We have started a Discord server for additional discussion. If you believe your post was removed in error, please contact the mods! Each book is read over the course of a month, typically with one or two check-ins each week posted by a mod.Ĭan I post about other books? Most activity is for books selected (by vote) for the current month, but you can post about any previous selection anytime.ĭon't post about other topics until you read the FAQ if you post about a random book we delete your post. Discussion schedules are posted shortly thereafter. Winners are posted a week or so before the end of the month. The book with the most upvotes is selected for the next month's read. Anyone can suggest a book to read (you DON'T have to lead the discussions if you suggest a book - the mods will do that!). And none of the description is in any way surprised or concerned with the logistics of a nose doing any of these things.How do we pick books? About halfway through each month, we create a thread for suggestions for the next month's read. We even know how it treats its underlings by the way it's not too angry but not too polite with the coachman. We know not just that it's moving around, but that it's moving like a guy who is in a big hurry (it 'ran headlong,' it 'leapt'). We know exactly how it's dressed, even down to color and fabric. At all events it glanced about it, and then, shouting to the coachman, 'Drive up here,' reentered the vehicle, and set forth. It seemed now to be going to pay another visit somewhere. And slung beside it there was a sword, and from the cockade on the hat it could be inferred that the Nose was purporting to pass for a State Councilor. And oh, Kovalev's horror and astonishment to perceive that the gentleman was none other than-his own nose! It was clad in a gold-braided, high-collared uniform, buckskin breeches, and cockaded hat. The nose feels hard to the touch, it's got a zit on it on the left side, and when Kovalev finally sees it, we get such a long and complicated explanation of what it looks like and what it's doing that the nose ends up being the most described character in the whole story:Ī door of the carriage opened, and there leapt thence, huddling himself up, a uniformed gentleman, and that uniformed gentleman ran headlong up the mansion's entrance-steps, and disappeared within. Every time we encounter it, we get drowned in details. Dreams are vague and strange and ambiguous, right? So what's less dreamlike than really getting in to the nitty-gritty aspect of everything?Īnd that goes double for the most dream-like element in the story-the nose itself. Well, it seems like he went overboard in the rewrite, because he crammed realistic and specific details into every description as possible.

In an early draft of this story, Gogol planned for the whole thing to be Kovalev's dream.

The nose gogol