Gogol’s Wife (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Tommaso Landolfi
- First Published: 1954
- Type of Plot: Surrealist
- Time of Work: The mid-nineteenth century
- Setting: Unspecified
- Principal Characters: Nikolai Vassilevitch Gogol, Caracas, Foma Paskalovitch
- Genres: Short fiction, Surrealist literature, Parody
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Reality, Criticism, Fantasy, Biography, Dolls or dollhouses
The Story
The story is purportedly a chapter of a biography of the great nineteenth century Russian writer, Nikolai Vassilevitch Gogol. The supposed biographer, Foma Paskalovitch, begins suspensefully by pointing out that he is about to relate something about Gogol's wife that is so scandalous as to cause him to hesitate revealing it. After this suspenseful beginning, the narrator reveals that Gogol's “wife” was actually a life-size balloon in the form of a woman. The plot's exposition consists of a description of the inflatable doll and two incidents in which the...
[The entire page is 2011 words long]
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