![]() ![]() ![]() The kicker? No one in the text is particularly surprised or frightened by this bit of magic-it's just part of daily life, so, meh. Basically, it's when an author inserts a totally supernatural element into something that is otherwise completely realistic. Reacting against all the froofy, poetic Romantic stuff that was all the rage in his day, Gogol made up a whole new genre-what would later be called magical realism. Not only that, but it's actually managed to get to a higher civil service rank than its original owner. When he looks for it, he finds that the nose is now leading its own life as a civil servant. One day, a dude wakes up and finds his nose is no longer on his face. ![]() ![]() "The Nose," which came out in 1836, established the type of writing he would specialize in for the rest of his working life: funny satire with a surreal or supernatural twist. DMV jokes never get old, right?Īnyway, Gogol had big aspirations for his literary career, and, for once, life totally delivered. Which, honestly, if you're going to make fun of some government thing, then "incompetent bureaucrats" is totally the way to go. In 1835, he was still a reasonably fresh face in Russia (he was about 27), but dude had already hit it out of the park with The Government Inspector-a hilarious, satirical play making fun of provincial bureaucrats. Sure, he ended his life burning parts of his most famous work and generally acting loony, but hey, for a while there Gogol-or Nikolai Vailievich Gogol, if you're feeling fancy-was on quite the roll. ![]()
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