لأنني لم أشعر من قبل بهذه الرغبة القوية في أن أكون مفيدًا. يكفي منا أن نمد أيدبنا للمساعدة، لكننا لسنا من يساعد، الله هو الذي يساعد، عندما أضاف القوة على الكلمة الضغيفة….).
مختارات من مراسلات مع الأصدقاء، هي في مجملها مراسلات طلب أصحابها النصح والمشورة من (نيقولاي غوغول)، فأسهب في أغلبها في تقديم النصح وإبداء الرأي لهم..
٢٥٦ صفحة
مختارات من مراسلات مع الأصدقاء، هي في مجملها مراسلات طلب أصحابها النصح والمشورة من (نيقولاي غوغول)، فأسهب في أغلبها في تقديم النصح وإبداء الرأي لهم..
٢٥٦ صفحة
April 8, 2019
Завещание
August 10, 2008
Not what I expected.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews