I read this while listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Suffice to say, it was pure bliss.

My reading ambience aside, the book does offer an entertaining read. It's . . . well, it's crazy, to say the least. The main character has such delusions of grandeur that I was honestly stuck between feeling entertained and feeling sorry for the guy. Gogol has, in the span of fifty or so pages, written something that is so deep, so mesmerizing, yet so honest. You could actually feel the main character reach beyond his mediocrity in an attempt to achieve greatness for himself--and, I suppose, that is something that resonates within all of us. Everybody wants to be noticed; everybody wants to be just a little bit more; and everybody just wants to set themselves apart from other people, to not be just some random statistic. This novel has reflected that innate want in all of us so well that, despite being written in the early 1800s, it still strikes a chord with the modern reader; and that is, perhaps, the most wonderful thing of all about this novel.

All in all, a well-deserved five stars. I suppose I have some catching up to do with Gogol and his works.