
The Overcoat and Other Russian Tales
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Narrated by:
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Stefan Rudnicki
About this listen
In this original compilation from Skyboat Media and Blackstone Publishing, Nikolai Gogol’s stories range from the whimsical and bizarre to the incisive and satiric, from the horrific and terrifying to the nonsensical and hilarious.
A lowly government clerk, Akay Akakiyevich, must scrimp and save to purchase a new coat for the cold Russian winter in “The Overcoat”. But after one night of basking in the warmth of his new coat and the respect of his colleagues, Akaky’s one-of-a-kind overcoat is stolen from him. In his pursuit of justice, Akaky receives no help and is consumed by the loss of his prized possession.
In “The Viy”, Gogol recounts a popular folk story in which a monstrous creature, known by the population of Little Russia as the king of gnomes, helps a witch get revenge on a young student who escaped from her trap years before.
“How the Two Ivans Quarrelled” begins as a merry farce, telling the story of the friendship-ending fight between Ivan Ivanovitch and Ivan Nikiforovitch. The two Ivans have been neighbors and best friends for years despite their numerous differences, but this fight infiltrates every facet of their lives, until they cannot stand the sight of one another.
Then finally in “The Nose”, we see the peak of Gogol’s humor and absurdity when a government official wakes to find his nose has disappeared.
The Russian critic D.S. Mirsky (1890-1939) described the story as “a piece of sheer play, almost sheer nonsense. In it more than anywhere else Gogol displays his extraordinary magic power of making great comic art out of nothing.” This extraordinary power is woven throughout all the stories in this compilation, and it firmly establishes Gogol as a master of the peculiar and the surreal.
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Dead Souls
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- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
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-
Overall
-
Performance
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Story
Gogol's great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead 'souls', or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol's characters.
-
-
Hilarious and well done, but massive sections of the manuscript are missing?
- By C. E. Johnson on 11-19-18
By: Nikolai Gogol, and others
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The Russian Classics Collection: 10+ Novels and Stories from Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, & More
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Overall
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Performance
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Insightful Performances of Classic Texts
- By James on 06-11-25
By: Leo Tolstoy, and others
-
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Vintage Classics)
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using, or rather mimicking, traditional forms of storytelling, Gogol created stories that are complete within themselves and only tangentially connected to a meaning or moral. His work belongs to the school of invention, where each twist and turn of the narrative is a surprise unfettered by obligation to an overarching theme.
-
-
Gogol's Brilliant, but the recording is messy
- By Nom de Guerre on 10-08-24
By: Nikolai Gogol
-
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd.
-
-
Brilliant writer, fantastic narration, plus TOC
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-
The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection
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- Length: 186 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
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Story
Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Collection includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 3 timeless novels; all his major novellas and short stories; and 4 renowned works of non-fiction in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators.
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-
Legendary author, flawless narrations.
- By Kindle Customer on 06-07-24
By: Leo Tolstoy
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Dead Souls
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- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.
-
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Excellent Narration
- By A. T. Howarth on 03-19-22
By: Nikolay Gogol, and others
Stefan Rudnicki's Performance is Exceptional
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Gogol stories narrated by Stephan Rudnicki
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