Reading old friends has always been enjoyable for me. The exchange is particularly pleasant when it comes to Russians. After the Dead Souls, Gogol left me breathless with The Overcoat. These compliments do not stem from my love for Russian authors; it is just, Gogol is a different man! It is not possible to avoid his influence because he knows very well where to hit.
The Overcoat sheds light on the immorality and the absurdity of the people we witness every day, and with a flawless eye. Even though I want to isolate myself as I see how greedy and but quite stupid humans are, I remember that there are authors like Gogol. The book tells people in excellent terms that they are terrible creatures but also gives us hope.
There are not many great authors out there that will stand the test of time. Gogol is surely one of them and his works will stay with you for a long time. And I think The Overcoat is a great choice if you are going to read Gogol for the first time. Enjoy!
The Overcoat
Four works by great 19th-century Russian author: “The Nose,” a savage satire of Russia’s so incompetent bureaucrats; “Old-Fashioned Farmers,” a pleasant depiction of an elderly couple living in rustic seclusion; “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” so one of Gogol’s most famous comic stories; and “The Overcoat,” widely considered a masterpiece of form.
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin. Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque (“The Nose”, “Viy”, “The Overcoat”, “Nevsky Prospekt”).
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
