[Music]
[Mark:] You are listening to the Norton Library Podcast, where we explore classic works of literature and philosophy with the leading scholars of the Norton Library, a new series from W. W. Norton that introduces influential texts to a new generation of readers. I'm your host, Mark Cirino, with Michael Von Cannon producing, and today we present the second of our two episodes devoted to the Selected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, as we interview its editor, Kate Holland, and its translator, Michael Katz. In part one, we discussed who Gogol was and how he wrote, the humor of the stories, and our guests’ favorites. In this second episode, we learn how Kate Holland and Michael Katz first encountered Gogol, their favorite lines, Gogol’s Ukrainian background, the challenge of reading this work, and much more. Kate Holland is Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Toronto. She is the author of, among other works, “The Novel in the Age of Disintegration: Dostoevsky and the Problem of Genre in the 1870s.” Michael Katz is Professor Emeritus of Russian and East European Studies at Middlebury College. In addition to his writings on 19th-century Russian literature, he has translated over 15 Russian novels into English, including works by Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Kate Holland and Michael Katz, welcome back to the Norton Library Podcast! Good to see you again!
[Michael:] Thank you. [Kate:] Likewise, thank you.
[Mark:] Well, we look forward to talking more about Nikolai Gogol and his Selected Tales. I’d love to know how each of you first encountered Nikolai Gogol, his work. And where were you? What did you think of it? Kate?
[Kate:] Um, yeah. I first came across Gogol’s work when I was an undergraduate studying Russian literature. And I particularly remember, I spent a year living in St. Petersburg as a student. Um, and I became interested in what often gets called “the Petersburg texts,” which is the works of Russian literature that kind of draw on and inspire, um, the representation of the city of St. Petersburg. So – I mean, it’s such a strange story, this founding of this city, kind of from nothing, in a Finnish swamp by imperial decree. Um, and it’s really kind of a city of contrasts and of paradoxes, and a sort of symbol of modernity. And so, um, these stories, kind of, really intrigued me when I read them at the time in St. Petersburg, especially, you know, “The Nose”— [Mark:] Sure. [Kate:] —which we already touched on. Um, when all of a sudden, this nose was found in some bread, and he puts on a uniform and starts walking around the streets of St. Petersburg. Um, and I think that this problem of how to maintain selfhood in this, uh, as a kind of little person in this huge city is something that really has stayed with me since then. And, um, I continue to think about as a person who lives in a big city now.
[Mark:] Wonderful. Michael?
[Michael:] Well, I was reading Russian literature in high school, age 15-16, and reading the big novels. And I remember saying to my Russian teacher at that time, “These are pretty grim! Is there something funny—” [Mark:] Yeah. [Michael:] “—about Russian literature, that I could read for some comic relief?” And he said, “Gogol,” and I said, “I'll try it.” And I fell in love with it then, and I'm still in love with it now.
[Mark:] When did you start translating Gogol?
[Michael:] Uh, well, I started translating in 1980, when one of my students challenged me. I was complaining about a book – not Gogol – complaining about a book that had never been translated and said, “I wish somebody would translate it.” And the student said, “Why don't you do it?” And I said, “Because I'm not a translator.” And then I got to thinking what a translator was and, um, decided I would try it, and enjoyed doing it, and it got some success. And, uh, I've been translating since 1980. It's a *long* time. And this is the first Gogol I've translated. Gogol was more difficult— [Mark:] Right. [Michael:] —as I said before, more difficult than other writers. So, um, I had to have some experience translating before I could tackle him.
[Mark:] You've each talked about your entry into Gogol’s work. Imagining a 21st-century reader picking up your Selected Tales for the first time, what are some of the challenges you would imagine that that reader would face?
[Kate:] I know that sometimes, um, the cultural specificity of Russian naming traditions can be kind of confusing to those who are outside of the tradition. So, Russian names are composed of three parts: So, there's the first name, there's the patronymic that's derived from the father's name, and there's the last name. But also, sometimes there are nicknames. Um, so, derived from the first name. Um, and Gogol also always uses names that are very rich in symbolism for, um, for readers of Russian. Um, and so that would be one thing. And then the other thing, I guess, would be the way in which the narrators are always highly unreliable and highly problematic in all kinds of ways. So, hopefully, that's something that, once you've read a couple of stories, you kind of lean into and enjoy the irony and the sarcasm and the – you have to read with a lot of suspension of disbelief, um, but also sensitively enough to detect this kind of irony that lies beneath the categorical statements.
[Mark:] Michael, are there challenges that your students face, let's say, when they encounter Gogol?
[Michael:] Well, Kate mentioned a good one, that is the names. They're really difficult. And Russian has a tendency to repeat those names over and over and over again. And when you get the three-part names, um, the spoken names are really delicious. Uh, in Akaky Akakyevich, in the hero of “Overcoat,” it has a number of meanings. One of them is a particular saint, St. Acacius, and the other one is the child word for poop, “kaka”— [Laughter] —which is the universal word. So, he's named Akaky Akakyevich which roughly translates as “poop face, son of poop face.” [Mark:] [Laughter] [Michael:] And you explain that to your students, and they love you for it.
[Mark:] Yeah. Can I also add, as somebody who knows the least about Russian literature by a long shot in this conversation, that your edition including the table of ranks was extremely helpful.
[Michael:] Oh, good.
[Mark:] Uh, and what I mean is, there are civil titles and military titles that – you list for us and rank them – which come up quite frequently in this collection that refers to status a lot, isn't that so?
[Michael:] Yes, absolutely. The whole society is very status-oriented. So, where you stand on that table of ranks determines who you can talk to, uh, who you have to kowtow before. And a good example is Akaky Akakyevich talking to the very important person, uh, the way he has to address him, and then he falls asleep and in his dream, uh, really goes after him.
[Kate:] Yeah, and that – absolutely. And so, this was kind of the creation of Peter the Great, this, um, system of ranks and hereditary nobility could be achieved if you got high enough up the ranks. But I think my favorite example from the stories is the, uh, the fact that the nose, um, is of a higher rank— [Laughter] —than the, uh, than the person who the nose – whose face the nose is from.
[Mark:] Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.
[Kate:] And so, that his sort of ability to interact with his superiors is really tested, uh, in that story.
[Mark:] I want to ask another question that I know is impossible. In the first episode, I asked each of you your favorite of these seven stories, which proved to be a very difficult question. But in this collection, I'm going to ask you what your favorite line is in this entire book.
[Michael:] Well, I would say it's in Akaky’s dream, when he is delirious having caught a cold, running through the streets of Petersburg without his overcoat on. And he's lying there, and he begins mumbling and he says, “I'm going to steal your overcoat away, no matter who you are.” And I think that rebellion of his – a mini rebellion – is really quite eloquent.
[Mark:] Yeah, that's a great one. Kate?
[Kate:] And yeah, I would say the last line of “Nevsky Prospekt,” um, which we already mentioned. Um, “It lies at all times, this Nevsky Prospekt, but most of all it lies when night falls in thick masses of shadows, and you can see only the white and pale yellow walls of houses. And when the entire town is transformed into noise and brilliance, when myriads of carriages roll off bridges, postilions shout and jump up on their horses, and the Devil Himself lights the street lamps, so as to show everything in an unreal aspect.”
[Mark:] Yeah. That's a – that's so powerful. [Kate:] Yeah.
[Mark:] So, I'm going to do something unprecedented on the Norton Library Podcast, and I'm going to impose a favorite line of mine on both of you. In “The Overcoat,” uh, “Leave me alone. Why are you treating me like this?” And when I got to that line, I have to tell you, I just found that – I reacted the way that one of his fellow characters reacts, where I felt stabbed through the heart. Um, is that the intention? Is that – Am I falling for some sentiment and I shouldn't, or do you also find that to be such a moving moment?
[Kate:] That's one of the most controversial lines in the whole of Gogol, because the question is, you know, there's so much irony, there's so much sarcasm. Um, he – you seem to be expected to distance yourself. And yet in that moment, um – as in a couple of other places, but mainly in that moment – um, there seems to be a real sense of sincerity, right? That there seems to be a kind of, uh, a compassion that's being expressed there. Um, and actually, um, Dostoevsky, who was, um, as Michael mentioned earlier, um, the – one of the characters in his first novel, “Poor Folk,” um, is outraged by reading “The Overcoat.” And mainly because, um, a poor civil servant like himself, Akaky Akakyevich, um, ends up, sort of, in such a, kind of, an undignified – as he perceives it, the character – situation. But these are moments in which there does seem to be some kind of dignity afforded, um, to the character in this story, I think.
[Mark:] Is there wiggle room for the translator in that moment? “Leave me alone. Why are you treating me like this?” Or is that – Are you pretty pretty concrete what he said in Russian?
[Michael:] Pretty concrete. “Оставь меня,” “Leave Me Alone.” Um, “let me be” is what he's saying. And, as Kate said, that was a matter of great controversy, how sincere Gogol was in these feelings of compassion, when on the other hand, he calls his character “poop face.” [Laughter] I mean, he's making – he's making fun of him all the time, and then all of a sudden throws in this— [Mark:] Yeah. [Michael:] —bubble of compassion. And you say, “Well, which is it? Am I supposed to laugh at him, or am I supposed to feel sorry for him?” And maybe it's both.
[Kate:] And yeah – And what's interesting is that Dostoevsky’s character kind of picks up on that, because he's sort of, um, he then takes the side of Akaky Akakyevich and says that Gogol should have left him alone. And I think that it – that sort of Gogol’s very, um, sort of, um, frame-breaking qualities that we talked about before, the way in which he steps – is able to step out of the text and sort of look at it as though from outside – creates, then, the possibility that Dostoevsky’s characters can also do the same thing. Um, and what's interesting is that a famous, uh, novel theorist and, um, critic of Russian literature, Mikhail Bakhtin, said that, um, Dostoevsky’s character was “Gogol plus self-consciousness.”
[Mark:] Oh!
[Kate:] Right? So, that we have a similar structural position, but that what Dostoevsky is doing is adding. He's kind of taking that “Leave me alone” and kind of creating – and sort of pulling it out across a whole novel, right? [Mark:] Excellent, yeah. [Kate:] So, in Gogol, it's just kind of left there hanging, um, but Dostoevsky takes it and runs with it.
[Mark:] You've both touched on this in different forms, but I'm wondering if you have any ideas about teaching this novel and what has worked, what has been most successful, uh, when teaching Gogol. What are your methods?
[Kate:] I would say that I like talking to students about, um, sort of modern experiences of feeling alienated in the city, and sort of the psychic forms that this alienation takes. Um, of course, there's also humor in Gogol, as we've talked about, everywhere. But at the same time, there is also kind of more serious topics. So, um, for instance, um, madness comes up a lot, right? And mental illness. Um, “Notes of a Madman” is one of the great and sort of sad – and shocking in certain ways – stories. Um, and one of the big themes of these stories is, kind of, how living a modern life, uh, crushes your selfhood and makes you crazy. And I think that students are really attuned to this, and especially in the current, uh, mental health epidemic. But you have to be careful about, of course, about teaching these stories, and give some trigger warnings about things like madness and suicide and so on. But I find that students really, you know, do relate to reading these stories that seem to touch on – but in strange ways and in sort of alienated ways – um, their experiences.
[Michael:] I would say the language, which is so delicious, really, uh, begs to be read aloud. And to have students read passages and play out the dialogues, especially. They really get into the humor and to the irony in the stories and in the caricatures. Uh, so that's what I do. And I think it's successful, having the students read it.
[Mark:] Now we come to the point in the interview where we ask our guests for a hot take or something controversial or counterintuitive. Do each of you have a headline-making moment or opinion about Gogol? Kate, what do you think?
[Kate:] So, I guess mine would be that, um, in the current context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, um, cultural relations between Russia and Ukraine are really severely strained. Um, and it makes sense to think – rethink the identity of writers like Gogol, whose identities are more complex. But I think it would be a mistake to de-Russia-fy Gogol entirely and to think about him only as a Ukrainian writer, precisely because he himself was so ultra-aware of his identity as a colonial, and that he, in fact, plays with various aspects of him – of this aspect of himself in his writing and in life in order to kind of mess with his Russian writers. Um, and that he, as we mentioned, is a kind of cultural and linguistic hybrid, but he also mocked and laughed at the Ukrainian nationalists of his day by playing with the stereotypes of Ukrainian identity. So, I think that we can't really fold him either into contemporary Ukrainian identity that defines Itself by an exclusion of everything that's Russian, uh, but nor can we see him as an entirely Russian writer.
[Michael:] I'll cite a book which appeared in 1976, written by Simon Karlinsky, called “The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol,” in which he argues that Gogol was really a repressed homosexual, and that all of his relations between men and women throughout all of his work – play, novel, short stories – there are no happy families. There are no happy marriages. All of them have tension between the man and the woman, and that, um, Gogol is really acting out his own – very controversial at the time – sexuality.
[Mark:] So, there are no happy relationship – romantic relationships, yet there's humor suffused through the whole, all his narratives?
[Michael:] Absolutely.
[Mark:] Interesting. So, we also talked, uh, on the previous podcast, about contemporary considerations of Gogol. So, since his stories were published, have these stories been adapted or repurposed since then in – maybe in different forms, or in different media? For – Different ways for, uh, for people to consider these Tales?
[Kate:] There are lots of film adaptations of the stories. In fact, the first one, I think, dates from 1912. Um, that was a Russian Imperial film adaptation. Um, and also in the Soviet Union, but also elsewhere. Um, and then one interesting adaptation is, um, that Dmitri Shostakovich, the great Soviet composer, his first opera, um, from 1928, um, was an adaptation of "The Nose.” Um, and, actually, in New York City in the – around 2013, the Metropolitan Opera, um, did a fantastic adaptation of that Opera that was, um, a fantastic production of that opera, which was produced by the great South African artist William Kentridge. Um, and that was a production that also was revived during the pandemic and was streaming as part of their free programming. Um, and then another interesting contemporary, um, phenomenon is that in one of the most important theaters in Russia, prior to the invasion, was, um, the Gogol center, which was one of the places where some of the most innovative theater was being performed. Unfortunately, that's not something which exists anymore. It kind of did not survive the sort of cultural purge of the, um, post-invasion of Ukraine – uh, Russia.
[Michael:] I would point to a musical comedy version of "The Government Inspector," uh, Gogol’s great play, which stars Danny Kaye as the young, um, the young hero who is fooling everybody, pretending to be something that he isn't. Every time I get sick and I'm bedridden, uh – not that I get sick that often, [Laughter] but when I am – I lie in bed, and I watch this film, and I just roar with laughter. It's Gogol’s humor plus Danny Kaye added on to it and it's wonderful.
[Mark:] That sounds great! Yeah, that sounds great. Well, we've talked about opera and musical theater, also. What about other forms of music? Are there other things that you would put on a Gogol playlist?
[Kate:] So, yeah! They, um – I already mentioned New York City, and there's actually a great, um, folk punk band, Gogol Bordello, which was founded in 1999, uh, in New York City, in lower Manhattan, by Ukrainian-born American punk singer Eugene Hütz. Um, and it shares kind of the same sort of anarchic energy as Gogol's stories. Um, I think he's been doing fundraising, um, for Ukraine since the invasion, as well, um, playing lots of his music. Um, probably their "Wonderlust King,” or "Start Wearing Purple" is another song of theirs that would be on a Gogol playlist.
[Michael:] My list has Marvin Gaye's rendition of “I Heard it Through the Grape Vine.” [Laughter] Um, I won't sing it, but the lines that I – that stuck out were “believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”
[Mark:] Oh, yeah. That's the way you approach Gogol, is that kind of – acknowledging that ambiguity.
[Michael:] Absolutely. Each story ends – we've read a few of them, the last time we chatted. Each story ends with this big question mark: “Is what I see real, or is this fake?”
[Mark:] And do you find that contemporary readers find that level of ambiguity frustrating? That they’re looking for some sort of definite end, or are they charmed by this kind of openness to the ending?
[Kate:] I would say that certainly my students find the ambiguity problematic at the moment. They like to, um, they like to moralize, they like to, uh, find black and white. Um, and I hope that reading Gogol will teach them a little bit more about shades of gray.
[Mark:] Right.
[Michael:] I find the same with my students. “How to take this? Is this serious? Is this social criticism, or is this making fun of these people?” And it's a little bit of both, with an emphasis on the fun, I think.
[Kate:] Yeah.
[Mark:] One of the stories that you just mentioned that we didn't really touch on in the first episode, I'm wondering if maybe you could just talk about it for a minute, is "Notes of a Madman.” How does that story function in this collection? What did it – What does it tell us about Gogol?
[Kate:] I would say that, um – So, this is written in a diary format, um, so with a kind of first-person narrator who's writing the diary. Um, and it's kind of – We see in the diary form the gradual descent into madness. Um, so he ends up by imagining that he's the king of Spain. Um, so the sort of phenomena of the Bourbon succession of Spain is kind of taking place as his, um, mental health is deteriorating. Um, and it's a very kind of shocking and moving story, but also kind of funny at the same time. So, yet again it's kind of one of these works where we sort of are both, um, laughing but also kind of feeling shocked and sort of, um, alarmed at the same time. And certainly, uh, Gogol’s own mental health was sort of fragile, and, um, towards the end of his life he was – very much kind of, um, struggled with all kinds of visions and things. And I think that you can see in, uh, in his stories, you know, there's a kind of creative, anarchic energy. But there's also sort of elements of sort of, um, seeing the world in a different way, right, that may have to do with his mental health.
[Mark:] Well, you mentioned how your students would consider treatments of mental illness and so forth. What about Gogol’s contemporary readers? The readers that are reading this in the mid-19th century... What was the notion of mental illness in St. Petersburg at that time, and how did Gogol’s depiction either contradict it or fit into that attitude?
[Kate:] So, madness is really important as a kind of trope in Russian Romanticism. Um, so "The Queen of Spades,” which is a story by Pushkin, has a – sort of ends in madness. And, sort of, madness as the sort of end of the story, um, is not unusual in the treatments, uh, in Romanticism. Um, it's only really later in the 19th century that we begin to get more medicalized accounts. Um, so I think it's actually, you know, he's ahead of his time in certain ways in and the idea of sort of what might a, um, a sort of – how madness and creativity might be connected. Um, and what would a kind of a perspective of a madman provide, right? What does that do in terms of, um, of our understanding of the world? So, I think he's ahead of his time, in that sense.
[Michael:] The hero is carted off to the loony bin at the end of that story, and that's quite a shock – a shocking ending for a 19th-century story.
[Mark:] Right. Michael, I wonder if we could end our second episode by – with a consideration of Gogol’s contemporary relevance. I'm mindful that we're conducting this interview when Russia, for instance, and Ukraine are at war, uh, which probably changes how you might answer that question. But in our day and age, where do you think Gogol fits in?
[Michael:] That's the hardest question to answer, I think. Um, it's such an awful situation that we're in. All I can say is: to provide some humor to the tragedy that is unfolding every day in the news. And you feel guilty, almost, laughing at Gogol’s stories because of what's happening in Ukraine.
[Kate:] Yeah. And I would say, I mean, certainly with regard to his hybridic identity, that’s something that we're going to be able to kind of think about in detail for many years. Um, but I think that, um, when it comes to his universal significance, um, I mean, I've talked before about his connection with kind of the absurdity of urban life, how we see that. Um, and I think one of the things – one of the contemporary aspects – is, um, how he is able to convey the idea that you can see the same scene day after day, and your eye gets used to it, and then something deep and hauntingly strange invades the space one day, but your mind just can't adjust to it because you see the same scene every day. And so, this strange thing, you just block it out. And then it comes back to haunt you later on. So, this is kind of a, very much of a, I think, a modern, uh, phenomenon that he, uh, taps into and sort of that goes beyond sort of the geopolitical, um, context of reading him.
[Mark:] The edition is Nikolai Gogol’s Selected Tales. We've been talking with Kate Holland and Michael Katz. Thank you so much for joining us on the Norton Library Podcast! This has been a pleasure.
[Kate:] Thank you. [Michael:] Thank you.
[Mark:] The Norton Library edition of Selected Tales by Nikolai Gogol, with an introduction by Kate Holland and translated by Michael Katz, is available now in paperback and ebook. Check out the links in the description for this episode for ordering options and more information about the Norton Library, including the full catalog of titles.
[Music]
