Gogol is a great author masquerading as a shit one. Dead souls is spectacularly entertaining, by far the funniest ‘old’ book I’ve read, it had me creasing and giggling with its descriptions of bizarre characters. In that sense, it feels similar to Swift’s Gulliver’s travels, although less fantastical of course.
My particular highlight was the meandering descriptions which play with metaphors then get lost in themselves, crossed backwards, with the narrator breaking through the fourth wall and musing to themselves, musing to the reader, musing to no one in particular, while another ridiculous event befalls our protagonist Chichikov.
I would rate it higher, but can you rate a book the author failed to finish higher?