Suggestions? - Yes, James B. Woodward (but not for children)

[Maryna Vinarska]

Dan Newton <danewton at U.WASHINGTON.EDU> wrote: I've seen a children's version of Gogol's "The Nose."
Really?  Dear Dan, are you sure that it was Googol’s  “The Nose”? Maybe it was that by Petrushevskaya?… Although I myself wouldn’t recommend her “Nos” either to children, or to adults.
If  you hear smth about a cartoon for children based on this Gogol’s tale, let me know please. I am interested only in screen versions… Who knows what “original’noe reshenie” any director may come up with in the light of some interpretations I have come across…

However, just because that poor ‘nose’ was mentioned again, I’d like to use this opportunity to recommend the following book to those who haven’t read it yet : James B. Woodward, The Symbolic Art of Gogol . Essays on his short fiction. 
I myself was recommended to read it by a list member and this is what I am doing now. Have just  finished exactly chapter IY, “The Nose”. 
The book by Karlinsky is, sure, a lot of fun to read, but that what I found in the book by Woodward seems to be much more logical and is definitely a result of  huge work done by the author.  It is really a scrupulous analysis of every tiny detail and of the whole context of those details  within not only one separate tale, but  covering the whole Gogol’s fiction. As Woodward himself says: “Certainly this is not the first study to recognize the presence of sexual allusions in Gogol’s works, but its aim is by no means confined to simply reasserting their existence. It is to argue that the theme of sexual conflict lies at the basis of his fiction, that this theme is essentially symbolic or allegorical, and that in terms of it the most distinctive and bewildering features of his art are logically  explicable.”
I think that Woodward is right that those ideas of Karlinsky about homosexual inclinations on Gogol’s part are no help at all “when faced with the need to explain why the hero’s landlady is wearing only one shoe when he <Akaky Akakiyevich> returns after the theft  of the coat or why the tailor Petrovich refers to his wife as “the German woman”. It is precisely the questions raised by details of this kind that need to be answered before we pass judgement on Gogol the artist, and the only legitimate source of illumination <…> is the fiction itself, the total context of details concerned viewed as a coherent, organic structure in which every detail is interlocked with every other  in a system of cogent, meaningful relationships. Only when that parts  have been assessed in relation to the whole do such secondary sources as information about Gogol the man and the fiction of his contemporaries and predecessors become subjects of genuine interest.” 
I like the book very much. 

And as to “The Nose”, I think that Woodward’s point of view, considering  the amount of work he did, really deserves to be heard: “...the analysis has shown that <…> “The Nose”, which Karlinsky has described as “the most authentically  surrealistic of Gogol’s works” and “the most logic-defying piece of writing in Russian literature to this day”, is by no means so different from its predecessors as appearances would suggest. <…> The only significant difference <…> is the more violent intrusion of the symbolic logic into the logic of normal experience. <…> In this sense the story that  is traditionally regarded as his most  impenetrable and perplexing work is paradoxically the most revealing introduction to his fictional universe.”

Highly recommend the book to all those who haven’t read it yet.  

Best regards,
Maryna Vinarska

P.S. Given that Woodward is right in his interpretations, and to me they seem to be absolutely logical, I wonder if Gogol was the only one who was so insightful as to potential dangers of some, say, tendencies… Isn’t the book banned  anywhere?… But then Gogol is in danger too…

		
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