As I sat down to read The Nose, I thought to myself: ok, well it can’t be as weird as Metamorphosis. And boy, was I wrong. It got weird, fast. One man finds a nose in his breakfast; another wakes up to find his nose missing.

Was this how it was supposed to look? I DON’T EVEN KNOW.

That was just the start of it; the story got stranger and stranger. What struck me as profoundly odd was the conversations Kovaloff has with his nose. I can’t even envision it. Like Metamorphosis, it was very hard to visualize what was happening. In Metamorphosis, I wasn’t sure if Gregor was supposed to be a giant cockroach, or a man/cockroach combined – either way, it was hard to see. However, after seeing the ballet, I had a better picture to vision in my mind. I’m anticipating the opera of The Nose, because I’m very curious to see how they will show Kovaloff with his “perfectly smooth vacancy in his face,” and how they will depict the nose as its own entity.

How I thought Gogol’s mind was working

Without prior knowledge that the nose actually symbolized class status, one might question the sobriety of Nikolai Gogol – at least I did. However, after our IDC discussion, the story began to make more sense. I’m perplexed by the stories that have been chosen for us to read for IDC, but I’m definitely seeing a similar pattern. This story was weird, and is definitely one of those readings that you should read twice. After finding out the nose was simply a symbol, I re-read it, and enjoyed it a little bit more.