Ironic, not me!

Oh Pushkin,
We can acknowledge your extreme talent and felicity with the language, and your incredible life spirit and energy.

But you are a noted wit, a social butterfly, someone who plays among the shimmering surfaces of life. Your genius is that you are not only that, and your writing recognizes some of the shadows beneath.  But those shadows are not your element.  You use the shadows to enhance the play of light on the surface.  It is enjoyable, it is original, it is not to be idly criticized.

As a bear, however, I do not naturally sympathize with irony and jocularity, even from the originator of snark.  A bear's source of energy is the dark, brooding hibernation time, and any wit is sprinkled only as a seasoning to enrich the meaty, earthy flavors of somber and serious emotions.  This bear's spirit resonates with Gogol far more than Alexander P.