Sunday, March 9, 2008

The Overcoat: author- Nicholai Gogol

I still haven't been able to visit the Book Fair @ Salt Lake Stadium and today my schedule being choc-a-block, it's likely that this year too, I'll be giving it a miss. However, it doesn't mean that I'm not reading books. Yesterday, I purchased a few books again from Starmark, making good use of the 10% discount being given there.

One book, a compilation of Russian short stories, had The Overcoat by Nicholai Gogol as the first story. (In fact, seeing this story's name prompted me to buy the book coz ever since I read Namesake and saw the film based on this book, I was eager to read The Overcoat, based on which the central character got his name, Gogol.)

The story is about the life of a person (Akaky Akakiyevich) who works as a copier (who copies documents day-after-day) in a department. How the poor soul endures hardships of life to finally get a new overcoat (his old one was worn beyond repair), how his life takes a new turn with the new found happiness, how he loses it and how he dies...all this and more is nicely depicted in this story. This story made me realize, once again, how the small things in life bring happiness and how they should be cherished. Only, you need to have an eye for detail, noting these small incidents and savoring them, or else, they'll be lost amongst the crests and troughs of life.

1 comment:

dhiman said...

make it two. we should cherish these sort of small things as they can change the aspect of our life, if not totally, then partially..