Been meaning to read this for years, strange and paradoxically both difficult and easy to read.
Very long and unfinished, in fact Gogol burnt various drafts of part 2 and died before he finished it. So the plot ends inconclusively. But despite the difficulties; very Russian, set in the provinces in the 1820’s (people think), he is a very compelling and amusing writer.
The dead souls are a scam by the unappealing anti-hero - whose name now escapes me - to acquire mortgageable assets with which to make his fortune; he goes round the place trying with varying success to buy them up as they still have some currency.
Really a picaresque novel; not at all what I had expected.
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