Russian literature did not feature at all in my education, be it secondary or tertiary. It wasn’t much on my radar either. I definitely had an awareness for some of those fat novels written by some of the greats. I must admit I was well into adulthood before Gogol hit my radar and despite having a paperback of his stories on a bookshelf for many years, it was this book that finally motivated me to finally read his work. I thought short stories would surely be easier than one of those long novels but I was mistaken. It definitely wasn’t an easy read for me. Perhaps this was not helped…