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The Overcoat and Other Short Stories
Four works by great 19th-century Russian author - "The Nose," a savage satire of Russia's 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," one of Gogol's most famous comic stories; and "The Overcoat,"...more
Paperback, Dover Thrift Editions, 112 pages
Published
February 21st 1992
by Dover Publications
(first published 1842)
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Recommended by Goodreader and Trotskyite Brian T., The Overcoat is an interesting collection of six short stories by Nicolai Golgol. Several of his tales explore evil as an an abstraction: in The Terrible Vengeance , a girl finds out her father is in fact the devil himself, in The Portrait, evil somehow takes up residence in a scary picture. The remaining stories are comic and absurd. The Nose begins with a barber finding a completely intact human nose baked into a loaf of bread. The rest of t...more
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Gogol set the bar by which all other Russian authors of his day were judged. His writing style is unorthodox by today's standards. The deliberate unfinished feel of 'Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt' is a perfect example. But unorthodox as Gogol can be, his writing is thoroughly charming, and a very rewarding read in my opinion, even if the translation of this edition does (as some of the other reviews here suggest) leave something to be desired.
It's vary hard to understate th...more
It's vary hard to understate th...more
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 bo...more
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 bo...more
My god, what a nut-job! Gogol was a crazy, religious, depressed, repressed lunatic, but my gum, could he write. The stories in this collection ranged from Gothic to comedic with tidbits of the fantastic and macabre. I loved the progression of the stories as much as I loved the stories themselves. The book is put together quite well, and readers shouldn't have trouble shifting their perspectives from Gogol's major themes: religion, piety, women, money, family, magic, society and circumstance...more
The Overcoat is my favorite story by Gogol. He writes in the absurd genre so sometimes it seems weird, but he also draws out human emotions to make his characters seem so real and makes such great commentary on life that he makes me want to read and re-read his books. There is a paragraph that talks about how all the people in Akaky's (yep, that's his name!) office mock him that stands out as one those passages that sticks with a person for the rest of their life:
"Only when th...more
"Only when th...more
"The Overcoat," "The Nose," and "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" are all about the most bland and/or odd subjects: a guy gets a new coat, someone's nose runs away, two guys become enemies over a silly insult. The fact that each story managed to keep me reading and chuckling until the end speaks to Gogol's quality as an author. It isn't what he writes about; it is how he writes that is so pleasing. Everything I have read by him is ...more
"Many of us have come from underneath 'The Overcoat'," recalled Dostoevsky. Upon reading this quote, I immediately turned to Gogol, if only to see Dostoevsky in a greater contextual light. However, I found this story to be intriguing, an object of fond warmth. Darkly humorous, slightly peculiar, and courageous in the pluck of its time, what I learned from the novel was this:
It did not have to do, necessarily, with the moral or objective of such a story, but with the understanding...more
It did not have to do, necessarily, with the moral or objective of such a story, but with the understanding...more
"Nevsky Street" and "The Portrait" TOTALLY carried this book. "The Overcoat" was only ok.
Wandering around through pages of The Overcoat is simply not an easy task. The language that Gogol use is just so old school literature, very hard to chew every words. That's why it took more than a month for me to finish this book ( While the pages are quite thin, only lingering about no more than 200 pages). But, this is a kind of book, that while you might not enjoyed reading it, but the impact resides in you long after you read it. The short stories that Gogol told, either it's the mistifyin...more
The later two stories in this collection are the deeper, better written, more interesting narratives. The Overcoat is the jewel, describing the sad plight of a middle manager with lofty taste, or exactly the population of America's disenfranchised middle class. The central character, Akakii, is at once lovable, but turns pathetic and even disgusting to the reader. Gogol has little need here to use satire or comedy--it's just a good story, with message, well written. The Nose fits well with the p...more
With the first couple stories I was a bit skeptical, but this collection really sold me on Gogol being one of the first great, russian modern writers. Though some refer to Gogol as one of the first realists, he certainly isn't a realist in the way Dostoyevsky was. He is might be considered a realist in the sense that his stories do not follow any traditional arc (though they all share a similar plot arc as each other), and because of his tendency to kill off protagonists.
To be hones...more
To be hones...more
I started this book and then read Troung's book somewhere in the middle and then came back to finish the rest of the short stories. As such, I starkly saw the difference between what Foucault said characterized the difference between recent novels vs past novels. Recent novels read more as memoirs, biographies, or confessionals. Whereas with Gogol's short stories, especially with "The Portrait," questions about how to make sure that I am a good person, that I lead a meaningful, purp...more
Warning: this is less a book review than an attempt to explain how the stories of Gogol changed my life in a small but important way. If you don't like it when people write about themselves instead of the book they are supposed to be reviewing, then just skip this.
Back in my university days there was no such thing as a comparative literature courses offered - if you wanted to study Russian Literature, you had to take a class from the languages department. Academia's insistence on com...more
Back in my university days there was no such thing as a comparative literature courses offered - if you wanted to study Russian Literature, you had to take a class from the languages department. Academia's insistence on com...more
4.5 Stars
Stories include:
- Old-Fashioned Farmers (aka The Old-World Landowners): Very, very touching story of love and loneliness...or, at least, I think so. 4 stars
- The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich: What happens when hurt-feelings, pride, and nonsense mess with a life-long friendship...hilarity, that's what! (Note to self: Refrain from using the word goose. Not safe in all company.) Very, very good story. Although, it really reminded...more
Stories include:
- Old-Fashioned Farmers (aka The Old-World Landowners): Very, very touching story of love and loneliness...or, at least, I think so. 4 stars
- The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich: What happens when hurt-feelings, pride, and nonsense mess with a life-long friendship...hilarity, that's what! (Note to self: Refrain from using the word goose. Not safe in all company.) Very, very good story. Although, it really reminded...more
Thank you for paying no mind to the dolts who say The Overcoat is "kind of weird" or "not Gogol's best work." I actually read that. In some of the reviews on this site. Villains! Rakes! Of course the stories in this collection are weird And not only is The Overcoat his best work--we're talking short stories here, right?--it's the best story ever written. If you disagree, then please enjoy being wrong.
Dig.
Dostoyevski said, "We all come from ...more
Dig.
Dostoyevski said, "We all come from ...more
The four stories in this slim volume may indeed be 'masterpieces of the form', but they left me as cold as Akakii Akakievich, the unfortunate protagonist of the title story. Gogol has a fine time skewering petty bureaucrats of every stripe, but after a couple of pages it gets old, frankly. Perhaps if I had a better understanding of the relative ranks of a collegiate assessor, a procurement officer, a major, a senate chief clerk, a field officer, a state councillor, a police inspector, and a dist...more
Really great collection of stories. My personal favourite was "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich", which was absolutely hilarious. All the stories are permeated with a royal dose of irony and absurdism, but this one took the cake. "The Overcoat" and "Old-Fashioned Farmers" are heart-breaking though. Even though you only spend a couple dozen of pages with these characters, you feel so sorry for them and wish their lives hadn't been so t...more
Akaky Akakievich! I wrote a paper on this junior year of high school, and it served as my introduction to Russian literature (only about 2 weeks before I read Crime and Punishment). Gogol is a master of the short story, and I was blown away by the quiet desperation of Akaky. It was while reading this that I fully started to realize what the short story can do, and I have to say it's one of the reasons why I'm an English major.
I read this in keeping with my Halloween tradition of reading a "spooky" classic. All of the stories in this collection, The Mantle (or Overcoat or Cloak), The Nose, Memoirs of a Madman, A May Night, and Viy (King of the Gnomes) are really entertaining. All, except The Nose--which is snarky fun--involve ghosts, demons, witches, and insanity.
Available free at Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36238/362...
Well worth the read.
Available free at Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36238/362...
Well worth the read.
Considering the rave reviews this book has, it is not as good as I expected. It is a look into the culture of Russia with seemingly simplistic stories that do have a cultural purpose. However, the author is not radical enough to make his point. For it to truly be a cultural commentary, the author must go to the extreme, and he does fail to do that.
the overcoat is an amazing and perfect short story. it captures every possible frustration of the human condition which unjustly labors under the mindlessness of bureaucrats and self-centered ruling petite-bourgeoisie. pathos is legitimate in this non-sentimentl, straight-forward telling of the troubles an subsequent death of timid Akakie Akakievich.
Gogol is damn funny. He makes you feel sorry for his protagonist even as he makes fun of them. His work has this almost musical theatre sensibility to it which I just love. It all feels so much larger than life. Too bad he had a religious epiphany and had torched the second volume of Dead Souls before it could be published.
Gogol is really funny. Funny and surreal. "The Nose" rules. Fiercely.
There's a bit of vague musing on Gogol by me here: http://kidshirt.blogspot.com/2008/08/ove...
Gogolization. Or: Gogolisation if yr a Brit like me.
I love this quote from Tom Bradley on Wikipedia, who "traces the roots [of Bizarro] back in literary history to the time of Vladimir Nabokov's "Gogolization," and his cry of despair and horror at having his central nervous s...more
There's a bit of vague musing on Gogol by me here: http://kidshirt.blogspot.com/2008/08/ove...
Gogolization. Or: Gogolisation if yr a Brit like me.
I love this quote from Tom Bradley on Wikipedia, who "traces the roots [of Bizarro] back in literary history to the time of Vladimir Nabokov's "Gogolization," and his cry of despair and horror at having his central nervous s...more
meu novo soviético favorito. adoro o jeito direto e sem rodeios que ele usa pra contar histórias de pessoas que poderiam ter sido eu ou você no seculo xix. nada de aristocracia, só jovens desacreditados que sonham com uma vida melhor mas que parecem viver sua melhor fase na miséria.
The Overcoat was very good. A nice little story about a poor man who goes hungry so that he can afford a new overcoat only to have it stolen from him. He is vindicated however, but you have to read it yourself. It really makes you appreciate all the nice things you have - including your family and friends.
Garcia-Marquez meets Kafka in Russia? In these very early short stories, Gogol creates strange and wonderful worlds. It's sad that there's only one widely read Gogol story, "The Overcoat." Not that "The Overcoat" isn't one of the greatest of short stories (Frank O'Connor: "We all came out from under Gogol's 'Overcoat'")...But the other stories in this collection are superb also. You'll laugh, you'll cry!...at Gogol's savage satire of bureaucratic bumbling in "...more
Bad-looks,self-doubt, bitterness, old age and a horrible work environment... so goes the life of an impoverished clerk in St. Petersburg. Gogol is the master of wit and comic timing.I also recommend Diary of a Madman.
This was my first time reading any of Gogol's work that weren't plays and other than Old Fashioned Farmers and The Overcoat, the stories failed to make an impression on me. Perhaps it is because the corruption and the society in which the stories are set are already too familiar to me, that I have stopped appreciating their nuances on peoeple's lives. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the storytelling and the sarcasm built into the story. Overall, the book enabled me to see a slice of Russia in tho...more
Nikolai Gogol is one of my favorites!!!! I love the mixture of humor mystery and teacherly wisdom:) Reminds me sometimes a bit of Robert Walser. And... the way he describes the Russians is PRICELESS!
it's embarrassing that i didn't read any Gogol until AFTER completing a 4 year lit degree, but at least i got to him eventually. this short story collection is about as essential as essential gets.
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Gogol was born in the Ukrainian Cossack village of Sorochyntsi, in Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire, present-day Ukraine. His mother was a descendant of Polish nobility. His father Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, a descendant of Ukrainian Cossacks, belonged to the petty gentry, wrote poetry in Russian and Ukrainian, and was an amateur Ukrainian-language playwright who died when Gogol was 15 years ...more
More about Nikolai Gogol...
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1 trivia question
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“- How dare you, I repeat, In disregard of all decency, call me a goose?
- I spit on your head, Ivan Ivanovich! What are you screaming so for?”
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1 person liked it
- I spit on your head, Ivan Ivanovich! What are you screaming so for?”
“Godine 2000, aprila 43.;
Martobra 86.
Između dana i noći;
Datum nikoji
Dan je bio bez datuma;
Datuma se ne sećam. Meseca takođe nije bilo. Bilo je vrag bi ga znao šta.;
Datum 1.;
Madrid Februarij
trideseti;
Januar iste te godine, koji je
nastupio posle februara;
25. datum;
Datum 34 godine
Februar 349.”
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More quotes…
Martobra 86.
Između dana i noći;
Datum nikoji
Dan je bio bez datuma;
Datuma se ne sećam. Meseca takođe nije bilo. Bilo je vrag bi ga znao šta.;
Datum 1.;
Madrid Februarij
trideseti;
Januar iste te godine, koji je
nastupio posle februara;
25. datum;
Datum 34 godine
Februar 349.”
