59% done with Dead Souls

Chichikov’s description of travelling through Russia along a highway are wonderful.

So far Gogol has made fun of everything in Russia, but he’s not wholly critical. In the night when everyone sleeps, or out on the flat expanse of Russia along the roads, Gogol imagines the possibilities of life, the opportunities that exist. It’s only during the day and in the towns were we see failed possibility and things fake.