Many readers compare Gogol's genius with that of Miguel de Cervantes, Laurence Sterne, and James Joyce. Gogol's work shows extraordinary manipulation of language, confusion of the ridiculous and sublime, and a blossoming desire to capture in verbal images the cultural essence and national mission of Russia. Despite such recognition from his critics and readers, Gogol has been one of the most misunderstood writers of the modern age. The swarm of seemingly irrelevant details, inconsistencies, and contradictions that characterize Gogol's life and work have misled readers who look for monolithic purpose or truth. In his critical biography of Gogol, Victor Erlich says that "we are still far from agreement as to the nature of his genius, the meaning of his bizarre art, and his still weirder life." Vladimir Nabokov calls Gogol "the strangest prose-poet Russia has ever produced." Despite the oddities of Gogol's personality, the explosive complexity of his work captures the fragmentation of the nineteenth-century consciousness. Gogol's effort to overcome the social, cultural, and ultimately spiritual disunity he perceived in Russia motivates his work. Gogol's attempt to reconcile the contradictions inherent in his vision of true social and spiritual cohesiveness contributed to his death.
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