"The Guide focuses on Gogol's language in "The Nose" and his playful twisting of the many Russian idioms that are usually lost in English translations of the story. It traces Gogol's descriptions of St. Petersburg everyday life, familiar to the writer's contemporaries but hidden from the modern Western reader. It also presents major critical interpretations of the story and its connections to the works of Shostakovich, Kafka, Dalâi and Kharms"--
