This dusty old Dostoevsky novel--
one of the great books I never read
but lugged around with the other great
unread books as I moved from house to house
to this house finally, where I'll probably
die before I get around to reading this book,
old and moldering as it is, and I am. And I am
such an idiot, I think to myself, it's time
I threw out this book.
They called me Dostoevsky when I was a kid
because it kind of sounded like Hostovsky--
at least the tail end of it did--
and because I told them, "One day
I will be a famous writer, mark my words."
What an idiot!
I've been calling myself an idiot
a lot lately. Too much, probably. I'm not very
nice to me. If somebody else kept calling me an idiot,
I'd walk right up to him, my face in his face,
and ask him what his problem was--
What's your problem? I ask myself.
Yeah you. Yeah that word you keep calling me--
Do you want to make something of it?
Dostoevsky was bellicose and testy.
He hired a stenographer, Anna Snitkina,
to help him write The Gambler and The Idiot.
First he tested her dictation by deliberately
speaking so fast she couldn't keep up.
Then he married her. Then he gambled away
all their money. Then she took over
their finances and his publishing negotiations
and saved the day. He was a literary genius
and an idiot. She loved him anyway.
End of story.
