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Russian Novel "Unfinished"

Boo! Boo! And thrice-boo! Why must we gentlemen be fobbed off with literature that emerges from the land of the Tsar in a state that can only be described as unfinished? Clearly, this is a problem here at the heart of Her Majesty's empire too - no, Mr Dickens. It's not episodic! you've just not finished writing the bally thing yet! - but it's all the more onerous in the Russian texts, where we deal with shoddy translations and... oh, let's not avoid the main issue any longer. We all know the prime offender. One is talking Gogol. One is talking Dead Souls. One is getting so furious that the most extensive application of brandy can't steady my nerves.

The first part of Dead Souls was released in 1842 in a simply shocking state. While other commentators have hailed its exquisite charactersation, masterful satire and his eternal battle against the perfidy of Poshlost, to the eyes of this organ all that pales in insignificance to the fact it's unfinished. It even draws to a close mid-sentence! How anyone can claim any merits whatsoever is beyond us. It is an insult to all gentlemen and to accept its existence is to only hurry our literary culture along the road to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Excuses for Gogol's failure to give us the finished product we all deserve include Gogol's extensive travel, his increasing religious belief that all creative thought was in fact sinful and his death in 1852. What poppycock! These excuses are no such thing! In a world where the right and proper science of seances has advanced to its present state, we can pursue the Sorochyntsian and insist on making his prose word-complete. To your Ouija boards, my fine fellows! Let's harry him until he relents and sees sense.

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Kieron Gillen

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Kieron Gillen is robo-crazy.

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