Book on Gogol's "DEAD SOULS": ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ (TABLE OF CONTENTS)

 

ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

ВМЕСТО ПРЕДИСЛОВИЯ

PREFACE                                                                                                                   2                                                                                                             

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

INTRODUCTION                                                                                                         5

 

ПО-РУССКИ ПИШЕТ ПИСАТЕЛЬ, КОТОРЫЙ НЕ УМЕЕТ ПИСАТЬ ПО-РУССКИ

A WRITER OF RUSSIAN WHO CANNOT WRITE IN RUSSIAN                                             27

 

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«Мертвые души»

 

НАЧАЛО

THE BEGINNING                                                                                                         28

 

ГРОТЕСК

A WORD ON THE GROTESQUE                                                                                     32

 

СОВЕТСКАЯ ТОЧКА ЗРЕНИЯ

THE RUSSIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL SCENE AND SOCIAL CRITICISM                                      33

 

ИРОНИЯ и САТИРА

IRONY and SATIRE                                                                                                      37

 

СМЕХ В «МЕРТВЫХ ДУШАХ»

THE LAUGHTER OF DEAD SOULS                                                                                  42

 

ЛЕЙТМОТИВЫ: СНЕДЬ

LEITMOTIFS: FOOD                                                                                                    56

 

ПРАВДОПОДОБИЕ

THE SWINDLE: COULD IT WORK?

THE TIME FRAME, VERISIMILITUDE                                                                             63

 

МЕТАФИЗИКА «МЕРТВЫХ ДУШ» И МЕРТВЫХ ДУШ

THE METAPHYSICS OF “DEAD SOULS” AND DEAD SOULS                                               69

 

ЛЕЙТМОТИВЫ: САПОГИ

LEITMOTIFS: BOOTS                                                                                                   79

 

 

ПОРУЧИК РЯЗАНЬ

P.S. ON BOOTS: LT. RIAZAN                                                                                         82

 

ОМНАСТИКА-ГИМНАСТИКА

OMNASTICS GYMNASTICS                                                                                          85

 

“СОВСЕМ НЕ ПОДЫМАЕТСЯ ПЕРО”

MISOGYNY                                                                                                                100

 

МЕТАФОРЫ ВДРЕБЕЗГИ

METAPHORS RUNNING AMUCK                                                                                  103

 

ЛЕЙТМОТИВЫ: ЛОШАДИ, ПОВОЗКИ, ДОРОГА

LEITMOTIFS: HORSES AND CARRIAGES;

VEHICLES; THE ROAD                                                                                                 107

 

ОТСТУПЛЕНИЯ

DIGRESSIONS                                                                                                            115

 

ПАТЕТИЧЕСКИЙ/БАТЕТИЧЕСКИЙ

GAMES OF PATHETIC/BATHETIC                                                                                  130

 

МУЗЫКА

THE MUSIC                                                                                                                132

 

НОЗДРЕВ

NOZDRYOV, THE EMBODIMENT OF VULGARITY

(AND CREATIVITY)                                                                                                      136

 

МЕГАЛОМАНИЯ

MEGALOMANIA                                                                                                         141

 

ЛЕЙТМОТИВЫ: СНОГСШИБАТЕЛЬНОСТЬ

LEITMOTIFS: DUMBFOUNDED                                                                                    146

 

ЛЕЙТМОТИВЫ: П. С.

P.S. ON LEITMOTIFS                                                                                                   148

 

СКАЗИФИКАЦИИ

SKAZIFICATIONS                                                                                                        149

 

ВРЕМЯ И ВРЕМЕНА ГОДА

TIME AND SEASONS, SPACE, DISTANCES                                                                      158

 

 

ТЕМА ТВОРЧЕСКОГО ВООБРАЖЕНИЯ

THE THEME OF THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION                                                               163

 

ВЫДУМЩИКИ

MORE ON LIARS AND LYING                                                                                       175

 

СОЧИНИТЕЛЬ И ЕГО ЧИТАТЕЛИ

THE WRITER AND HIS READERS:

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION OF DS                                                                 180

 

ПРОЛЕПСИС (ПРЕДВОСХИЩЕНИЕ ВОЗРАЖЕНИЯ)

THE WRITER AND HIS READERS: PROLEPSIS                                                                 182

 

ЧИЧИКОВ И БРАК

CHICHIKOV AND MARRIAGE                                                                                       194

 

“Я САМ ПО СЕБЕ”

CHICHIKOV AS INDEPENDENT CHARACTER                                                                  195

 

ЧИЧИКОВ КАК ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬ САТАНЫ

CHICHIKOV AS SATAN’S REPRESENTATIVE                                                                    198

 

ОКОНЧАНИЕ

THE ENDING                                                                                                              200

 

CONCLUSION: DEAD SOULS AND DEAD SOULS THEN AND NOW AND NEXT                     208

 

ОПТИМИЗМ

THE OPTIMISM OF DEAD SOULS                                                                                  217

 

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ВМЕСТО БИБЛИОГРАФИИ

APPENDIX ONE: IN LIEU OF A BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                               219

 

«Мертвые души» на английском языке (переводы)

                      APPENDIX TWO: TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH                                         220

 

Introduction                                                                                                             220

 

THE TEXTUAL COMPARISONS                                                                                      222

 

The Opening Passage of the Novel                                                                              222

 

On Food                                                                                                                   228

Who Is Drunk?                                                                                                          230

Feminine Hypocrisy and Cant                                                                                     231

Sobakievich on Scoundrels                                                                                         234

The Scottish Conundrum and Where to Slap with the Back of a Boot Heel                      236

 

Smash-Mouth Bashings and Back-of-the-Noggin Clouts                                                239

Skaz Narration Within the Narration                                                                           241

More Problems with Women: the Pen That Won’t Stand Up                                         244

Haberdasheries                                                                                                        246

Cute                                                                                                                         250

Noses Stuffed with Hussars                                                                                        251

Nineteenth-Century Russian Invective                                                                        253

Translating Lofty Rhetoric                                                                                          255

 

A Light-Gray Jacket Works as Scrivener, and Occiputs Untranslated                                               262

 Magpies and Nuts (and Testicles)                                                                                265

Эй, ухнем! (Hey, heave-ho!)                                                                                      268

Pecking Orders                                                                                                         272

The Conclusion of the Book                                                                                        282

Final Thoughts                                                                                                          293

[book now available for purchase on Amazon.com]

Translations: the Bestest of the Best, NINETEEN, Aleksandr Pushkin, "На холмах Грузии лежит ночная мгла," THE HILLS OF GEORGIA LIE QUIESCENT

                                                                     Tallulah Gorge

Aleksandr Pushkin

(1799-1837)

 

На холмах Грузии лежит ночная мгла;
Шумит Арагва предо мною.
Мне грустно и легко; печаль моя светла;
Печаль моя полна тобою,
Тобой, одной тобой… Унынья моего
Ничто не мучит, не тревожит,
И сердце вновь горит и любит — оттого,
Что не любить оно не может.

1829

                                                                             d

                      Literal Translation

 Upon the hills of Georgia lies the murk of night;

Before my eyes the Aragva River roars.

I feel sad and at ease; my sorrow is bright;

My sorrow is full of you,

Of you, you alone . . . Nothing torments

Nor troubles my melancholy,

And my heart burns and loves anew—because

It cannot help loving.

 

d

 Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 The hills of Georgia lie quiescent, swathed in night;

Tallulah River’s rapids in the gorge below are raging.

I feel at ease with anguish; my melancholy’s bright,

Suffused with you, the anguish is engaging.

So full of you and you alone that sorrow

Seems not the least aggrieved by pain or woes;

My love flames up, will burn still on the morrow, 

For hearts cannot but burn when in love’s throes.                                                                                        

                                                                                            Date of translation: March, 2022

 

Translator’s Note

 I took the liberty of translating not only the poem, but also the setting, from the Georgian Republic in the Caucasus Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Georgia, U.S.A.  

 

Translation of Poem by Yury Levitansky, ЮРИЙ ЛЕВИТАНСКИЙ, "Это Осип Эмильич шепнул мне во сне," IN A DREAM IN A WHISPER

 

ЮРИЙ ЛЕВИТАНСКИЙ
(1922-1996)

 

Это Осип Эмильич шепнул мне во сне,
а услышалось – глас наяву.
– Я трамвайная вишенка, – он мне сказал,
прозревая воочью иные миры, –
я трамвайная вишенка страшной поры
и не знаю, зачем я живу.
 
Это Осип Эмильич шепнул мне во сне,
но слова эти так и остались во мне,
будто я, будто я, а не он,
будто сам я сказал о себе и о нём –
мы трамвайные вишенки страшных времен
и не знаем, зачем мы живём.
 
Гумилевский трамвай шёл над тёмной рекой,
заблудившийся в красном дыму,
и Цветаева белой прозрачной рукой
вслед прощально махнула ему.
 
И Ахматова вдоль царскосельских колонн
проплыла, повторяя, как древний канон,
на высоком наречье своём:
– Мы трамвайные вишенки страшных времен.
Мы не знаем, зачем мы живём.
 
О, российская муза, наш гордый Парнас,
тень решеток тюремных издревле на вас
и на каждой нелживой строке.
А трамвайные вишенки русских стихов,
как бубенчики в поле под свист ямщиков,
посреди бесконечных российских снегов
все звенят и звенят вдалеке.
 
d

                                       Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
In a dream in a whisper he said that to me,
Osip Emilych said it, you see,
and it rang on through my waking hours:
“I’m a cherry pit riding a trolley,” quoth he,
“catching a look at first hand of worlds sour,
On a cherry pit ride through Horrendous and Dour,
and I can’t comprehend how to be.” 
 
Those were the words of dear Osip in dreamland,
words that go echoing now far and near,
as if I, and not he, said the words muttered offhand,
as if I said of him and myself the words drear:
“We’re cherry pits riding a tram though Horrendous,
and we can’t figure out why we’re here.”
 
Above a dark river ran Gumilyov’s tram,
lost its way in a reddish smoke-haze,
and Tsvetaeva, raising a translucent hand,
saw him off with a troubled, sad gaze.  
 
While gliding past columns Corinthian, Petrine,  
repeated Akhmatova that same refrain, 
in her manner disdainful, imposing, benign:
“We’re cherry pits riding through Viciousness Sheer, 
and we can’t comprehend why we’re here.”
 
O, thou muse of dear Russia, our Parnassus proud,
from time out of mind prison bars shadow thee,
loom o’er all of thy lines that don’t lie.
And like harness bells clinking neath coachman’s shrill cry,
the cherry-pit riders of our poetry,
midst boundless snow forming a white Russian shroud, 
keep on sounding their song in the far vistas free.
 
d
 

                                                             Translator’s Note
                            The Hard Lot of the Russian Poet of the Twentieth Century
 
Osip Emilevich Mandelstam (1891-1938). Arrested several times, exiled. After last arrest sent out to a labor camp in Siberia, but died in transit, in Vladivostok.
 
Nikolai Gumilyov (1886-1921). Arrested and accused of taking part in a counterrevolutionary plot. Shot. Gumilyov has a poem titled “The Tramcar That Lost Its Way.”
 
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941). After a life full of unspeakable adversities and personal sorrow, she hanged herself in the provincial town of Yelabuga.
 
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966). Gumilyov’s wife. For this fact she was never forgiven. Never herself sent to the Gulag, but in place of her they arrested her son. She was hounded by Soviet authorities throughout her life.
 

Translation of Poem by Innokenty Annensky, Иннокентий Анненский, "Тоска мимолётности," THE ANGUISH OF EPHEMERALITY

 

Иннокентий Анненский
(1855-1909)

                       Тоска мимолётности

Бесследно канул день. Желтея, на балкон
Глядит туманный диск луны, ещё бестенной,
И в безнадежности распахнутых окон,
Уже незрячие, тоскливо-белы стены.

Сейчас наступит ночь. Так чёрны облака...
Мне жаль последнего вечернего мгновенья:
Там всё, что прожито, — желанье и тоска,
Там всё, что близится, — унылость и забвенье.

Здесь вечер как мечта: и робок и летуч,
Но сердцу, где ни струн, ни слез, ни ароматов,
И где разорвано и слито столько туч...
Он как-то ближе розовых закатов.

Summer 1904, Yalta

d

                                           Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
                     The Anguish of Ephemerality
 
Without a trace the day has died. On terrace gleams
A misty disc of moonlight void of shadow;
Midst hopelessness of windows opened wide meseems
Stand drearily pale walls now purblind, sallow.
 
Night is now at hand. So black the clouds’ quagmire.
I feel sorry for the gloaming wreathed in doom:
With all that one’s lived through—the longing and desire,
With all that’s on the way—oblivion and gloom.
 
Here evening’s like a dream: both volatile and shy,
But to the heart, devoid of tears, of aromatic scents,
Where rent apart and then cohered are storm-clouds in the sky,
The eventide seems closer to a sunset’s pink effulgence. 
 
[from the Anguishing Cycle]

                                                        "SALVE" St. Petersburg, Russia

Translations, The Bestest of the Best, EIGHTEEN, Afanasy Fet, "Бабочка," BUTTERFLY

 

Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)

 

Бабочка

Ты прав. Одним воздушным очертаньем
            Я так мила.
Весь бархат мой с его живым миганьем -
            Лишь два крыла.

Не спрашивай: откуда появилась?
            Куда спешу?
Здесь на цветок я легкий опустилась
            И вот - дышу.

Надолго ли, без цели, без усилья,
            Дышать хочу?
Вот-вот сейчас, сверкнув, раскину крылья
            И улечу.

(written no later than Oct. 25, 1884)

LITERAL TRANSLATION

 You’re right [butterfly narrator speaks to the poet]. It’s just that one outline I trace in the air
That makes me so dear (precious).
All of my velvet with its live (vivacious) twinkling (blinking)
Is just two wings.
 
Don’t ask from where I have appeared,
Where I’m rushing off to.
Here on this soft (light) bloom I have alighted
And now I breathe.
 
Is it for long that I aimlessly, effortlessly
Wish to breathe?
Any second now, with a flash, I’ll spread wide my wings
And fly away.

                                        

                                          Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

                  Butterfly
 
Look now: one bright flit in the air
And I flaunt my precious bling.
All of this velvet with its flicker-flair
Is only a wing, plus a wing.
 
Don’t ask from whence I’ve come,
Or whither I’m bound when I leave.
Here on this flower in blithe slumberdom
I perch, and breathe.
 
Is it for long, in aimless bliss, astride
My bloom I wish to suspirate?
Just watch: in no time now I’ll flash-flip wide
My wings, fly off,
And dissipate.

New Book by U.R. Bowie, THE FUTILE SEARCH FOR A LIVING SOUL (on Nikolai Gogol's DEAD SOULS)

 

First published in 1842, Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls still ranks as one of the most prominent comic novels in the history of world literature. U.R. Bowie, Ph.D., who taught Russian literature for thirty years at Miami University, delves into the book’s multivarious themes and stylistic quirks, including, e.g., the grotesque in Gogol, the socio-political thematics, the leitmotif of boots, the metaphysics of Dead Souls, irony and satire, misogyny, the theme of the creative imagination, names and naming, the leitmotif of food, megalomania, the laughter of Dead Souls, verisimilitude, expanded metaphors and digressions, liars and lying, the music of Gogol’s prose, the leitmotif of the road, stylistic skazifications, authorial prolepsis, narrators omniscient and otherwise, the leitmotif of dumbfounded, and more. In an appendix six different translations of the novel into English are compared and evaluated.

 [book available for purchase on Amazon.com]

Translations: The Bestest of the Best, SEVENTEEN, Igor Chinnov, Игорь Чиннов, OUR HEARTS WILL COWER

 

Игорь Чиннов

 

Igor Chinnov
(1909-1996)

 

Сердце сожмётся – испуганный ёжик –
В жарких ладонях невидимых Божьих.

Ниточка жизни – лесной паутинкой,
Летней росинкой, слезинкой, потинкой.

Листья в прожилках, как тёмные руки.
Время грибное, начало разлуки.

Лично известный и лесу, и Богу,
Листик летит воробьём на дорогу.

Вот и припал, как порой говорится,
К лону родному, к родимой землице.

Крыша, гнездо. И стоит, будто аист,
Время твоё, улететь собираясь.

Скоро в ладонях невидимых Божьих
Сердце сожмётся – испуганный ёжик.

 

From the collection Пасторали (Pastorals: Sixth Book of Verses), Paris: Rifma Publishers, 1976, p. 10

 

 

                                  Literal Translation
 
A [the] heart will cower—a frightened little hedgehog
In the hot invisible palms of God.
 
A thin thread of life—in a spider web in the woods,
In a summer dewdrop, a teardrop, a sweat drop.
 
The leaves have veins, like dark hands,
It’s mushroom time, the beginning of separation.
 
Personally known, both to the woods, and to God,
A tiny leaf flies like a sparrow onto the road.
 
And now he has landed, as it’s sometimes said,
On the native bosom (lap), on a dear spot of earth.
 
A roof, a nest, and standing, like a stork,
Is your time, getting ready to fly off.
 
Soon in the invisible palms of God
A [the] heart will cower—a frightened little hedgehog.
 
 
d
 
                                      Literary Translations/Adaptations by U.R. Bowie
 
                                           1
 
Our hearts will cower—frightened hedgehogs—
In the hot sweaty palms of the otiose gods.  
 
Thin thread of life, in a drenched cobweb’s wet,
In a dewdrop of summer, or a teardrop, or sweat.
 
At the mushroomy time when departures are planned,
The leaves bulge with veins, like a dark human hand.
 
A personal friend of the woods, and of God,  
A sparrow-like leaf flies out over the sod,  
 
Then softly drifts down in a sweep of pure mirth  
To the lap of the land, to his dear native earth.
 
A rooftop, a nest, and Our Time stands aloft,
Like a stork with a plan before long to fly off.
 
All too soon in the palms of the otiose gods
Our hearts will cower—frightened hedgehogs.
 

                                       2

Your heart will cower—frightened hedgehog—
In the hot sweaty palms of an otiose God.
 
Thin thread of life, in a drenched cobweb’s wet,
In a dewdrop of summer, or a teardrop or sweat.
 
At the mushroomy time when departures are planned,
The leaves bulge with veins, like a dark human hand.
 
A personal friend of the woods, and of God,
A sparrow-like leaf flies out over the sod,
 
Then softly drifts down in a sweep of pure mirth  
To the lap of the land, to his dear native earth.
 
A rooftop, a nest, and Your Time stands aloft,
Like a stork with a plan before long to fly off.
 
All too soon in the palms of an otiose God
Your heart will cower—frightened hedgehog.
 

 

 

 

Epigraph Page from book on Gogol: THE FUTILE SEARCH FOR A LIVING SOUL

 

The scientific viewpoint, ever persistent: There is no ‘soul’ and no ‘will’—these are fictions, universal fictions, like the Garden of Eden.

                                             Oliver Sacks, letter to a friend, May 25, 1969

 Les âmes mortes. Rabelais had to flee France to save his ears from being cropped by censorious theologues for having ventured to pun on âme (soul) and âne (ass).

B.G. Guerney

 Las almas muertas. I’ve lived a long life, I’ve searched the world over, and guess what? Nowhere no way is a living soul to be found. Look all around you, circumnavigate the planet—not a soul to be seen.

O.G. Zakamora

 Die toten Seelen. Dead Souls was the eremitic cell where Gogol the monk floundered around, prostrated himself, suffering travail and torment, until, finally, the day they bore him lifeless out of that cell.

                                                                                    P. V. Annenkov

Господи, Ты сказал в Святом Евангелии, что мертвые услышат глас Сына Божия и оживут. Так ныне сотвори, чтобы мертвые души наши услышали глас Твой и ожили бы в радости.

 Translation: Lord, Thou saith in the Holy Gospels that the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and would come back once more to life. So that this day grant that our own dead souls might hear Thy voice and might come alive again in joy. (From the Russian Eastern Orthodox prayer book [Molitvoslov]. 

The last line of the prayer marked No. 1 in the series titled Молитвенные прошения преп. Силуана Афонского: Prayerful Supplications of the Reverend Silouan the Athonite.

 Your Kingdom: an infinity of being. Souls unborn, yet-to-be-born, never-to-be-born, souls transparent and light-riddled . . . Souls shifting and flowing through one another, light as the seed of dandelions, graceful as tiny rainbow-hued fish, fragile as butterflies.

                                                            Joyce Carol Oates, Son of the Morning

[epigraph page in front matter of forthcoming book by U.R. Bowie: The Futile Search for a Living Soul: A New Reading of Gogol's "Dead Souls"]