Recently, I picked up Nikolai Gogol and some of his work. It's sad that I never read much of him in college. Not that I would trade him for Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or Chekhov... but I wish I at least read his "The Overcoat" or "Nevsky Prospekt" at least once then...
“What an amazing world we live in!” I thought to myself the other day as I walked along Nevsky musing over these two stories: ‘How strange, how inscrutable the games fate plays with us! Do we ever attain the object of our desires? Do we ever achieve that to which all our efforts seem to be directed? Everything happens the wrong way round. To one Providence has given a pair of splendid horses, and he rides along indifferently, oblivious of their beauty, while another, whose heart is fired with a passion for horses, is forced to go on foot and must content himself with licking his tongue at the handsome beasts which gallop past. One fellow has an excellent cook, but, alas, is unlucky enough to possess such a small mouth that it cannot accommodate more than two pieces of meat, while another has a big mouth…but, alas, has to content himself with some sort of German concoction of potatoes. What strange games fate plays with us!”
- Nevsky ProspektWe know this. But he said it right.
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