Besy (the Demons) is a brilliant book.
Taras Bulba is also brilliant, though less so, and pretty clearly the work of a young man. It's also the most bloodthirsty book I have ever read. I realize Gogol was trying to come up with a kind of Iliad for Ukraine and was a Ukrainian nationalist (though he wrote in Russian), and his father was a Cossack, but DAMN.
I mean, look at the part where Taras starts a pogrom just because he's bored. He goes to the hetman and says "we need to kill somebody! Let's go fight the Turk!" The hetman says "sorry, Taras, but we have a peace treaty with the Turk." Taras walks away thinking the hetman is a wimp but then brightens up when he realizes there are some Jews nearby he can kill instead. So he leads a lynch mob and kills all the Jews in the town, except for one guy he takes mercy on who is so grateful for having been spared that he becomes Taras' loyal comedy-relief sidekick. Then there's the stuff later where he burns the Polish women alive in their churches. Now that is hardcore. Remember, Taras is the HERO.
--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Well, Dostoevsky was also a reactionary, although
> his
> main counterrevolutionary novel, Demons/the
> Possessed,
> is actually hilariously funny and dead-on about the
> left. And Gogol was brilliant about the the
> government
> and people's cravenness towards it as well -- as in
> The Nose or The Inspector General.
Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ËÞÁÎ, ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ÆÈÒÜ!
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