book review dead souls

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-9

Part 1, Chapters 10-11

Part 2, Chapters 1-2

Part 2, Chapter 3-One of the Final Chapters

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

Nikolai Gogol called his 1842 work Dead Souls an “epic poem in prose ,” though most critics and scholars now refer to it as a novel . Structured in part as an analog to Dante’s Inferno , Dead Souls is an absurdist social satire of imperial Russia before the emancipation of the serfs, especially the foibles and customs of the Russian nobility. Though Gogol is not interested in strict realism , his portraits of nobles who speak French more than Russian, daydream rather than become adequate estate managers, and are so blinded by rank and status they cannot detect a con artist, made the work an instant classic. It cemented Gogol’s reputation as a deft and humorous social commentator.

The work—intended to be a trilogy—remains incomplete, ending mid-sentence, as Gogol burned the original conclusion to the second part before his death in 1852.

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Gogol was born in 1809 in what is now Ukraine, to a minor noble family. In adulthood, he moved to the imperial capital of Saint Petersburg, where he worked as a minor civil servant and wrote his first collection of stories in 1831, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka , which depict Ukrainian life. Gogol’s fame as a satirist grew with his 1836 play, The Government Inspector , which, along with Gogol’s other plays is still regularly performed in theaters . Gogol is regarded as one of Russia’s literary giants, alongside Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy.

This guide is based on the 2017 English translation by Donald Rayfield, and all citations refer to the ebook location numbers.

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Plot Summary

Dead Souls is the tale of Chichikov, an itinerant mid-rank bureaucrat desperate to make his fortune. He seeks to do so not by conventional means, but by purchasing peasants who have died since the last census, and thus are only alive on paper. He can then mortgage these “dead souls” and get rich. Throughout every episode, Gogol’s intrusive, digressive narrator offers commentary on each character, the text’s structure, and Chichikov’s fitness as a protagonist . The narrator frequently comments on the author’s choices, fate, and responsibilities, adding metaliterary analysis to descriptions of the plot and its development.

In the novel’s first part, Chichikov meets many landowners, in scenes that illuminate the conditions of Russia’s landed aristocracy. Most of the nobles in town at first regard Chichikov as trustworthy and charming, and his scheme proceeds mostly smoothly. The dreamy Manilov is easily taken in by Chichikov’s fine manners, while the cunning Sobakevich sees Chichikov’s scheme as a moneymaking enterprise. Nozdryov’s servants almost beat Chichikov, who escapes only because the bellicose Nozdryov is arrested.

The cruel and capricious Nozdryov, an elaborate liar and compulsive gambler, refuses to cooperate. When Chichikov gets overly confident, showing too much interest in the governor’s daughter at a ball, Nozdryov loudly declaims Chichikov’s intent to purchase dead souls from everyone, which alarms Chichikov. The nobles grow anxious, entertaining rumors about the newcomer’s identity and motives—Chichikov may elope with the governor’s daughter, or he may be a government spy. They never fully realize either Chichikov’s identity or the nature of his project, in a biting commentary on the failure of the Russian nobility to look beyond appearances or their own anxieties.

The narrator reveals Chichikov’s long career of confidence schemes and smuggling operations, fueled by lifelong dreams of becoming wealthy and living in comfort. The narrator, taking on the voice of the author, defends his choice of a morally flawed hero as a worthy literary subject, and identifies Chichikov’s journey with Russia itself.

In Part 2, Chichikov continues his quest, in what is likely present day Ukraine (78). He meets an idealistic nobleman, Tentetnikov, whose utopian dreams and high ideals are so unattainable they thwart his own marriage prospects. Chichikov mocks the young man, but ultimately brings him together with the woman he loves because her father, a prominent general, will help Chichikov acquire more dead peasants.

Chichikov wonders whether there may be more to life than schemes to get rich quickly. He is enraptured by the landowner Konstantin Konstanzhglo’s luxurious estate, built entirely through tireless labor and fair treatment of the peasants who labor on it. Chichikov borrows money in the hopes of becoming a landowner himself. A scheme involving a fraudulent will soon goes awry, but Chichikov engages a clever lawyer, even more corrupt than Chichikov himself.

When the tsar’s governor-general arrests Chichikov, the moralizing and upright alcohol monopolist, Murazov, offers Chichikov hope in the form of a pardon, if he promises to truly reform his life and abandon the pursuit of wealth above all else. Chichikov agrees, but in the end, his lawyer breaks him out of prison. The governor-general agrees to let Chichikov leave town, and the narrator suggests that he may yet reform himself.

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Book Reviews/Dead Souls

Dead Souls is a novel by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. Along with Gogol's short stories, it is considered a masterpiece. Although it is primarily concerned with Russian society during the early 19th century, Gogol's wit and fresh prose make it a joy to read today.

Recommended translation: Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls. Ed. Susanne Fusso. Trans. Bernard G. Guerney. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.

• 1 Introduction to Dead Souls
• 3 Character Descriptions
• 4 Major Themes
• 5 Composition History
• 6 Publication History
• 7 Literary Significance
• 8 Adaptations
• 9 Study Questions
• 10 References

Introduction to Dead Souls [ edit | edit source ]

Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls is a satire that exposes the corrupt "underbelly" of Russian nineteenth century society. On a superficial level, the title refers to the book’s plot, where the main character Chichikov sets out to amass serfs, or souls, to his name. In order to do so, he buys the names of dead peasants off of landowners who are still being taxed for them because censuses were taken once every few years, resulting in a list congruous with the previous census in his name. On a more philosophical level, the title refers to the morality or lack thereof of the characters the reader meets within the novel. Their actions, though consistent with societal expectations, are corrupt, showing how fraudulent Russian society really is, and Gogol has the reader question the ultimate ethicalness of the Russian 19 th century world.

Plot [ edit | edit source ]

The novel begins with Chichikov coming to the town of N--. He is welcomed by everyone, who think he is a model person, and is invited to various social gatherings. He begins roaming around the countryside with his coach driver, Selifan, looking for land owners to buy dead serfs from. The land owners are presented as comedic and simple caricatures, with much of the novel's humor derived from interactions with them. The first land owner, Manilov, is so friendly he takes on a farcical air; Korobochka is a widow out of touch with the world; Nozdrev is deceitful; and Sobakevich is an adroit business man who knows no morals. Even Pliushkin, the most tragic of the land owners, is first introduced in a comic fashion: Chichikov mistakes him for an old, female serf.) The plot is considered very circular because of the visits to the land owners

Despite distrust and greed somewhat hampering Chichikov's acquisition of the dead souls, he returns to the village after meeting with Pliushkin, having amassed four hundred dead souls. Once back, he promptly resumes festivities with the people. Eventually, however, rumors begin to spread about Chichikov when they realize all the serfs he bought were dead. Some conjecture that he wants to run away from with the governor's daughter, while others think he is Napoleon or a war veteran who lost his leg in disguise, revealing the backwardness of the townspeople. Chichikov is at first blissfully unaware of the people's gossip; when it comes to his attention he quickly leaves town.

During the final chapter much of Chichikov's life is revealed. He was a studious and hardworking student with a knack for money, and after graduation works several government jobs. The real reason for the acquisition of dead souls is also revealed: the more serfs one has in Russia at this time, the greater their social standing. It is, in other words, a get rich quick scheme. The novel ends on an uncertain note, as it is unclear where Chichikov will go or what he plans to do next.

Character Descriptions [ edit | edit source ]

Chichikov: The protagonist of the novel. The driving force of his story is his desire to obtain dead souls from serf owners in the region. His past and motivations for collecting dead souls remain a mystery for much of the novel. He is cordially greeted when he arrives in the town of N-- and impresses the residents there. Although at first he appears warm and honest to the reader as well, as the narrative goes on he appears to become more and more superficial. His name is derived from the Russian word for "sneeze."

Selifan: Chichikov's carriage driver. He is portrayed as dimwitted and lazy and is also of a lower social standing than many of the other characters in the novel.

Manilov: The first serf owner Chichikov visits. He is both nice and welcoming to a fault, as well as being highly sentimental. His name means "to lure, attract, or beckon" in Russian.

The Widow Korobochka: The second serf owner Chichikov visits. She is an old widow and very shrewd in her ways. She is hesitant to sell Chichikov the serfs because she is afraid dead souls actually sell for much more than what Chichikov is offering. Her name means "little box" in Russian.

Nozdrev: The third serf owner. He is superficial and a dilettante, in addition to being incredibly two-faced. Gogol asserts that everyone knows someone who has similar characteristics as Nozdrev. Nozdrev is also the Russian word for "nostril."

Sobakevich: The fourth serf owner. He is a quiet and resourceful man who tries to sell Chichikov dead souls the instant he thinks he can make a profit from him. His name means "dog" in Russian.

Plyushkin: The fifth and final serf owner. Chichikov thinks he is a serf when he first sees him. He has a troubled past: his older daughter eloped with a soldier, his wife and younger daughter are dead, and his son, against Plyushkin's wishes, joined the military. His farm has fallen into disrepair and because of this Chichikov is able to buy a multitude of serfs from him.

Major Themes [ edit | edit source ]

Artificiality vs. Nature: While on the surface many characters act in certain ways, they rarely show their true colors, preferring instead to present to the world masks they wear. Chichikov, for instance, appears as a nice, charming man to many of the town's residents, but in actuality he arguably feels none of those emotions. He is simply doing this to get on their good side like the social climber he is. Characters like the two-faced Nozdrev and the other land owners are similar in this regard, as they only let their true feelings show when no one is around. Nozdrev even puts on different masks for when he is with different people, playing to what each person wants to hear.

This theme is prevalent in other Russian works from this time period, such as Eugene Onegin . The difference here is that Gogol seems to be saying nothing is truly natural when it comes to Russia. There are hardly any characters in the book who do not pander to another's liking and reveal who they truly are.

Greed: All of the land owners who Chichikov goes to in order to purchase dead souls bargain with him over the selling price. This might not seem too important until one realizes that by giving away these dead souls, for which they are taxed but receive none of the benefits they would from a living serf, they would be benefiting themselves. Gogol, then, takes greed to the extreme; the characters here are so greedy they are only hurting themselves. By bringing attention to this, Gogol critiques and satirizes another part of Russian society, pointing out the foolhardiness in parts of daily life that some Russians assume are perfectly fine.

Materialism: Description is favored over plot in this book. Though this may irk some, there is a good reason behind this choice in design: Gogol wanted to emphasize character's possessions, the same way they try to emphasize them. In 19th century Russia, one's social standing meant everything, and this social standing was determined by one's possessions. It is for this reason that Chichikov desires those dead souls so very much. By placing descriptions of the things people own above plot in terms of significance, Gogol satirizes the need to show off one's wealth and property and reveals the pitfalls in considering one's possessions the most important things in life.

Gossip: A very common motif in the novel. In later chapters of the book, it takes on a significant role, to the point where it is gossip that ends Chichikov's plans. Village people gossip with one another about Chichikov and his past, creating pasts for him so absurd they are humorous. Some think that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise, trying to make a new life for himself. One man even states that Chichikov is an old war veteran who lost his leg in the war. When other men point out that Chichikov does not have a wooden leg, the man backs down, but others' ideas are still just as ridiculous.

In this way the backwardness of the townspeople is revealed. Though they fancy themselves smart and capable individuals, they are all irrational in their conjectures and crave gossip. Though on the surface the townspeople might look innocuous and even welcoming, deep down they cannot escape their backwater country roots, and eventually these inevitably come to light.

Composition History [ edit | edit source ]

Gogol first referenced the work that would become Dead Souls in a letter to his friend Alexander Pushkin in 1835. At this point in time he was already an established novelist, having published short story collections to much acclaim like Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka and Arabesques . He referred to it as “a very long novel” and continued to work on the novel intermittently while also writing other work like his short stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” and traveling around Europe (Gogol, 278). Much of Dead Souls was written during his time in Rome. After much work, the novel was finally published in 1842. Gogol had meant the book that was published to be the first part in a modern rendering of Dante’s Divine Comedy , roughly corresponding to the Inferno . He continued work on the project, but gradually he fell into a slump as he experienced a creative decline. In 1852, Gogol slipped into depression and burned his manuscripts, including what was to be the sequel to Dead Souls. Gogol died nine days later, but luckily some pieces of the manuscript he had been working on survived.

Publication History [ edit | edit source ]

The first edition of Dead Souls was printed in Moscow and published in Russia in 1842. An English translation by D.J. Hogarth followed later that year; this translation is currently in the public domain. Bernard Guilbert Guerney translated the novel into English again in 1942, was revised in 1948, and was published by the New York Readers' Club.

Literary Significance [ edit | edit source ]

Dead Souls: A Poem came under scrutiny for its title, which was deemed heretical, prompting Nikolai Gogol to change it to The Adventures of Chichikov: Dead Souls . The work is considered to be a novel, yet Gogol calls it a poema , perhaps for its philosophical qualities and musings on the state of the Russian Empire. Anne Lounsbury, however, states that poema is “an ambiguous generic label that in his day generally signified a long work in verse, epic or mock epic” (Lounsbury, 125.) Gogol may in fact be deriding his contemporaries, depicting a bleak and grotesque rather than a romanticized version of the Russian provincial townships and the supposedly erudite people that inhabit them.

Lounsbery also notes that “Gogol’s career coincided with the period when Russian literature moved decisively out of the aristocratic and semiprivate sphere of the salons and into the broader and far less predictable realm of print” (Lounsbery, 127.) Dead Souls therefore is significant for its wider audience; its distribution exceeded high society and went towards the literate mercantile and provincial gentry. It was received at the time with mixed opinions, as book reviewers, used to romantic novels filled with virtuous heroes modeled after the Russian skazka , or fairy tale, criticized the lack of plot and excessive detail. It is precisely this description-centric aspect of the work that distinguishes it from the preceding literary tradition; Gogol emphasizes the characters’ material possessions just as they themselves do. Almost fifty years later, in 1886, a book review in the New York Times (see References ) described it as Gogol’s masterpiece, a work that perfectly encapsulates the Russian condition in the provincial townships. According to the book review, Alexander Pushkin, clearly aware of the disparaging social criticism remarked, “It is the picture of the universal platitude of the country (Russia.)” Furthermore, when Gogol read the work aloud to him, he supposedly burst into tears and said, “The sad thing, our poor Russia!” Such pity-evoking depictions of the Russian Empire influenced writers such as Turgenev, who according to this 1886 book review “sang the same” themes, but in a more refined manner: “It is a tender minor on the part of [Turgenev], exquisite in its delicacy, intoned with a broken heart, while Gogol howls it, if you like in the major key, with many a joke and a quibble.” This theme of discussing the errors within Russian society such as its materialism, its gossipy nature and its corruption (one only has to look at Chichikov’s rise to prominence to see this element) is an integral part of the Russian literary tradition; it is Gogol's manner in addressing the question that is unique.

Adaptations [ edit | edit source ]

Mikhail Bulgakov first adapted the novel for the Moscow Art Theatre. The production was directed by Constantin Stanislavski and opened on 28 th November, 1932.

Dead Souls was also turned into an opera in 1976 by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin.

In 1984, it became a television mini-series directed by Mikhail Shveytser.

In 2006, the novel was aired on the BBC’s Radio 4, incorporating the voices of Mark Heap as Chichikov and Michael Palin as the narrator.

Source: Dead Souls. Wikipedia Encyclopedia. May 14, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls .

Study Questions [ edit | edit source ]

1. What kind of hero is Chichikov? Can he even be called one?

2. Gogol frequently makes detailed lists about inanimate objects. What may be the purpose of such attention on seemingly superfluous matters?

3. What are the satirical elements of the book?

4. What impressions of Russian life do you as the reader get from Dead Souls ? Are they positive or negative?

5. Analyze a passage that you found to be thematically rich and apply it to the work's title. What insights do you garner?

6. How does Gogol portray serfs and serfdom?

7. What was serfdom like in Russia when Gogol wrote the book?

8. What does Chichikov value? What does he want from life?

9. What are the types of Russian landlords? Are there any good landlords?

10. Besides serfdom, what else is Gogol criticizing in the novel?

References [ edit | edit source ]

Manuscripts

Bely, Andrei translated by Christopher Colbath. Gogol’s Artistry . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009.

Fanger, Donald. The Creation of Nikolai Gogol . Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Fasso, Susanne and Priscilla Meyer , eds. Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992.

Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls. Ed. Susanne Fusso. Trans. Bernard G. Guerney. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print.

Lindstrom, Thaïs S. Nikolay Gogol . New York, New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc, 1974.

Lounsbery, Anne. Thin Culture, High Art: Gogol, Hawthorne, and Authorship in Nineteenth-Century Russia and America . Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Maguire, Robert A. Exploring Gogol . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Maguire, Robert A. Gogol from the 20th Century: 11 Essays . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Rowe, William Woodin. Through Gogol’s Looking Glass: Reverse Vision, False Focus and Precarious Logic . New York, NY: New York University Press, 1976.

Journal Articles

Brodiansky, Nina. “Gogol and His Characters.” The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 31, No. 76 (December, 1952): 36-57. JSTOR. org. 10 May, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4204403 .

Fanger, Donald. “Dead Souls: The Mirror and the Road.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 33, No. 1, (June, 1978): 24-47. JSTOR. org. May 14, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2932925 .

Freeborn, Richard. “Dead Souls: A Study.” The Slavonic and East European Review , Vol. 49, No. 114 (January, 1971): 18-44. JSTOR. org. 10 May, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206320 .

Futrell, Michael H. “Gogol and Dickens.” The Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 34, No. 83, (June, 1956): 443-459. JSTOR. org. 10 May, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4204752 .

Golstein, Vladimir. “Landowners in Dead Souls: Or the Tale of How Gogol Blessed What He Wanted to Curse.” The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Summer, 1997): 243-257. JSTOR. org. May 14, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/309735 .

Snyder, Harry C. “Airborne Imagery in Gogol's Dead Souls.” The Slavic and East European Journal Vol. 23, No. 2, (Summer, 1979): 173-189. JSTOR. org. May 14, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/308110 .

Weathers, Winston. “Gogol's Dead Souls: The Degrees of Reality.” College English Vol. 17, No. 3 (December, 1955): 159-164. JSTOR. org. May 14, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/495738 .

Web Articles

Byatt, A.S. A Poll Tax on Souls. October 29, 2004. The Guardian. May 10, 2012 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/oct/30/classics.asbyatt .

Kalfus, Ken. Waiting for Gogol. August 4, 1996. The New York Times Book Review. May 10, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/04/books/waiting-for-gogol.html .

Magarshack, David. Books: A Mad Russian. September 16, 1957. Time Magazine. May 14, 2012. http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,809933-1,00.html

New York Times Book Review. Dead Souls: Nikolai Gogol, translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Donald Rayfield. The New York Times Review Books. May 10, 2012 http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/dead-souls/ .

New York Times Book Review. Gogol’s Masterpiece. December 19, 1886. The New York Times. May 10, 2012. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40F16F6355A1A738DDDA00994DA415B8684F0D3

Yarmolinsky, Avrahn. Gogol's Dead Souls Revived in Translation. May 20, 1923. The New York Times Book Review. May 10, 2012 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA081FFD3B5516738DDDA90A94DD405B838EF1D3

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Dead Souls: One of the wittiest, sharpest, cruelest critiques of literary culture

Written as a single paragraph over 300 pages – the book is daunting but this is not a negative review, article bookmarked.

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Dead Souls , by the English writer Sam Riviere, is hard to stop reading because it’s written as a single paragraph almost 300 pages long. Never in my life have I so missed the little periodic indentations of ordinary prose. It felt like wandering around the mall for six days looking for a place to sit down.

But the structure is not the most daunting aspect of Riviere’s novel. There’s also the matter of its subject: Dead Souls is an exceedingly cerebral comedy about the viability of contemporary poetry . One of the book’s blurbs claims it’s “gut-wrenchingly funny,” which may be true for a certain subset of lute-playing spoken-word baristas in Brooklyn, but others should temper their expectations.

This is not a negative review.

Indeed, I think Dead Souls is one of the wittiest, sharpest, cruelest critiques of literary culture I’ve ever read. Riviere unleashes a flock of winged devils to tear apart the hermetically sealed world of privilege, praise and publication in which a few lucky writers dwell.

The story begins in an era that arose from the ruins of a world-shattering crisis when the publishing industry was afflicted by “widespread, debilitating anxiety”. Editors, publishers and book reviewers – even book reviewers! – lost all faith in their own judgments. As panic spread, the industry was rocked by “an annihilating spiral” of disasters: “Two of the main commercial houses had been proven to have released several fixed books , that is, to have sold, as new, publications that were revealed to be reprints of earlier publications, with minimal changes implemented to disguise this fact.”

As Facebook has taught us, every social and political ill can be cured with better algorithms. And so, the publishing industry, desperate to regain the public’s trust, devises a computer tool

The public reacts to this revelation of publishing malfeasance as though it were Watergate, the Gunpowder Plot and the Teapot Dome scandal combined. “Every aspect of the industry’s architecture came under intense scrutiny,” Riviere writes in his perfectly modulated tone of mock horror. “Every major player in the field received challenges to redress and redesign, as shockwaves moved up and down the once proud edifices of publishing, shaking loose careers and reputations.”

As Facebook has taught us, every social and political ill can be cured with better algorithms. And so, the publishing industry, desperate to regain the public’s trust, devises a computer tool: the Quantitative Analysis and Comparison System. QACS analyses all aspects of a work of literature – “the machinations of plot, the structural dynamics of narrative and perspective, the balancing of metaphor and the density of descriptive language” – to identify elements of plagiarism. No infraction is too small to escape QACS’ notice. It can detect the felonious reuse of “children who die in the first twenty pages. Descriptions of the light in western Scotland. Easter as the story’s climactic and final date. Friendships resulting from traffic accidents. Giant plants” – in short, all the various “crimes against originality” that authors are wont to commit.

But Riviere is just getting started with his deadpan satire. Dead Souls opens in the aftermath of this cultural obsession with literary crime. Horrified by the deceptions perpetrated by novelists, dramatists, historians and biographers, the reading public turns in desperation to poets. “Poets were making real money,” Riviere says. “Poetry was flooding the market. There were rich poets .” In this surreal time, poetry has finally attained the central position that poets are always telling us it possesses.

What no summary can convey is the hypnotic effect of Riviere’s relentless prose. The entire novel comes to us as a fevered confession delivered by an unnamed “editor at a mid-circulation literary magazine”. He begins, “I first heard about Solomon Wiese on a bright, blustery day on the South Bank.” The tone feels like an homage to Kint’s wandering tale about Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects . On and on, this mid-circulation editor talks about Solomon Wiese, the most famous and unrepentant poetry plagiarist of them all. Soon after the narrator spots him at a literary conference, he meets him at a bar, a coincidence that feels both natural and surreal, the way we meet people in dreams. “I knew at this point that he must be Solomon Wiese, or I knew it without knowing it,” the editor says. “It had simply become obvious that every development pointed in that direction, that the familiarity of his face mirrored my recent awareness of his name.”

As Dead Souls evolves, Solomon Wiese begins telling the captivated editor the manic story of his literary anarchy. It’s the tale of an angry poet-terrorist determined to demolish the culture of poetry by seducing it with its own mediocrity.

Riviere has written a satire that hunts down artistic pretensions and assassinates them one by one. He’s particularly brutal toward poetry anthologies, which no one ever reads, and the “deadly words of praise” offered at poetry readings. He skewers the way woke men graciously acknowledge their dominance of the cultural sphere instead of graciously not dominating the cultural sphere. And the inanity of Instagram poets is wickedly lampooned with his description of an app called Locket, on which poets assemble vast virtual crowds to listen to and praise Solomon Wiese’s stolen verse.

Deadly as it is, I suspect the kill zone from Dead Souls has a fairly small radius. But if you’re in the poetry world or you aspire to be or you escaped it, this is an astute, wildly original novel that talks trash about everyone whose success galls you. And there’s nothing quite so delicious as that.

Dead Souls by Sam Riviere. Orion Publishing Co. £16.99

© The Washington Post

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by Ian Rankin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

Increasingly—though still in his 40s—Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh police has been sounding the autumnal note. The tenth in his series ( The Hanging Garden , 1998, etc.) finds him full in the winter of his discontent. Bleak questions prevail. Will his daughter’s automobile accident leave her permanently crippled? Has his relationship with his lover plummeted past the irretrievable? And what about his job? Has he lost his sense of vocation? One of his colleagues thinks so. “Something in you has gone bad, John,” she tells him. After a stakeout at the Edinburgh zoo, Rebus makes a bad mistake—arrests the wrong man’setting in motion a chain of events that leads to a brutal murder. Now Rebus is face to face with that most searching of all questions, one that early in his career would have been unimaginable: Should he actually quit? But then the pace of events accelerates swiftly. There’s time only to pursue the links between the death he may have caused, a young man’s inexplicable disappearance, and a fellow cop’s apparent suicide. He connects them, of course. And in the process tracks down a particularly vicious murderer whose cleverness and talent for gamesmanship is sufficient to force Rebus to the top of his own game. Rebus in action is Rebus restored. Some lives, he decides—his own, for instance—are best left unexamined. Hard-drinking, hard-living Rebus remains a compelling figure, but in a book this long he gets too much time to pick at himself.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-312-20293-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

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BOOK REVIEW

by Ian Rankin

by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

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by Kathy Reichs

by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...

Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series ( Stone Cold , 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.

Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.

Pub Date: July 28, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7

Page Count: 272

Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

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by C.J. Box

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Book Reviews

'dead souls' is a smart book, in some ways a good one — also, it's unreadable.

In a scene close to the end of the English poet and publisher Sam Riviere's debut novel Dead Souls , a twice-disgraced poetry plagiarist named Solomon Wiese explains that, before he got expelled from the literary establishment, he never listened when people complimented his work. In the sycophantic poetry community, Wiese declares, praise springs from "monstrous insincerity," and is, therefore, deadly. As a critic who strives to be completely honest, I can't help but take this proclamation as a bit of an insult — what am I, chopped liver? — but still, I know it holds truth. In general, I feel similarly toward Dead Souls. Riviere is sharp and funny, and he fills his novel with insights that are both rude and correct. It is undeniably a smart book, and, in certain ways, a good one. That said, it is unreadable.

Dead Souls takes place during one long night at the bar of a London Travelodge, where Wiese tells the story of his downfall to the narrator, a supremely irritating, hyper-self-conscious poetry magazine editor. It has no paragraph breaks, no chapters, almost no plot, and no interest whatsoever in life outside the publishing industry. (Could it be set in Brooklyn? It could.) Nor is it interested in creating a nuanced, intriguing, or even three-dimensional portrait of Publishing World for readers who may not already be involved — or, to use the narrator's preferred word, embroiled — in the literary sphere. Instead, Riviere works from the premise that "[f]or a long time now there had been no poetry in the poetry." According to his narrator, nearly all contemporary poetry is so derivative and bad that it barely deserves the name. His prose is dense with satire, but, stripped down, it seems to ask three plaintive, linked questions: How did poetry get so phony? What even is real poetry? And, whatever it is, will it ever be back again?

All three questions are indisputably valid. Riviere has good answers to the first: he skewers publishing for ignoring rural and regional writers, for being too driven by social pressure, and for being all but inaccessible to anyone whose parents can't support them financially. He's also clever on the self-serving, often vacuous nature of social media praise and pile-ons, which he satirizes well. In order to answer the second and third questions, though, he'd have to venture outside irony, which his narrator is incapable of doing. This nameless narrator limits Riviere severely. He's repressed, status- and self-obsessed, and utterly resistant to most types of meaningful thought. He devotes the bulk of his intellectual efforts to "microanalysis of the ethics of [any] situation, which, despite the amount of time and energy I seemed to expend on it, I regarded basically as a private entertainment." It is a great relief, when Wiese begins his monologue, to escape the narrator somewhat — but Riviere never lets us escape completely. We receive Wiese's tale via the narrator, which means that we get it stripped of empathy or artistic concern.

To Summarize, 'Infinite Country' Can Be Frustrating

The Weird World Of 'Cosmogony' Is Immensely Inviting

Perhaps I shouldn't blame the narrator, who is, after all, Riviere's invention. It is certainly Riviere's choice to exclude non-participants in Publishing World from Dead Souls . Inside jokes (tote bags! Ha!) abound; explanations or extrapolations to the rest of society, not so much. Wiese may believe that his "poetic destiny" is to produce "a work of real art," but he is so plainly a charlatan that I struggle to imagine any reader who wishes to write good poetry — or create good art of any sort — choosing to spend time with him. I am not, to be clear, complaining that he's not likeable; rather, as I read, I found myself thinking often of the fiction-writing protagonist of Lily King's Writers & Lovers , who refuses to date a guy with writer's block because "[t]hat kind of thing is contagious." Wiese's B.S. seems contagious, too. Riviere writes him as a personification of Publishing World: He absorbs the whole poetry ecosystem, then regurgitates it so obviously that he gets caught and shamed for plagiarism not once, but twice.

Dead Souls plainly takes inspiration from two writers: Thomas Bernhard, king of the single-paragraph novel, and Roberto Bolaño, who founded a poetry movement in Mexico in the 1970s, then wrote an exceptional novel, The Savage Detectives , about a made-up poetry movement much like his own. It is my personal, unshakable belief that writing without paragraphs is a middle finger to the reader, which suits Bernhard; his books are rageful howls. Dead Souls is a gripe. Gripes, by me, should have breaks in them. As far as the resemblance between Dead Souls and The Savage Detectives goes, I will say only that the latter loves poetry; the former doesn't even know what poetry is. It seems unsurprising, then, that while Bolaño's novel overflows with joy, excitement, confusion, and humor, Riviere's is fundamentally dried out. It is a collection of ideas with no emotion. Why turn to fiction for that?

Lily Meyer is a writer and translator living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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Dead Souls [Book Review]

Allegories about making deals with the devil have been around for so long that they’ve pretty much grown stale.  There’s really only two ways the story could end, right?  Either the bargainer regains their soul by outwitting the devil, or the devil collects the promised soul, usually by way of trickery.  While these stories always retain some sort of fascination, over time they’ve lost their sense of horror. Thanks to various television shows or movies, Lucifer isn’t quite so scary anymore. Which is why J. Lincoln Fenn’s new novel is such a chilling breath of fresh air.

  Complex characters, breakneck pacing, gruesome horror, and a shocking ending makes for one highly recommended tale of terror.

Her sophomore effort centers around Fiona Dunn, a successful marketing manager who finds herself inadvertently striking up a deal with old Scratch himself during a moment of absolute vulnerability. Drunk and disbelieving, she accepts his offer; he’ll grant her a wish in exchange for a favor to be determined at a later date. Fiona soon discovers that Scratch is very real, though, and his favors bring absolute terror.  Fiona finds herself in a support group of other “dead souls,” while they wait to discover just what’s required of them when their time is up.

Fiona Dunn makes for one compelling lead.  She’s a fighter who refuses to give up, even in the bleakest of circumstances.  Nor is she innocent.  Her rough upbringing is what’s instilled in her those survival instincts, but they’ve also set the precedence for darker traits as well, like paranoia and selfishness. She’s clever, yet prone to making continuous poor choices. It’s both the complexity of her character and her dual nature that keeps the narrative mysterious.

As are the continued twists that Fenn introduces to the story.  Despite a well-trodden theme, Fenn never takes the story down the expected route.   While the outcome of this type of story seems a forgone conclusion, Fenn brilliantly paces out the exposition to keep you guessing.  For every dead end Fiona meets, a new, unexpected avenue opens up for her to explore. That she’s racing against the clock heightens the tension.

  Perhaps its Fenn’s honest yet chilling take on humanity that proves to be the most terrifying aspect of the story.

Most impressive, though, is Fenn’s rendering of Scratch and all of his horrific deeds.  His presence looms large over the narrative despite his brief appearances.  While seductive, Scratch is terrifying.  Why? His favors are downright gruesome, each favor called in growing more repulsive and deadly than the one that preceded. The ending was so grim and morbid that I had to re-read just to wrap my brain around the imagery.

Through J. Lincoln Fenn’s elegant, razor sharp prose, Fiona’s story presents a thoughtful and thrilling examination on humanity. Even if a loophole in the contract with the devil can be discovered, is the moral tax to your soul worth the price? Perhaps its Fenn’s honest yet chilling take on humanity that proves to be the most terrifying aspect of the story.

An impressive sophomoric effort, J. Lincoln Fenn is a talented horror author on the rise. Dead Souls is an edgy, violent take on a typically tired tale. Complex characters, breakneck pacing, gruesome horror, and a shocking ending makes for one highly recommended tale of terror.

Meagan Navarro

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Dead Souls Paperback – February 21, 1996

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Gogol's 1842 novel Dead Souls , a comic masterpiece about a mysterious con man and his grotesque victims, is one of the major works of Russian literature. It was translated into English in 1942 by Bernard Guilbert Guerney; the translation was hailed by Vladimir Nabokov as "an extraordinarily fine piece of work" and is still considered the best translation of Dead Souls ever published. Long out of print, the Guerney translation of Dead Souls is now reissued. The text has been made more faithful to Gogol's original by removing passages that Guerney inserted from earlier drafts of Dead Souls . The text is accompanied by Susanne Fusso's introduction and by appendices that present excerpts from Guerney's translations of other drafts of Gogol's work and letters Gogol wrote around the time of the writing and publication of Deal Souls .

"I am delighted that Guerney's translation of Dead Souls [is] available again. It is head and shoulders above all the others, for Guerney understands that to 'translate' Gogol is necessarily to undertake a poetic recreation, and he does so brilliantly."―Robert A. Maguire, Columbia University

"The Guerney translation of Dead Souls is the only translation I know of that makes any serious attempt to approximate the qualities of Gogol's style―exuberant, erratic, 'Baroque,' bizarre."―Hugh McLean, University of California, Berkeley

"A splendidly revised and edited edition of Bernard Guerney's classic English translation of Gogol's Dead Souls . The distinguished Gogol scholar Susanne Fusso may have brought us as close as the English reader may ever expect to come to Gogol's masterpiece. No student, scholar, or general reader will want to miss this updated, refined version of one of the most delightful and sublime works of Russian literature."―Robert Jackson, Yale University

• Print length 304 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Yale University Press
• Publication date February 21, 1996
• Dimensions 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
• ISBN-10 0300060998
• ISBN-13 978-0300060997
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review.

Dead Souls is a feverish anatomy of Russian society (the book was first published in 1842) and human wiles. Its author tosses off thousands of sublime epigrams--including, "However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man," and is equally adept at yearning satire: "Where is he," Gogol interrupts the action, "who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward ? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life?" Flannery O'Connor, another writer of dark genius, declared Gogol "necessary along with the light." Though he was hardly the first to envision property as theft, his blend of comic, fantastic moralism is sui generis . --Kerry Fried

"The Guerney translation of Dead Souls is the only translation I know of that makes any serious attempt to approximate the qualities of  Gogol's style—exuberant, erratic, 'Baroque,' bizarre."—Hugh McLean, University of California, Berkeley

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; Subsequent edition (February 21, 1996)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300060998
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300060997
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
• #7,123 in Classic Literature & Fiction
• #15,319 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Nikolai vasilevich gogol.

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by Nikolai Gogol , translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Donald Rayfield

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Dead Souls is the NYRB Classics Book Club selection for July 2012. The first of the great Russian novels and one of the indisputable masterpieces of world literature, Dead Souls is the tale of Chichikov, an affably cunning con man who causes consternation in a small Russian town when he shows up out of nowhere proposing to buy title to serfs who, though dead as doornails, are still property on paper. What can he have up his sleeve, the local landowners wonder, even as some rush to unload what isn't of any use to them anyway, while others seek to negotiate the best deal possible, and others yet hold on to their dead for dear life, since if somebody wants what you have then no matter what don't give it away. Chichikov's scheme soon encounters obstacles, but he is never without resource, and as he stumbles forward as best he can, Gogol paints a wonderfully comic picture of Russian life that also serves as a biting satire of a society as corrupt as it is cynical and silly. At once a wild phantasmagoria and a work of exacting realism, Dead Souls is a supremely living work of art that spills over with humor and passion and absurdity.

Donald Rayfield's vigorous new translation corrects the mistakes and omissions of earlier versions while capturing the vivid speech rhythms of the original. It also offers a fuller text of the unfinished second part of the book by combining material from Gogol's two surviving drafts into a single compelling narrative. This is a tour de force of art and scholarship—and the most authoritative, accurate, and readable edition of Dead Souls available in English. Nikolai Gogol, Donald Rayfield

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Classics ISBN: 9781590173763 Pages: 432 Publication Date: July 17, 2012

Gogol's Dead Souls has achieved a magnificent re-birth.... Rayfield's translation is one that Vladimir Nabokov would unreservedly admire.... A big, beautiful book and a mould-breaking classic reinvigorated. —William Boyd, The Guardian

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Counting the Dead in Gaza

May 24, 2024

In response to: Is Israel Committing Genocide? from the June 6, 2024 issue

To the Editors:

My article “Is Israel Committing Genocide?” [ NYR , June 6] cited numbers of the dead and wounded in Gaza, including the number of women and children killed, as reported by the United Nations. Shortly after the article went to press, reports circulated that the UN had changed the source on which it relies for fatality statistics in the territory. The total number of deaths reported remained the same, but the UN stated that the Gaza Health Ministry had not yet established the full names and identity numbers of more than 10,000 of those killed. It therefore distinguished between the total death toll (35,233 people as of this writing) and the number of identified victims (24,686 people), only specifying the number of women and children included in the latter. The ministry is still trying to collect information about the remaining victims from morgues and hospitals across the territory.

Given the circumstances in Gaza, it is understandable that collecting this information is very difficult. Many hospitals in the territory are not functioning. It will take time to see whether there is a significant disparity between the information initially reported and the final figures.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also entered the discussion about numbers by asserting that Israeli forces had killed roughly 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians. He did not say how he obtained this information. In most armed conflicts, at least two or three times as many people are wounded as are killed. That is reflected in the figures reported by the ministry, and that is what one would expect in a war in which many deaths are attributable to the bombing raids that have devastated Gaza. If Netanyahu is correct about the number of Hamas combatants Israel has killed, the combined number of dead and wounded combatants would probably exceed the number that Israel has claimed are in the territory. Israel should declare victory, and the war would be over.

That Israel has decided to continue the war raises questions about Netanyahu’s figures. His use of such figures evokes memories of the Vietnam War, during which American military commanders, including General William Westmoreland, regularly claimed that Vietnamese who were killed, including many civilians, were Viet Cong combatants. This helped to create the illusion in some circles that America was winning the war, until it was lost.

As I pointed out in my article, Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights groups have been barred from operating in Gaza during the conflict by the Israel Defense Forces. Their exclusion has substantially limited our knowledge of what is taking place in Gaza. One of them, the Israeli organization B’Tselem, has provided what I believe to be reliable statistics on past conflicts. Its inability to operate in Gaza during the current conflict has eliminated that source of information.

Aryeh Neier New York City

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Screen Rant

Eric review: a fierce benedict cumberbatch & stellar supporting cast narrowly save overstuffed show.

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Doctor Who Theory Reveals Season 14's Evil Prime Minister Is Much Bigger Villain Than He Seems

Leonard doesn't need to be dead for young sheldon's penny reference to make sense, bridgerton season 3 sets up one spinoff that's been desperately needed since queen charlotte.

• The engaging missing persons story Eric struggles to balance its surreal puppet concept with its intertwining storylines.
• Stellar performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Gaby Hoffman and McKinley Belcher III only somewhat keep the show's overstuffed plot afloat.
• The show addresses timely social issues like the rise in homelessness and police corruption, but much of it feels like a distraction from the central mystery driving the plot.

Crafting an engaging missing persons story is no easy feat, particularly one meant to extend across six hour-long episodes, as is the case with Netflix's Eric . That said, while the show seeks to subvert expectations of its central concept with a surreal manifestation of the titular puppet monster and an ensemble of intriguing characters, it finds itself a little too weighed down by these competing elements to make for a fully engrossing watch.

Eric follows Vincent, a talented puppeteer whose life is shattered by the mysterious disappearance of his son, Edgar. As Vincent spirals into a world of despair and obsession, he channels his anguish into his puppet, Eric.

• Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a superb manic performance.
• The supporting cast are just as engrossing in their roles, namely Gaby Hoffman and McKinley Belcher III.
• The show meaningfully parallels the modern rise in homelessness and troublesome police.
• The focus is too low on its central catalyst of the missing child.
• Some characters feel underdeveloped with unresolved arcs.
• The attempts to veer into levity feel out of place.

Hailing from Shame co-writer Abi Morgan, Eric primarily revolves around Benedict Cumberbatch's Vincent , the co-creator and star of a children's puppet TV show in the '80s. Vincent's home life is anything but bright as his narcissistic personality frequently conflicts with his wife, Cassie (Gaby Hoffman), and young son, Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe), as well as his coworkers.

When his son goes missing, Vincent's worst traits become all the more prevalent, eventually manifesting into a delusional hallucination of the titular monster puppet created by his son whom he tries to get onto the show in the hopes of convincing him to come home. But with so many other characters and storylines happening, the show ultimately feels overstuffed.

Eric Never Finds The Right Balance Between Its Central Story & Characters

Despite having a roster of well-rounded characters, the focus feels too sporadic..

Beyond Vincent, Eric utilizes its six-episode story to explore a large roster of characters with their own individual narratives. Cassie only stays married to Cumberbatch's volatile character for her son; McKinley Belcher III's Detective Ledroit struggles between his reassignment to the Missing Persons unit and caring for his partner dying of AIDS; and Dan Fogler's Lennie is stuck between a rock and a hard place as he tries to comfort his best friend amid his son's disappearance, while also grappling with his endlessly toxic behavior and the strain it's putting on their show.

Though these intertwining plots do come to a head in the later chapters of the show, the overall build-up feels a little too sporadic for its pacing.

But even as Eric looks to explore these characters, it finds itself grappling with a variety of intertwining stories, including a rise in homelessness in New York at the time, political corruption masquerading as healthy growth for the city and the police sweeping some cases under the rug in favor of others. While these are all certainly compelling, they ultimately feel both out of place and a distraction from the main crux of the show.

Where shows like True Detective have thrived in slowly meting out answers to their central mystery while focusing on character development, Eric can't find the right rhythm to do that. In some episodes, the focus on other characters and stories is so prominent that the desire to find Edgar, or tell us who or what is behind his disappearance, is practically non-existent. Though these intertwining plots do come to a head in the later chapters of the show, the overall build-up feels a little too sporadic for its pacing.

Eric's Puppet-Based Concept Does Provide Some Unique (If Uneven) Twists

The cumberbatch-voiced monster works well for vincent's growth, but leads to odd tonal jumbles..

The biggest selling point for Eric — beyond Cumberbatch in the lead role — is that of the titular monster puppet, whom Vincent begins hallucinating as his desperation to find Edgar increases. In any other show, this concept would be utilized for a more comedic effect, leaning into surreal situations and awkward conversations of the human character having to explain away his seemingly unhinged conversations with a non-existent figure to those around him.

With the Netflix show , Morgan attempts to not only lean into the humorous possibilities of such a dynamic, but also uses Eric as a parallel for Vincent's overall growth. Though she certainly succeeds in both parts, it ultimately feels a bit too jumbled when it comes to Eric 's overall tonal balance. The majority of the series takes a definitively dark path with its story, showing the traumatic impact Vincent's behavior has left on his family and friends, as well as himself, as he deals with alcoholism and various drug addictions.

While the inclusion of Eric could be seen as a welcome reprieve from this darkness, and it offers moments of levity, it ultimately makes parts of the show feel a bit too uneven in their tone. Moments in which we want to feel energized by Vincent's steady change into a determined father searching for his son, or even a man nearing rock bottom with his vices, are more undermined than engaging as his goofy antics and foul-mouthed quips cut through these potentially moving moments rather than adding to them.

Eric (2024)

Eric's stellar cast & fierce timely themes narrowly save the show, it's one of cumberbatch's best performances to date and modern social parallels keep everything afloat..

In spite of some of its shortcomings, there are a few key factors that keep Eric from being a complete disappointment, with the cast being the biggest one. In his central turns as both Vincent and the titular monster puppet, Cumberbatch absolutely dominates his performance , believably tapping into the former's darker tendencies, while also making Eric feel like both a completely separate character and extension of his flawed protagonist. Hoffman and Belcher III similarly shine in their respective roles, layering them with their own unique emotional arcs that make them fascinating to watch.

Eric is a show with a lot to say and many characters it wants to explore, but lacks the benefit of time.

Another major benefit is the timely social commentary Morgan explores throughout the show's interweaving storylines. The government's shady handling of an increasing homeless population feels ripped right out of current headlines from major US cities, with local governments similarly struggling to find a meaningful solution, albeit the corrupt route the show takes is a little less reported on. Similarly, the show's frequent highlighting of news coverage for a missing white child being greater than that of one of color rings true as the Black Lives Matter movement remains just as prevalent as ever.

Ultimately, Eric is a show with a lot to say and many characters it wants to explore, but lacks the benefit of time. Though it could be argued that spreading a missing persons story across multiple seasons could lead to even further issues regarding proper narrative focus, it would have at least allowed Morgan more room to better explore the various themes and well-rounded characters. That said, thanks to the stellar performances of her incredible cast and some very powerful moments, the show does just narrowly avoid crumbling under the weight of its various plots.

Eric begins streaming on Netflix on May 30.

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Caleb Carr, Author of Dark Histories, Dies at 68

His own dark history prompted him to write about and investigate the roots of violence, notably in his best-selling novel “The Alienist.”

By Penelope Green

Caleb Carr, a military historian and author whose experience of childhood abuse drove him to explore the roots of violence — most famously in his 1994 best seller, “The Alienist,” a period thriller about the hunt for a serial killer in 19th-century Manhattan — died on Thursday at his home in Cherry Plain, N.Y. He was 68.

The cause was cancer, his brother Ethan Carr said.

Mr. Carr was 39 when he published “The Alienist,” an atmospheric detective story about a child psychiatrist — or an alienist, as those who studied the mind were called in the 1890s — who investigates the murders of young male prostitutes by using forensic psychiatry, which was an unorthodox method at the time.

Mr. Carr had first pitched the book as nonfiction; it wasn’t, but it read that way because of the exhaustive research he did into the period. He rendered the dank horrors of Manhattan’s tenement life, its sadistic gangs and the seedy brothels that were peddling children, as well as the city’s lush hubs of power, like Delmonico’s restaurant. And he peopled his novel with historical figures like Theodore Roosevelt, who was New York’s reforming police commissioner before his years in the White House. Even Jacob Riis had a cameo.

Up to that point, Mr. Carr had been writing, with modest success, on military matters. He had contributed articles to The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and he had written, with James Chace, a book about national security and, on his own, a well-received biography of an American soldier of fortune who became a Chinese military hero in the mid-19th century.

Mr. Carr had also been a regular contributor to the letters page of The New York Times; he notably once chastised Henry Kissinger for what Mr. Carr characterized as his outdated theories of international diplomacy. He was 19 at the time.

“The Alienist” was an immediate hit and earned glowing reviews. Even before it was published, the movie rights were snapped up by the producer Scott Rudin for half a million dollars. (The paperback rights sold for more than a million.)

“You can practically hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves echoing down old Broadway,” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in his review in The Times . “You can taste the good food at Delmonico’s. You can smell the fear in the air.”

Magazine writers were captivated by Mr. Carr’s downtown cool — he lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, had been in a local punk band, wore black high-top sneakers and had shoulder-length hair — and by his literary provenance. His father was Lucien Carr, a journalist who was muse to and best friends with Beat royalty: the writers Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Beautiful and charismatic as a young man, “Lou was the glue,” Ginsberg once said, that held the group together.

The elder Mr. Carr was also an alcoholic, and Caleb grew up in bohemian chaos. The Carr household was the scene of drunken revelries, and much worse. Mr. Carr raged at his wife and three sons. But he directed his most terrifying outbursts at Caleb, his middle child, whom he singled out for physical abuse.

Caleb’s parents divorced when he was 8. But the beatings continued for years.

“There’s no question that I have a lifelong fascination with violence,” Caleb Carr told Stephen Dubner of New York magazine in 1994 , just before “The Alienist” was published, explaining not just the engine for the book but why he was drawn to military history. “Part of it was a desire to find violence that was, in the first place, directed toward some purposeful end, and second, governed by a definable ethical code. And I think it’s fairly obvious why I would want to do that.”

Lucien Carr had also been abused. Growing up in St. Louis, he was sexually molested by his Boy Scout master, a man named David Kammerer who followed him to the East Coast, where Lucien entered Columbia University and met Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. One drunken night in 1944, Mr. Carr killed his longtime predator in Riverside Park, stabbing him with his Boy Scout knife and rolling him into the Hudson River. Kerouac helped him dispose of the knife. Lucien turned himself in the next day and served two years for manslaughter in a reformatory.

The killing was a cause célèbre, and became a kind of origin story for the history of the Beats . Kerouac and Burroughs rendered it in purple prose in a novel they archly titled “And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks,” which was rejected by publishers and then mired in legalities before finally being published in 2008, when all the principals were dead. (It was panned by Michiko Kakutani in The Times.) In 2013, it was the subject of a film, “Kill Your Darlings,” starring Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg.

Caleb Carr and his family found “Kill Your Darlings” more than flawed, taking issue with the film’s thesis that Lucien was a conflicted gay man in a repressive society — and that Kammerer was the victim and their relationship was consensual.

“My father fit perfectly ‘the cycle of abuse,’” Mr. Carr told an interviewer at the time . “Of all the terrible things that Kammerer did, perhaps the worst was to teach him this, to teach him that the most fundamental way to form bonds was through abuse.”

He added: “When I confronted him many years later about his extreme violence toward me, after I had entered therapy, he at length asked (after denying that such violence had occurred for as long as he could, then conceding it), ‘Doesn’t that mean that there’s a special bond between us?’ And I remember that my blood had never run quite that cold.”

Caleb Carr was born on Aug. 2, 1955, in Manhattan. His father, after being released from the reformatory, worked as a reporter and editor for United Press International, where he met Francesca von Hartz, a reporter. They married in 1952 and had three sons, Simon, Caleb and Ethan. After they divorced a decade later, Ms. von Hartz married John Speicher, an editor and novelist with three daughters. The couple and their six children moved to a loft on East 14th Street, a dangerous area in the late 1960s and ’70s. It was another chaotic household overseen by alcoholics, and the children often referred to themselves as “the dark Brady Bunch.”

Caleb attended Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in the East Village, where his interest in military history made him an outlier and a misfit. His high school transcript described him as “socially undesirable.” After graduating, he attended Kenyon College in Ohio and then New York University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and studied military and diplomatic history.

In 1997, Mr. Carr published “The Angel of Darkness,” a sequel to “The Alienist.” It featured many of the same characters, who reunite to investigate the case of a missing child. It, too, was a best seller, “as winning a historical thriller” as its predecessor, The Times’s Mr. Lehmann-Haupt wrote .

Mr. Carr was the author of 11 books, including “The Italian Secretary” (2005), a Sherlock Holmes mystery commissioned by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle; “Surrender, New York” (2016), a well-reviewed contemporary crime procedural that nonetheless sold poorly; and “Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians” (2002), which he wrote in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even in those pre-Twitter days, “Lessons of Terror” caused an internet ruckus. It was at once vociferously praised and bashed — and became a best seller, to boot — and Mr. Carr derided his critics on Amazon. Many challenged his contention that some “conventional” warfare — like General Sherman’s barbarism during the Civil War and Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians — was equivalent to terrorism, a thesis that annoyed military historians , as well as The Times’s Ms. Kakutani .

What propelled Mr. Carr in all his work was the origins of violence, the mysteries of nature and nurture. In his own life, he was determined to end the cycle of his family’s dark legacy by not having children. That choice restricted his romantic life, and as he got older, he grew more solitary. When he bought 1,400 acres in Rensselaer County, N.Y., in 2000, and built himself a house near a ridge called Misery Mountain, he became even more so.

“I have a grim outlook on the world, and in particular on humanity,” he told Joyce Wadler of The Times in 2005 . “I spent years denying it, but I am very misanthropic. And I live alone on a mountain for a reason.”

His last book, published in April, was “My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me.” It’s both a memoir of his time there and a love story to the creature who was his most constant and sustaining companion during the last decades of his life.

“But how could you live for such a long time,” he said friends asked him, “alone on a mountain with just a cat?” He took umbrage at the phrase “just a cat.”

“It needs to be understood that, for Masha, I was always enough,” he wrote. “How I lived, what I chose to do, my very nature — all were good enough for her.”

Masha, like her human roommate, had suffered physical abuse at some point, and as Mr. Carr and his companion aged, their early horrors had devastating physical repercussions. Mr. Carr’s beatings had created scar tissue in his organs that led to other serious ailments. They were each diagnosed with cancer, but Masha died first.

In addition to his brother Ethan, Mr. Carr is survived by another brother, Simon; his stepsisters, Hilda, Jennifer and Christine Speicher; and his mother, now known as Francesca Cote. Lucien Carr died in 2005.

Despite the early hoopla, “The Alienist” never made it to the big screen. Producers wanted to turn it into a love story or otherwise alter Mr. Carr’s creation. But after decades of fits and starts, i t found a home on television , and in 2018 it was seen as a 10-episode mini-series on TNT. James Poniewozik of The Times called it “lush, moody, a bit stiff.” But it was mostly a success, reaching 50 million viewers and earning six Emmy Award nominations. (It won one, for special visual effects.)

“If I had known that nothing would have come out of this book other than the advance,” Mr. Carr said in 1994 as “The Alienist” was poised for publication, “I still would have written it exactly the same. But if you were to ask me to trade this book, this whole career and have my childhood be different, I probably would.”

An earlier version of this obituary misstated part of the name of the hamlet in New York State where Mr. Carr lived. It is Cherry Plain, not Cherry Plains.

How we handle corrections

Penelope Green is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Penelope Green