Translated by Constance Garnett Notes and Introductions by David Rampton, Department of English, University of Ottawa Gogol s works constitute one of Russian literature s supreme achievements, yet the nature of their brilliant originality, comic genius, and complex workings is difficult to summarize precisely. The Government Inspector, a perennial favourite on stage and screen, is considered a national institution in Russia, and Gogol s stories present us with one of the most marvellous worlds a writer has ever created. His quirky characters – the lowly official who imagines himself to be the King of Spain, the man committed to chase his nose around St. Petersburg, a whole village paralyzed at the prospect of being visited by an authority from the capital – are immortal. Although Gogol s fiction was commandeered by Russia s progressive critics as the work of an important social commentator, he was in many ways an arch-conservative, and there is a madcap strain in it that makes him a precursor of Kafka and absurdist drama.
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