"He Called Me a Goose"

Gogol!  Gogol was my lunch-desert this afternoon.  Yesterday I finished “How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich.”  What a lovely, absurd way break from emails of deals and contracts.  I felt as though the author’s hands of 1831 were reaching through the pages and shaking my shirt collar.  The Ivan’s initial quarrel, with Ivan I., intruding upon the naked Ivan N., is paced like a Monty Python sketch; deft riposte followed by an entirely plausible escalation till it all goes too far for any reconciliation:  “He called me a goose.”

Today I only intended to read a bit of “Nevsky Prospekt” but found myself caught from moment Lieutenant Pirogov yells “Stop” and tugs upon the shirt of the artist he is walking with.  And once again, we can’t help but follow both men to their allotted fates as they pursue their brunette and their blond, respectively.  If this is shocking and immediate to me today, nearly one hundred and eighty years on, how arresting this all must have been in 1834. 

I’d read “Dead Souls” or some of it at least, thirty years ago but I don’t remember it being as uproariously funny and immediate.  Apparently Gogol was as nervous and awkward as some of his characters, in his dealings with, for example, Pushkin, who liked these stories and encouraged Gogol in his writing.  Be he also had to ask the younger writer to back-off a bit with his constant pestering.  I do recall that Gogol’s last words before he perished apparently were: “Get me a ladder!”  That has stuck with me.  Some things do.  He is held up being a seminal influence for Dostoyevsky and while it makes sense that the Dostoyevsky builds upon Gogol’s forceful plausibility, I don’t usually think of the Fyodor as being nearly so funny.

Later in line at the local market, I’ve got dish in mind:  地三鲜, disanxian, 'three fresh from the earth.'  In my basket I’ve placed potatoes and green peppers and eggplant as the dish requires.  In my mind the potatoes are soft like the eggplant and explode with flavor.  The green pepper stay firm and the tastes all balance, properly.   I want Planters salted sunflower seeds.  It’s my go-to salty taste snack to balance the sweet of raisons and the base of cheddar cheese.  They don’t have any.  The main store doesn’t have any either.  An older Chinese lady who has obviously lived overseas asks where I learned my Chinese and I don’t mean to be smart when I say “in China.”

Tuesday 4/10/18