Quote of the Day (Dave Barry, on What He Would Require the President to Read)

“The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky. I was required to read this book in English class during my freshman year at Haverford College, but I never finished it. I seriously doubt that Dostoyevsky ever finished it. So I figure if the president read it, he could tell me what happens.”—Humorist Dave Barry, on what book he would require the President to read, in “By the Book: Dave Barry,” The New York Times Book Review, February 3, 2013

Barry wrote this during the administration of Barack Obama, who might well have read some Dostoyevsky during a Literary Humanities class at Columbia University. (Come to think of it, even George W. Bush might have tried to wrestle with it—though dismissed, not without justification, as an intellectual lightweight, he might have tried to conquer the massive Russian novel if challenged by Karl Rove, who had similar contests with the President concerning books of political science and history.)

As for the current incumbent: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! His affinity for things Russian extends to deals and bare-chested strongmen, not for literary classics. Those are for losers. Or hadn’t you heard?