Nikolai Gogol's the Nose

This Little Black Penguin contains two short stories - The Nose and The Carriage.

The Nose is an absurdist satire about a barber in St Petersburg who one morning finds a clients nose in a bread roll. The story then follows the clients attempts to retrieve his nose.
Like a number of other readers, I feel I am not picking up on what this author is trying to satirise in this book... Taken at face value (no pun intended), it is an amusing little story, but certainly absurd.

The Carriage is an amusing story about high society, and the keeping up of appearances. An aristocrat attends a evening at a cavalry regiment, hobnobbing with the officers. Conversation turns to carriages, and he brags about the carriage he recently obtained. Intoxicated beyond his ability, he offers to entertain the General the following evening, and other other officers too. Returning home he falls into bed, and sleeps until early evening when he is awoken by his wife with only a few minutes notice of his guests arrival.
How is he to deal with the situation?

Neither story really got past a mildly amusing read, so somwhere between two and three stars, rounds up to 3.