Before reading a translated work, I often find as many translations as I can in order to choose the best. To me, the best means close to the original in both how words must have sounded in the original, but also rendering it in English in such a way that it should, by itself, have its own literary merits in English.

Translations of foreign novels rare rarely loyal but everytime I find a good translation, it confirms my hunch that the translator must be a writer and an artist of a high caliber. This must be so in the case of Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” (henceforth: ‘DoaM’), the Ronald Wilks translation (Penguin Classics).

But this review is about Gogol’s story, not the quality of the translation. Having satisfied ourselves that the translation is pretty loyal, we can now focus on the story itself.

Gogol’s DoaM directly proceeds into making very harsh but I think appropriate remarks about certain archetypes in the society. Gogol strangely but expertly elevates some dogs and denigrates some humans simultaneously, by making the dogs able to speak (hence, indirectly represent a certain archetype of humans), but at the same time, the very act or possibility of dogs being able to behave above their natural threshold suggests the idea that dogs too have lives, personalities, cares, communication and social issues and matters to attend to (and that we must not ignore this!).

However, most of the story involves denigrating and scathing attacks against humans who deserve it. Early in the story he writes:

“With my own eyes I actually saw Medji mouth these words: ‘I’ve been, bow wow, very ill, bow wow.’ Ah, you nasty little dog! I must confess I was staggered to hear it speak just like a human being.”

Which is a very subtle attack on those humans who verbally abuse others. He also, possibly, brings attention to the idea that the subhuman (who only looks human) is cruel to animals (by considering a dog a bad word, prepended by an equally bad adjective: nasty).

The book is all wheat and no chaff when it comes to attack after attack on society’s undesirable characteristics–and not just the society he knew and grew up in, but many societies that were similar (European societies; see the next quote mentioning England.). Interestingly, the attacks apply even today. Here he’s mocking pedantry and the pursuit of useless knowledge, on the surface at least, but also mocks pedantic and narrow-minded professors for being not very bright:

It’s said that in England a fish swam to the surface and said two words in such a strange language the professors have been racking their brains for three years now to discover what it was, so far without success.

He even attacks the so-called ‘upper class’ landowner’s women for being overweight (hence implying physical sloth and therefore also intellectual backwardness) and quite masterfully comparing them to cows:

What’s more, I read somewhere in the papers about two cows going into a shop to ask for a pound of tea.

The reference to tea making it clear that he doesn’t only mean women in his country only.

Gogol is relentless. He even attacks the so-called nobility:

Never in my life have I heard of a dog that could write. Only noblemen know how to write correctly.

It is easy for the good reader to guess that he’s exaggerating for reverse effect (i.e. even dogs write better than some noblemen.). The first sentence could also possibly be targeting some of his rivals whose writings he used to deride (see the below for Northern Bee).

Nor are his contemporary civil servants spared:

Our Director must be a very clever man: his study is full of shelves crammed with books. I read some of their titles: such erudition, such scholarship! Quite above the head of any ordinary civil servant.

This is so cleverly done at the one pen-stroke, he also mocks the ‘directors’ for having books but only for decoration (as we shall see later.).

Of course, he will also get even with Bulgarin (called ‘the reptile journalist’) of the St. Petersburg journal, The Northern Bee, which, under police protection used to harshly attack the great literatti of Gogol’s day: Pushkin, Gogol, Belinsky, Lermontov and others:

I’ve been reading the Little Bee. A crazy lot, those French! What do they want? My God, I’d like to give them all a good flogging.

Even though, allegedly Pushkin was Gogol’s mentor, this author and in the light of the following evidence, it appears Gogol too didn’t think highly of his art:

For a long time I lay on my bed at home. Then I copied out some very fine poetry:

An hour without seeing you   
Is like a whole year gone by   
How wretched my life’s become   
Without you I'll only fret and sigh.  

Must be something by Pushkin.

He also recursively makes a self-reference in disguise:

I went to the theatre today. The play was about the Russian fool, Filatka. I couldn’t stop laughing. They also put on some sort of vaudeville with some amusing little satirical poems about lawyers, and one Collegiate Registrar in particular. So near the knuckle, I wonder they got past the censor.

That’s hilarious.

Finally, he attacks the director and his lovely daughter for their empty brains:

Today I sat in the Director’s office and sharpened twenty-three quills for him — and for her. Ah, four quills for Her Excellency! He loves having a lot of pens around the place. Really, he must have a very fine brain! He doesn’t say very much, but you can sense his mind is working the whole time. I’d like to know what he’s hatching in that head of his.

Coming to the dogs, he writes:

I’d suspected for a long time that dogs are cleverer than human beings. I was even convinced she could speak if she wanted to, but didn’t, merely out of sheer cussedness.

That’s a multi-pronged attack that I will leave for the good reader to deciper. I’ll only add that by the first statement, he clearly means some humans, as becomes clear when one reads the whole story.

I could go on in this fashion but I highly recommend this translation and this story, and though this is the second time I’m reading it, I still find it extremely amusing and clever.