Saving Face: Nose is something altogether different.
Written: Dec 06 '02
Product Rating:
Pros: Gogol’s wit. 19th Century St. Petersburg society. The absurdity!
Cons: None, though some might find aspects of the style dated.
The Bottom Line: This seminal story has spawned absurd, fantastic and grotesque bastards everywhere from the work of Franz Kafka to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
panguitch's Full Review: Nikolai Gogol - The Nose: Easyread Super Large 20p...
Imposter!
Perhaps I’m showing poor etiquette, but I’m not reviewing the book listed. Why? Because what’s listed is NOT Nikolai Gogol’s Nose. Permit me to be grouchy for a moment. What’s listed here is actually a children’s book. A simplified adaptation illustrated by Gennadij Spirin.
I have it in my hands now, and it is not Gogol’s. Entire scenes are cut out! Okay, so while that may not be blasphemy, I think it’s a shame. Gogol’s prose is so lucid it needs no simplification, and it’s obvious the rationale behind the cuts had everything to do with saving trees. While I like trees as much as the next guy, I can see no reason why a child couldn’t be exposed to Gogol’s original text (though it wasn’t intended for children).
Be that as it may, for Epinions’ sake I’ll briefly mention that, where it follows Gogol’s scenes, the language of this adaptation isn’t too far off the mark. And I have to admit Spirin’s illustrations are charming. The scenes of St. Petersburg are wonderful depictions of the city’s architecture, and the softness of Spirin’s touch makes very warm characters (though sometimes the nose isn’t shown as over-the-top as I’d prefer).
Nostayashi Nos
The real Nose, which I am reviewing, should be read by everyone. It’s a little story of great importance, and a personal favorite of mine. I recommend buying a collection of Gogol’s short work for anyone wanting to add it to their library, though a serviceable translation can be found free at Bibliomania: http://www.bibliomania.com/0/5/140/354/18203/1/frameset.html
The Story
Ivan Yakovlevich, a grubby barber, wakes up one morning to find a nose imbedded in the bread his wife just baked. Was he drunk the night before? He can’t remember. Where on earth did the nose come from? His wife suspects he shaved one of his customers a little too close, and the thought of the police drives Ivan from his home to search for a place to dispose of the nose.
Meanwhile, Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov has woken to the horror of being noseless! This will just not do for a man who is up-and-coming in the world, a man who is seeking a higher post and a wealthy wife. There’s nothing for it, and Kovalyov takes to the streets, covering his deficiency with a handkerchief while he searches. By chance he spies his nose, wearing the uniform of a state councilor, and sets off in pursuit. He catches up with his truant member at a cathedral, where the nose is sanctimoniously praying. But realizing the nose appears to be an official that outranks him, Kovalyov is at a loss as to how to proceed:
“How am I to approach him?” thought Kovalyov. “From everything, from his uniform, from his hat, one can see that he is a state councilor. I’ll be damned if I know how to do it.”
When he does muster the courage, the result is a scornful rebuke from the nose, who professes no knowledge of who Kovalyov is or what he may be talking about. When Kovalyov is distracted by a pretty girl, the nose gets away. Dejected, Kovalyov resorts to the newspaper. Perhaps placing an ad with a reward will result in the return of his nose. But despite his willingness to prove the seriousness of the situation, the paper refuses, finding such a posting unbecoming their reputation.
Kovalyov pursues other avenues, especially the police, but begins to despair. He suspicions run wild as to who could be responsible. And what help will the doctor be able to give? Most importantly, how can Kovalyov ever show his face again if he can’t track down his nose?
Characters and Style
Horror of horrors! Gogol defies the current academic expectations derived from modernism! His characters are flat and static! He must be an awful writer. Doesn’t he know that the only books worth reading portray complex characters undergoing change?
Well, lucky for him, the fact that he’s from another century (and foreign) trumps all expectations. The academy will pedestalize anything with the dust of age on it, regardless of its quality (a tip of the hat to the first person to supply the correct definition to the made up word in this sentence).
The fact of the matter is that Gogol holds his own by any standards that matter. Nose is a great example of his talent for creating ridiculous and comedic caricatures that are nevertheless true. Ivan Yakovlevich is delightfully dim, and details like the smell of his hands and his propensity to using noses as handles paint him clearly and concisely. Kovalyov’s vanity and consuming focus on climbing the social ladder is familiar and (b?)pathetic. But what makes this story important, as opposed to simply well-written and entertaining, is the absurdity of it.
” But the strangest, the most incomprehensible thing of all, is how authors can choose such subjects.”
A prime example is Ivan Yakovlevich’s reaction on first discovering the nose in his bread. The situation is absurd of course—someone’s nose turning up in your morning bread. But writing about such low-level absurdity is for lesser artists. The absurdity Gogol is writing about is the barber’s reaction: “Whichever way you look at it, this is an impossible occurrence. After all, bread is something baked, and a nose is something altogether different. I can’t make it out at all.” What he finds most difficult to understand is not someone’s nose detaching and appearing in his bread. This low-level absurdity would apparently cause little comment. Instead, the fact that noses and bread are two entirely different substances, noses not even being a baked good, is what makes the nose turning up in bread perplexing. The distinction is fine, but makes the difference between the realistically absurd, and the hyperbolically absurd.
Later, the narrator admits “utterly nonsensical things happen in this world. Sometimes there is absolutely no rhyme or reason in them.” But what is taken as example is not the fact that the nose detached and began walking around like a person. The fact that the nose, having detached and become a state councilor, would return to its former place on Kovalyov’s face is seen as absurd.
Heightening this fabulous and grotesque absurdity are the minute details of realism Gogol embeds in characterizations and descriptions of the city, and the wry interjections of the narrator himself.
Progeny
Circumstantial evidence and the texts themselves have convinced me that Gogol was an inspiration (whether consciously or not is of little importance) for Kafka, and through him to all the literature of the absurd, grotesque or fabulous of the modern era. The literary link between, for instance, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” and Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is readily seen. Both distort their depiction of the beetle or angel spatially and temporally to exaggerate their absurdity. The fact that the angel is seen as strange, while the beetle is accepted (though seen as horrible) results primarily in a tonal difference.
The connection between Kafka and Gogol is much less often cited. While it is interesting that Gogol’s absurdity is more akin to Marquez’s in tone, I suspect the connection between Gogol and Kafka much more likely to be conscious. In any case, the point is that Gogol’s Nose was the foremost part of the grotesque beast of absurdity that has come to be reflected in so much contemporary fiction. While he has long been recognized as a figure of immeasurable importance in Russian literature, I believe his greatest contribution to world literature has been his absurdity.
Recommendation
While the real Nose would receive five (six, if you know what I mean) stars from me, I can only give the children’s book listed here three stars because it’s watered down. Gogol’s writing is clear enough to be understood by children, and his tale true enough to be appreciated by them without being ‘adapted’. So if you want to expose your kids to this wonderful adult story, give ‘em the real deal.
- Panguitch
(Epinions’ own mfunk75 has written an entertaining piece telling this story from the nose’s point of view, in the form of letters addressed to Raskolnikov, from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It’s an interesting retelling of Gogol’s story, deceptive in that it actually addresses Dostoevsky’s themes directly instead of Gogol’s, though this approach itself serves to underline the absurdity of Gogol’s tale. It can be found here: http://www.epinions.com/content_2704842884)
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