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Rating: The encyclopedia browsers call it magical realism.
More simply, it can be called Nicola Gogol’, son of Vasilij.
All the kopecks in St. Petersburg wouldn't be enough to buy a crumb of Nikolaj Vasil'evič Gogol’s imagination.
There are those who would give away lifelong supplies of desalted cod, sturgeons served with cornucopias of pickles, silver samovars, apartments furnished along the Neva, endless piles of sweets grandly presented by liveried lackeys in velvety burgundy liveries, pomaded and concerned aunts, good only as ornaments, just to have a corner of old Nicola's dressing gown.
No chance.
That nose in the loaf of the barber of haughty noses is his alone. The vivid gaze of the haunting, stacked portrait is his alone. That worn coat under which, they say, even the mighty Fëdor simmered, is his alone.
The bustle of Nevsky Prospekt is not portrayed, for that would be too little; it would be a dead letter. Rather, it lives in his pages, it breathes in the comings and goings of the eyes.
It matters little to know that three of the five stories come from the collection Arabesques, and that the Petersburg Tales are a posthumous collection. It also matters little to know who was greater: Alexander Puškin, son of Sergej, or Nicola Gogol’, master thief of madness.
Today, Wednesday, August 26, the heat shows no sign of abating.
Yet, it's enough to peek into the worn little book to be hurled into the tumultuous Neva, along with the nose wrapped in a cloth by the barber, in that vibrant Petersburg morning.
It takes but a moment and one finds oneself, patched up, in the little office of the sad bureaucrat Akakij Akakijevic.
With the snow shaken off my sleeves, I barely have time to ask for a strong black tea before the sugar lump is already in my mouth.
Chilly today, isn’t it Grandma Sonja Aleksandrovna?
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