From A Very Early Age, I Loved Books But Didn't Know That...

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You had to read them

I found it sufficient
to just hold them,
to feel them,
to grope them...

And then,
in high school,
we had to read 
War And Peace

I impressed my teacher
by finishing it within
one half-hour.

All I did was read
the number on each page.

But I read the first word
of  every page
of  Jane Eyre

It was a Surrealist masterpiece



However,
Dostoevski's

Minnie Marx

THE DOUBLE...

was the first story 
I read en toto

Fyodor was 
funnier than 
anyone will
ever know

And my idols became
Miene Schonberg
and the man she married in 1884: 
Samuel "Frenchie" Marx

For each and every one
of their children,
the  bedtime story
read to them was
THE DOUBLE

The one who became Groucho
memorized the entire story.

          

This is

the only

known picture

of the entire Marx family

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