Blow-up doll

In popular culture

The narrator of Italian writer Tommaso Landolfi's comedic short story "Gogol's Wife" describes several visits to the subject of his biography, Nikolai Gogol. At that renowned 19th century Russian writer's residence, the future biographer finds Gogol, referred to throughout as Nikolai Vassilevitch (his personal name and patronymic), with a life-size, anatomically correct blow-up doll. In later visits, via magical realism, the doll is described with more and more human attributes.