The Government Inspector and Other Works (Wordsworth Classics)

About this book

The Government Inspector and Other Works. Gogols works constitute one of Russian literatures supreme achievements yet the nature of their brilliant originality comic genius and complex workings is difficult to summarize precisely. The Government Inspector a perennial favourite on stage and screen is considered a national institution in Russia and Gogols stories present us with one of the most marvellous worlds a writer has ever created. His quirky characters - the lowly official who imagines himself to be the King of Spain the man committed to chase his nose around St. Petersburg a whole village paralyzed at the prospect of being visited by an authority from the capital - are immortal. Although Gogols fiction was commandeered by Russias progressive critics as the work of an important social commentator he was in many ways an arch-conservative and there is a madcap strain in it that makes him a precursor of Kafka and absurdist drama.