Decidedly funereal

The Namesake is a very popular (and well made) movie playing at theatres these days. It is based on Jhumpa Lahiri's novel of the same name, and stars Kal Penn, Irrfan Khan and Tabu. But this post is not about the Namesake. Rather this is a bland summary of Nikolai Gogol's 'The Overcoat', which is the central motif of 'The Namesake'. Thanks to wikipedia for the content.

I must confess, though, that this summary leaves me quite cold and that I would NEVER want to read this mad genius's works. Its too dark and foreboding for me! But I will let you decide for yourself -

The story centers on the life and death of Akakii Akakievich, an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg. Akakii is dedicated to his job, taking special relish in the hand-copying of documents, though little recognized in his department for his hard work. Instead, the younger clerks tease him and attempt to distract him whenever they can. His threadbare overcoat is often the butt of their jokes. Akakii decides it is necessary to have the coat repaired, so he takes it to his tailor, Petrovich, who declares the coat irreparable, telling Akakii he must buy a new overcoat.
The cost of a new overcoat is beyond Akakii's meagre salary, so he forces himself to live within a strict budget to save sufficient money to buy the new overcoat. Meantime, he and Petrovich frequently meet to discuss the style of the new coat. During that time, Akakii's zeal for copying is replaced with excitement about his new overcoat, to the point that he thinks of little else. Finally, with the addition of an unexpectedly large holiday salary bonus, Akakii has saved enough money to buy a new overcoat.
Akakii and Petrovitch go to the shops in St. Petersberg and pick the finest materials they can afford (beaver fur is unaffordable, but they buy the best cat skin available). The new coat is of impressively good quality and appearance, and is the talk of Akakii's office on the day he arrives wearing it. His clerk superior is host to a party honoring the new overcoat, at which the habitually solitary Akakii is out of place; in the event, Akakii goes home from the party, far later that he normally would. Enroute home, two ruffians confront him, take his coat, kick him down, and leave him unconscious in the snow.
Akakii finds no help with the authorities in recovering his lost overcoat. Finally, on the advice of another clerk in his department, he asks help from a "Very Important Person" (sometimes translated the prominent person, the person of consequence), a high-ranking general. The narrator notes that the general habitually belittles subordinates in attempting to appear more important than he truly is. After keeping Akakii waiting an unnecessarily long time, the general demands of him exactly why he has brought so trivial a matter to him, personally, and not presented it to his secretary (the procedure for separating the VIPerson from the lesser clerks).
Socially inept, Akakii makes an unflattering remark concerning departmental secretaries, provoking so powerful a scolding from the general that he nearly faints and must be led from the general's office. Soon afterwards, Akakii falls sick with fever, likely to die. In his last hours, he is delirious, imagining himself again sitting before the VIP, who is again scolding him. At first, Akakii pleads forgiveness, but as his death nears, he curses the general.
Soon, Akakii's ghost (sometimes translated as "corpse", though Gogol wrote "ghost"--"привидение" in the original text) is reportedly haunting areas of St. Petersburg, taking overcoats from people; the police refusing to approach and stop him. Finally, Akakii's ghost catches up with the VIP — who, since Akakii's death, had felt very guilty over having mistreated him — and takes his overcoat, scaring him severely; satisfied, Akakii is not seen again. The narrator ends his narration with the account of another ghost seen in another part of the city, but that one was larger, muscled, and had a moustache, bearing resemblence to the criminials who had burglered him earlier.