One of pleasures of re-reading great books is that you see different things. Not just because we miss certain things the first time around but because our intervening life experience including our intervening reading gives us new context. So for example a second reading of Salman Rushdie’s great Midnight’s Children revealed many more insights and pleasures after my extensive travels through India.
In a similar vein the events of our time can add color and depth to even historical fiction if the author has captured timeless features of the human condition. Let me be less abstract. This past summer I picked up a new translation of Gogol’s Dead Souls a wonderful story set in mid-nineteenth century Imperial Russia about a middle-ranking civil servant who invents what on re-reading today seems to me to be a very modern form of financial engineering. In doing so Gogol’s anti-hero Chichikov gives nothing away to Fab Touré of synthetic CDO fame.
Chichikov’s web of transactions worked like this. In mid-nineteenth century Imperial Russia the ownership of serfs (often counted in terms of "souls") was the norm among landowners. There was also an Imperial tax levied on a per capita or soul basis. However in a wonderful Imperial bureaucratic twist this annual tax was still payable even if a given serf had died because the official headcount was only taken once every fifteen years or so via an official census. Conversely newly born serfs also did not count on the tax rolls until the next census. Finally as with all systems of slavery the serfs were the legal property of their owner and could be bought and sold or used as collateral for borrowing. And herein lies the arbitrage opportunity spotted by Gogol’s Chichikov. He went about the countryside offering to purchase the dead souls of local landowners and then used these notional serfs as collateral to borrow large sums. While somewhat incredulous at first the landowners were only too happy to sell Chichikov their dead souls thereby also ridding themselves of the obligation to continue paying taxes on departed workers until the next census. How brilliant of Gogol. One hundred and fifty years early he invented the ultimate sub-prime transaction: Packaging worthless collateral pools and then borrowing against them from unsuspecting lenders/investors.
After this well- timed re-reading of Gogol I can’t wait to re-read Crime and Punishment and see what I learn anew from Doestoevsky
Tom I’m excited to read your blog and refreshed by your authenticity. This post in particular caught my eye because you mention two of my favorite books: “Midnight’s Children” and “Dead Souls.” I loved Midnight’s Children and especially the quote “To understand one life you must swallow the world.” When I first read the book I felt so thankful that we had among us a writer who could use the English language to bring to us a different culture so vividly. I’ve never been too India but after reading that book I felt connected to the country and her people. You mentioned that your understanding of the book changed after visiting India. How exactly has it change? Was there a certain passage in particular that became more meaningful. I read Gogol’s Dead Souls in college the Norton Critical Edition and filled every line in the margins with commentary. It’s fascinating how in describing his characters so specifically Gogol has created people who are universal as relevant today as they were 150 years ago. Since our tastes in literature may be similar may I recommend: “A Hero of Our Time ” by Lermotov and translated by Nabokov. Yours Truly Zachary J. Braiker
As an avid fan of technology are you re-reading the Russian classics on an iPad/Kindle/eReader or the good old-fashioned way? Although I like the idea of the electronic versions it just doesn’t seem right to me for certain types of books – “classic” literature and heavy historic tomes need the physical presence that technology loses.
Thanks for pointing me towards new literature. I have not read any of Rushdie’s work and will get a copy tomorrow as well as Goguls’ book. There was an interesting commentary on National Public Radio about what happens to our brain when we read electronically. The topline is this: our brains are not meant for reading on electronic devices because just the nature of them prevent us from entering into deep concentration. Besides I’m with Daniel in terms of feeling the paper the spine the cover earmarking pages and writing in the margins! I’m interested in hearing Mr. Glocer’s response! Yours truly Marie Rickmyer
I always wanted to read Dead Souls but just could not get into it. You’ve provided a very succinct summary and a great metaphor. Gogol can be hilarious especially in his short stories such as ‘The Nose.’ But my favorite story by him is ‘The Overcoat’ which I think I will re-read now. Can’t wait to learn what insight you can derive from Crime and Punishment a book I can hardly read these days because i get so frustrated with Raskolnikov’s pride and stupidity.
Pretty kool article. Lov it.