The Overcoat and Other Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories)

Gogol, who lived from 1809-1852, was decades if not a whole century ahead of his time. His clever, sardonic, cynical stories satirize the world of self-important bureaucrats in ways that still seem eerily relevant. In "The Overcoat," a humble clerk who spends his days copying documents, is shaken out of his routine when he suddenly acquires a splendid new coat. Suddenly, all his repressed desires come to the surface. I won't reveal the end of the story except to say that it is both funny and sad. In "The Nose" Gogol reveals himself as an unequalled satirist with a weird, surrealistic imagination -- and this was way before the invention of surrealism. Again, he's able to put himself inside the heads of government busybodies and low-level officials with uncanny realism. Great, though-provoking reading.

I had heard that I should read Gogol from a friend, but this friend has a Master's in English Lit so I thought it might be a little over my head. To my happy surprise I loved all of the short stories. Gogol is really good at creating interesting, complex characters within a few pages, and his understanding of human nature really shines through. I also thought that I would be put off by some of the unreal elements in the stories, as i tend not to like magical realism or fantastical stories, but with Gogol I did not mind. It is kind of like hearing a bed time story or a fable. Most importantly, his stories are entertaining. For those of you who are looking to diversify your reading, I would really recommend this book.

While Dostoevsky said, "We have all come from under 'The Overcoat'," western literature, especially because of the Cold War sentiment has put Gogol and his fantastic tales hidden under an overcoat. It is a shame that Gogol, especially "The Overcoat" and "The Nose," has been hidden or underpresented (nice word, eh?) for so long, especially since he seems to be Poe with a deep social commentary. Or maybe Poe is Gogol with a lyric bent for the macabre.The Overcoat is a beautifully told story that will not allow you to look at people the same way, especially those who might be ostracized. While Akaky is a figure from 19th century Russia, he is very much a character that can be found in the 21st century. Moreover, when Gogol tells about the druken tailor with his witchy wife and the smell of onions, the reader at once pictures the dreadful wench and the overpowering smell of fried onions. And when the commissioner berates Akaky, it is hard not to almost faint in fear, or be outraged. Gogol is a master of stirring the human emotions and mixing them with vivid descriptions making for stories that a reader cannot forget.The Nose is a very funny story, much of which gets lost in translation and in time. But the idea of a vain official losing his nose only to have it turn up as a mid-level bureaucrat is still relevant in this world of middle management. What a tremendous story tale of human vanity and what a surreal tale that seemed to spawn the likes of Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog," and "Master and Margarita."

The four stories in this collection contrast a precise realism - whether it is the evocation of place and atmosphere, or a description of civil service procedure - with narratives of absurdity, fantasy and pure comedy. If the classic 19th century novel, as epitomised by the likes of Tolstoy, mirrored a world-view that society, people or history could be known and adequately represented in fiction, than Gogol reveals the impossibility of applying that model to Russia - his is an unstable, constantly metamorphosing, fluctuating and seemingly random universe. Whereas the apparatus of order, such as bureaucracy or the justice system only weave chaos, or, at best, a parody of order; Gogol's primary device for destabilising the familiar world is narration. If the 19th century novel was related by a third-person, voice-of-God narrator, who knew everything about the generalities of empires and the most intimate thoughts of chambermaids, than Gogol's narrators dance constantly on the brink of madness, inopportunely professing ignorance, amnesia and prejudice, their prose styles febrile, staccato and grotesque.The 'straightest' story in this collection is 'Old-Fashioned Farmers', a tragicomic story of old age, marriage and superstition, which, in its nostalgic and detailed evocation of a vanished period in Russian provinical life, looks ahead to Nabokov's ravishing memoir 'Speak Memory', albeit laced with a comic and satiric irony the later book lacks. The long 'How The Two Ivans Quarrelled' pinpoints the pettiness of the lower gentry's notions of pride and honour, as two lifelong friends become bitter enemies when one calls the other a 'goose'. This hilarious tale of small-town pretensions and inept local government includes the priceless scene of a fat brown sow breaking into the courthouse and stealing the petition of its owner's antagonist.The famous 'Overcoat' is often considered one of the greatest stories ever written, and the way Gogol manages to avoid sentimentality in the story of an insignificant middle-aged clerk whose routine and despised life is briefly illumined by the purchase of a specially made new overcoat he can ill afford, and which is soon stolen, is admirable. The lunge into nightmare and the savage satire of the Russian civil service remain shocking. The standout story for me, though, is 'The Nose', which plays like Kafka rewritten by Mark Twain, in which a barber finds a nose in his breakfast, and its owner wakes up with a smooth face. With the most glorious deadpan comedy, Gogol describes the loss and the procedures to find it as if it were a wallet: at another point, the Nose is found disguised as a councillor attempting to flee the city by horse.The translations ('The Nose' by Gleb Struve, an early translator of Nabokov, and his wife Mary; the others by Isabel F. Hapgood) are readable, retrieving Gogol's brisk comic pace and some of his incongruities of language. There is a use of cliches in Hapgood's 1886 transations,

If you haven't read anything by Nikolai Gogol, the keyword should be "funny." Unlike most of the Russian Literature in translation (at least that which I have read: Turgenev, Tolstoi, Dostoevski mainly), Gogol's prose is intentionally humorous. "The Nose" is a story about a man's nose which is chopped off while he's being shaved by his barber. It then takes off on a hike around town, dressed in clothing, after having grown to the size of a man! "The Overcoat" is probably the best known short story in Russian Literature, at least to American readers. Dostoevsky said that they all (later Russian writers) came from underneath Gogol's overcoat. "The Overcoat" is not as wacky as "The Nose," but there is a subtle undercurrent of oddness which is hard to pinpoint. It's been anthologized as a fantasy story, but it surely has little in common with your wizards-and-dragons type of fantasy. "The Overcoat" inhabits a middle ground between Russian realist literature and fantastic literature, without the blatantly absurd elements of "The Nose." A government clerk works and works to get an overcoat, to which he clings dearly, only to have it stolen from him. The realistic stories by Gogol are not drably realistic like much of Russian Literature, but are infused with an irony that underlies the text, twisting it ever so slightly. Often the reader doesn't know when Gogol is being serious and when he's taking a slightly wry angle on his own characters. These stories are very satisfying, and probably a good place to start, rather than reading one of Gogol's novels or his play _The Inspector General_. ken32