Diary Of A Madman And Other Stories (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
(This review is of the 1972 Penguin edition, often reprinted, and translated by Ronald Wilks.) The first half of the 19th century in Russia produced many great authors (including some of my all-time favorites: Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev) but none with more sheer imaginative genius or a greater sense of the tragicomic absurdity of life as Gogol. This short volume reprints five of his best: three from his cycle of St Petersburg stories and two set in his native rural Ukraine.In his generally useful (though spoiler-filled) introduction, Wilks tells us about Gogol's impressions on leaving his native Ukraine for the great city of Petersburg. Gogol wrote to Pushkin: 'Petersburg is not half what I expected -- I had thought of it as much more beautiful, magnificent, and it seems people have been spreading false rumors about it . . . the people seem more dead than alive . . . everyone is drowned by the trivial, meaningless labors at which he spends his life.' These petty civil servants engaged in meaningless pursuits, with trivial ambitions, are at the heart of the first three -- and best -- stories in this collection. In 'Diary of a Madman', the hero is a low-level civil servant in his 40s who has fallen in love with the boss's daughter. His obsession over her is recorded in his diary and ends in madness; along the way, various humorous incidents occur, such as when he believes her dog is writing gossiping letters about him and he tries to steal them. 'The Nose' is an absurdist masterpiece. The back cover copy compares Gogol to Sterne, but in 'The Nose', he's 100 years ahead of his time, prefiguring the tragicomic absurdities of writers like Kafka and Daniil Kharms and the works of the French Surrealists. In 'The Nose', another Petersburg civil servant, a vain man with ambitions to marrying a rich woman and gaining promotion in the ranks, wakes up one day to find his nose is gone. Though various ridiculous explanations are proffered and rejected, the loss of his nose is never explained -- it's just gone, and his face is like a smooth, flat pancake where the nose should have been. When he sees his nose, traveling around Petersburg in an overcoat and pretending to be a high-ranking official, the absurdity really kicks in, as the hero pursues various idiotic schemes to try to catch the nose and reattach it. The third Petersburg tale, 'The Overcoat', the introduction claims, is one of the finest short stories ever written. It is the tale of another clerk, a total nonentity, the laughingstock of his workplace, whose only pleasure in life is copying out meaningless documents. His overcoat is so old and threadbare that it is a running joke in the office, and it is insufficient to keep him warm in the brutal St Petersburg winters. He resolves to save 80 rubles to buy a new overcoat, but though it seems the beautiful new coat will bring him happiness and make him less ridiculous, the story takes an unexpected and tragic turn.The final two stories, 'How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich' and 'Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and his Aunt', are amusing but slight. Both belong to his sketches of Ukrainian life. In the first, two old friends have a falling-out when one refers to the other as a goose. The offended man attempts to get his revenge, which sets off a vicious cycle between the two with a characteristically absurd and tragic result. In the final story, a young man falls victim to his domineering aunt's efforts to get him to marry.Overall, a nice collection by a great writer, and the translation is better than most of those one finds of Gogol's works. Only 4 stars instead of 5, as the collection is quite slim and omits some of his other important tales, and it also could have stood to have a few more explanatory notes.
Μια από τις ελάχιστες ευτυχίες της εφηβείας μου ήταν η μεγάλη δανειστική βιβλιοθήκη του σχολείου. Διάβασα εκεί έναν μεγάλο όγκο βιβλίων, κανονικό μοτεράκι. Νομίζω πως τελείωσα τους Ρώσους κλασικούς κάπου στην πρώτη Λυκείου, κι όταν λέω τελείωσα, το εννοώ, τερμάτισα όλα τα σχετικά ράφια, δεν έμεινε τίποτα εκεί αδιάβαστο. Αυτό έχει δυο καλά κι ένα κακό. Το βασικό καλό είναι οι βάσεις, η αίσθηση της λογοτεχνίας, το υπόβαθρο που μένει. Το δεύτερο καλό είναι πως σε γενικές γραμμές θυμάμαι λίγα πράγματα από αυτά τα βιβλία, οπότε μπορώ να τα ξαναδιαβάσω άνετα. Το κακό είναι εμφανές, το να διαβάσεις του Αδελφούς Καραμαζώφ σε αυτήν την ηλικία ίσως να μην είναι τόσο σημαντικό όσο το να τους διαβάσεις ενήλικας.«Το ημερολόγιο ενός τρελού» το θυμόμουν, το ήξερα πως το έχω ξαναδιαβάσει. Όμως μέσα στην μανία μου για διάβασμα και την εφηβική μου λύσσα το είχα ξεπετάξει. Είναι ένα μικρό διήγημα, και μιλάει για αυτό που ίσως καίει ακόμα και σήμερα όλους τους νεαρούς ενήλικες∙ ποιος είμαι, με χαρακτηρίζει η δουλειά και τα χρήματα και η καταγωγή, με προσδιορίζει μια εργασία κατά βάση ανιαρή, αλλά χρήσιμη για να ζήσω, μπορεί ίσως να είμαι ο βασιλιάς της Ισπανίας και να μην το ξέρω;«Το ημερολόγιο ενός τρελού» είναι βαθιά βιογραφικό, και χιουμοριστικό και εντελώς μα εντελώς πικρό και δραματικό. Αναδεικνύει την αίσθηση του σύγχρονου ανθρώπου πως γεννήθηκε για κάτι σημαντικό, πως είναι διαφορετικός από όλους τους άλλους και την πικρή συνειδητοποίηση πως τελικά είναι ένα φτωχός δημόσιος υπάλληλος. Παράλληλα σατιρίζει το κοινωνικό γίγνεσθαι της εποχής, την κόρη του Διευθυντή που θα παντρευτεί ή θαλαμηπόλο ή Στρατηγό, τα σκυλιά της πλουτοκρατίας που είναι τόσο σνομπ όταν γράφουν γράμματα το ένα στο άλλο κ.ο.κ. Και την τρέλα φυσικά, ίσως το μόνο καταφύγιο των υγιώς σκεπτόμενων ανθρώπων.Υπολογίζω πως πολλά έχουν γραφτεί, κι άλλα τόσα υποτεθεί για το μικρό κείμενο. Εγώ απλά χαίρομαι που το ξαναδιάβασα.
What do You think about Diary Of A Madman And Other Stories (2006)?
The Diary of a Madman is a short story about a man's descent into madness. The hero, Poprishchin, is a middle aged minor civil servant obsessed with Sophie, the young and beautiful daughter of his boss, a senior official who stands on a much higher rank of the social ladder. As he begins to slide into insanity, the hero believes that he can hear a conversation between Madgie, Sophie's dog, and another dog and later steals letters written by Madgie to the other dog. The extracts from these letters and the hero's reaction to them were particularly hilarious. Realising that the object of his affection is in love with a handsomer, younger and richer man and having learned that a donna is about to accede to the Spanish throne as there is no male heir, the hero suddenly realises that he is, in fact, the lost heir and, unsurprisingly, ends up in an insane asylum. Poprishchin as drawn by Ilya Repin:Gogol manages to be absurd and hilarious, while at the same time making a point about the self-delusional vain ideas we have about ourselves, which is still very much relevant today, and drawing a clever satire of the deep social divisions and beurocracy in 19th century Russia. And all in less than 30 pages.
—Gloria Mundi
نیکولای گوگول یه داستان کوتاه معرکه داره به اسم بلوار نیفسکی. یه تراژدی جمع و جور با دو تا خط داستانی که یکی شون جان هست، نفس هست... قصه ی یه هنرمند نقاش که یه روز تو خیابون گلوش پیش یه دختر خواستنی گیر می کنه و میافته دنبالش تا آخر سر کاشف به عمل بیاد که دختره تو نجیب خونه کار می کنه. طرفه این که گویا گوگول با رندی تمام و درست عکس داستایفسکی، توی چنبره ی فاحشه ی معصوم نیافتاده؛ طبیعتا نتیجه این میشه که دل رحمی های پیسکاریوف گوگول از زانو زدن های راسکولنیکف داستایفسکی بیشتر به دل می شینه.دو سه داستان آخری چنگی به دل نزدند.
—Amir
I picked this up because I read a parody of Gogol's "The Nose" by Dubravka Ugrešić (in her version, a guy wakes up to find his dick missing, looking like a Ken doll, and some poor schmuck of a woman finds the lost appendage in her hotdog bun). Anyway, I wanted to re-read not just "The Nose," but all of Gogol, who I haven't read in many years, and who blurred in my mind with his later acolytes, Bulgakov and Kafka. But Gogol is weirder than both. Despite all the strangeness and abrupt shifts in Kafka's stories, they all seem to have an internal dream logic. But Gogol is schizophrenic. He borders on bad children's fantasy. That is, weird shit just happens, and then again, and then again, and then back to humdrum reality. And then another story is just flat out reality, albeit violent and intense. At the same time the stories hum of a political allegory whose tones I'm too deaf to pick up, and maybe whisper of a religious allegory which I just don't care about.But more important than any of that : Gogol is funny. Even funnier than Kafka.So some quick notes for now:"Diary of a Madman"Hilarious and weird. A middle aged mid-level bureaucrat becomes convinced he's the King of Spain. The diary entries get progressively weirder until they're just gobbledygook. His reinterpretation of reality to fit his own take on the world is distressing. I kept thinking, oh shit, I haven't been that delusional, but maybe a little..."The Nose"Whoa. A guy wakes up to find someone's nose in his bread. Another guy wakes up to find his nose missing and a smooth space in its place. The story switches logics and scenes and ideas so quickly that it seems like a exploding kaleidoscope. Now the nose is an officer who is wearing a uniform of a high rank and talking and walking and taking carriages, and now the nose is just a chunk of meat, and now... and now... and now..."The Carriage"You know that dream where you are in your underwear and you're in the high school auditorium and everyone is laughing at you AND you're late to the test that will allow you to graduate and, oh shit, you MISSED the test. And now they're laughing even more. This story is that."The Overcoat"Gogol nailed Kafka's evil and banal bureaucracy well before Kafka did. Except his hero is a Bartleby-like figure who actually likes his work and is just endlessly shit upon until he finally, due to luck, makes a change. The change changes his life and his status and all is good and bright and then: POW! Fucked by life. And then the story gets REALLY WEIRD. I would use this as a Dungeons and Dragons plot if I still played Dungeons and Dragons."Taras Bulba"This novella is relentlessly bad ass. A 17th c. violent action noir where everyone is splattered with blood and everyone dies. Relentless. Brutal. Fantastic. (Also racist and uncompromising.)
—Troy
