Tag Archives: Dead Souls

To Understand Trump, Read Gogol

By Robin Bates | Published: October 2, 2023

To understand Trump’s con, read Gogol’s “Dead Souls.”

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Selling Dead Souls in an American Prison

By Robin Bates | Published: May 16, 2023

While lit mostly helped Daniel Genis handle a 10-year prison term, novels by Gogol and Thomas Mann got him into special trouble.

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Did Russian Officials Recruit Dead Souls?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 13, 2022

Did Russian officials claim to pay money to corrupt Ukrainian officials while actually pocketing the money? Cue Gogol’s “Dead Souls.”

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What Kind of Con Man Do You Want?

By Robin Bates | Published: August 23, 2017

Gogol’s “Dead Souls” shows us two conmen, one who is a lot like our president, the other like various politicians (including Ryan, McConnell and Hillary Clinton). The boisterous and ineffective conman comes off better that the carefully calculating one.

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Gogol’s Guide to Traveling

By Robin Bates | Published: August 18, 2017

Friday I’m driving back to Maryland from Tennessee today and so have chosen a passage on traveling from Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls, which I’m listening to at the moment. I myself won’t have the same experience as Gogol’s traveler since I can’t lean back and fall asleep. Nevertheless, the passages reminds me of traveling by […]

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Gogol Would Understand Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2017

I may just have discovered the ultimate literary parallel for Donald Trump: Gogol’s Nozdrev from “Dead Souls.” Reading about Nozdrev helps us understanding our fascination with Trump.

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