Very Bad Wizards
Episode 330: A Fact-Based Podcast (Gogol's "The Overcoat")
April 14, 20261h 16m · 13,631 words
Show notes
David and Tamler return to the strange world of Nikolai Gogol and discuss his absurdist masterpiece "The Overcoat," a story that both calls for and steadfastly resists interpretation. But first we discuss a forthcoming Phil Studies article "Philosophy as Fact-Based Discipline: 200 Philosophical Facts." Wait until you hear what they are. Frances, B. (2026). Philosophy as fact-based discipline: 200 philosophical facts. Philosophical Studies, 183 (2), 551-581. [springer.com] The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol [wikipedia.org]
Highlighted moments
Which, by the way, what an insular little bubble to live in where you can't say that, like, some fucking bushman in the Kalahari who knows how to collect water in, like, the otherwise arid, terrible, like, environment of a desert, that you can't call him an expert.
“I think at the beginning of the story he's at peace in his own weird way and then because he gets the overcoat that takes that peace away from him”
“this doesn't feel allegorical, like, I know there are themes and stuff, but like, I don't feel like I'm getting taught a lesson about anything.”
“When, as in The Immortal, The Overcoat, he really let himself go and pottered on the brink of his private abyss, he became the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced.”
Transcript
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