When reading the first parts of Gogol’s The Nose I immediately thought of incidents in the past where people have found actual human fingers inside their fast food orders.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/17/152923061/a-history-of-human-fingers-found-in-fast-food
The thought of human body parts in food is both bewildering and grotesque. Bewildering, what a perfect word. I was thoroughly bewildered and confused reading story. With it’s stage directions it’s obviously meant to performed on a stage, and the fast movements and quick transitions from one scene to the next where multiple things are going on at once are evidence that The Nose is supposed to watched and experienced rather than read.
WARNING, FAST FLASHING LIGHTS, SEIZURE RISK!
http://youtu.be/AjbrmfjJRk0
The image provided on the cover is an accurate representation of what my experience reading The Nose was: a sort of blurry and dazed image of what was going on. I admit that a lot of what may have been metaphors and analogies to explain what the story was actually about, and not just a nose, flew right over my head.
The ending of the story left me with a sort of longing or emptiness because I failed to form a comprehensive understanding during my reading.
I absolutely enjoyed your initial comparison of finding the nose in bread to finding body parts in fast food. What a horrifying, grotesque, out-of-body feeling that must be. I agree with you that story is meant to be acted out. The pace of the scenes as well as character reactions are much more impactful from humans than from paper in this case. The story was extremely difficult to comprehend because of its disobedience to the rules of nature. The blurriness you displayed in your diary is fitting for how one could have felt after reading this truly “bewildering” story.
I also agree with your comparison to real-life incidences of finding body parts in fast food–if that ever happened to me, I think I’d never go to a fast food joint ever again. It seems strange that Ivan reacted so nonchalantly, kind of just like, “Oh. There’s a nose in my bread. Better try to get rid of it instead of report it to the authorities.”
“The Nose” is definitely a story that’s better acted out than simply read, even though it was intended to be read. The absurdity of it alone makes it feel like a wild-goose-chase, comedy-of-errors kind of story with lots of potential for hilarity.
I didn’t know that fingers were found in some fast food orders, so that not only surprised me, but also grossed me out. I guess finding a nose in a loaf of bread isn’t as unrealistic as I thought it was. “Bewildering” is definitely a fitting description for The Nose because the story seems like a pointless journey of a guy trying to find his nose. I agree with your idea that The Nose should be watched because there are many scenes taking place at once with many characters. I like the blurred image of the nose because it portrays confusion and I also didn’t realize the hidden meaning while reading.
Having experience in the food industry, I can attest that abnormalities such as having fingers or even spit in food is not common just cause most servers don’t have any job security at all. When I read these first pages, I noticed more about the reaction that the barber and his wife had. They were so nonchalant, that it made me think they were a lovely pair of serial killers. By the end, I also felt a certain longing for a more conclusive ending as it did feel that the story was rushed to a closing. I think what upset me most was that the story ended happily, as Kovalev got his nose back yet he still maintained his cockiness. Since the protagonist did not learn anything, I wondered what the point of the story was. However, as we venture into new avenues of literature the messages will not be as blunt as they were with the novels we read in high school. Overal, loved your post and agree with you on all your points.