Notes of a Madman

"The Overcoat," "The Nose," "The Portrait," and other "Petersburg Tales" by Gogol continue to amaze readers with their diversity. Realism is intricately intertwined with fantasy, tragedy with mischievous humor. As we read and reread them, we involuntarily sympathize with the poor clerk Akaky Akakievich, follow with fascination the phantasmagorical adventures of the nose that has come to life, escaped from its owner, and experience the tragedy of the artist who was deceived by his "genius of pure beauty" – and again and again we discover Gogol's relevance, as no one else could see the eternal and the great behind the private and the petty.