The Nose

I’m a little bit worried that my blog post about The Nose will end up being longer than the story itself.  So, brevity being the sole of wit; I will attempt to curb the outward flourishes and keep this short.  I think I’m failing already.

Nikolai Gogol’s absurdist little tale is the story of a man, Major Kovalyov, who one day wakes up without his nose.  Meanwhile, said nose turns up in a bread roll at his neighbour’s house and subsequently arses around town pretending to be a gentleman.  Our hero is, naturally, desperate to be reunited with his olfactory organ- it’s simply not the done thing to be seen without one’s nose.  But he receives no help.  Apparently, you can’t advertise for a missing nose in the Russian press.  It’s no more ridiculous than Vladimir Putin’s ice hockey skills, but only one of those stories will fly.  Clearly there are some differences in the press between now and the 1830s.

It’s a nice short story- quick and fairly easy to read.  I think I’m showing my ignorance of literature in general when all I can think to compare it to is The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.  It has the same matter of factness as the whole, “One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin,” thing.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the version I read used the words “giant insect” or something of a similar ilk as opposed to “monstrous vermin,” so it was even more deadpan.  Thus the issue of translation rears its ugly head again.  But I’m getting off track…

I’ve never been too confident about what the kind of absurdism in The Nose and The Metamorphosis is sending up.  I’m sure it’s very obvious if you’re more up on mid-19^th Century Russian culture than I am, but to me it’s far less clear cut than something like The Trial.  It’s an enjoyable read nonetheless. 

Part of me does feel, though, that this story has been somewhat ruined by Harry Potter.  It’s so difficult to imagine without a nose without being at least slightly influenced by Ralph Fiennes’s Voldemorty face.  It makes it very difficult to take Gogol’s absurdist story seriously.  It probably needs to be taken seriously.  No doubt it’s really a critique of some atrocity committed in pre-Revolutionary Russia; wizardly connotations are almost certainly inappropriate.

So there you have it.  Gogol’s The Nose is a good’un. To be honest, even if it were awful, it only takes about 20 minutes to read.  So why not read it?

I’m now back to reading John Wyndham.  This time it’s Chocky.