The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants [1859] – ★★★★1/2
When a young man named Sergei received a letter from his uncle, retired Colonel Yegor Rostanev, summoning him to Rostanev’s village to meet a potential bride, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine the absurd situation that would confront him at his uncle’s house – or the uncle’s strange, submissive state, all stemming from the immense influence and control that a mere “nobody,” a penniless, petty and resentful middle-aged man called Foma Fomich Opiskin, exercises over the whole house and village. But, who is this man really, and why does he have everyone under his thumb? This most Gogolian of Dostoyevsky’s works, which was first conceived as a play, is a whirlpool of dramatic events and nightmarish scenarios that introduces the most colourful of personages who each, in their turn, play their roles in a wild sequence of astonishing incidents, including romantic rendezvous, forced elopements and covert money-making schemes. This is a highly entertaining comedy revolving around insidious villainy and blind, cult-like worship that infected the whole village like a contagion.
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