Gogol, The Overcoat, and the Connective Book Life

While waiting yesterday for a client call, I took The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol from its corner on my glass desk and read the final story, "The Overcoat." If it feels like "Bartleby the Scrivener" at first (with its particulate descriptions of the seemingly mundane), "The Overcoat" soon evolves into a smash-up of the horrifying and fantastic, as poor Akaky Akakievich, "a short, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat red-haired, even with a somewhat nearsighted look, slightly bald in front, with w