A Real Funny Guy

Joe struggled with phonetics at the Summer Institute of Linguistics. He'd spent a lot of time in target practice in the woods with a .44 magnum (if I recall correctly) without ear protection. If your hearing is impaired, it can be hard to identify vowels and consonants used in some of the World's 6,000+ languages.

If he struggled in linguistics, he seemed to thrive at living. His jokes kept us laughing. His adventures and misadventures made great stories. He was pleasant to be around and listen to.

One afternoon after I'd hung around too long talking with him in the shared kitchen of a University of Oklahoma dorm, he begged off. "Well," he said in his Georgia drawl, "I'm going to go read my book."

"What are you reading," I asked, not getting the hint and dragging out the conversation.

"The Brothers Karamazov."

"Really?" I said, fascinated. Joe hadn't struck me as an aficionado of Russian literature. I didn't know what the typical Dostoevsky fan was like. But I imagined they were refined, highly educated, and of high society. Joe seemed more down to earth.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I've read it about a dozen times. That Dostoevsky is a real funny guy."

I'd read Crime and Punishment, and I'd had a boss once who said I reminded him of The Idiot (which I found out later was more of a compliment than it sounded). But The Brothers Karamazov seemed pretty long, and heavy. I was impressed.

At the end of summer, Joe came to say goodbye. "I brought you this," he said. He handed me a tattered, coverless paperback wrapped with a rubber band. "It's missing the first 20 pages or so, but you can probably get a copy from the library to read those."

On the back of the last page, a note from Joe read, "Be sure and read Alyosha's speech to the children!" I promise to read that far, I thought. And I did. I borrowed a friend's copy for the first few pages, then sorted the loose pages and read Joe's copy. Alyosha's speech, I found, is in the epilogue.

In a recent move, I got rid of a lot of books. The one from Joe made the cut.

It's time to read it again. I'm well shy of Joe's dozen. And I could use some humor.

Joe's copy of The Brothers Karamazov