A Special Encounter

 I bought days ago in a supermarket of Gubbio I Fratelli Karamazov,

The Brothers Karamazov. 

It's a classic of Russian literature. Written by Fedor Dostoevsky, I won't tell you I completed the book, I am at the first pages. I understood with the time that no one maybe like Russian writers are in grade, telling in a plain way big sagas, to report the best or worst of life's essence.

A book reviewer lives many lives, you must know. 

She is in the middle-east, while at the same time in Georgia, close to Russia, at the beginning of the XX century when the advent of the Communist Party brought profound changes in the russian society; I am in Baltimore with Mary Elizabeth Garrett, in the family Moskat, and in fantastic lands surrounded by dragonflies. 

I am of course living the adventures of the family Karamazov as well. But it's not that. 

I started to become fascinated by this book when I met along my way, one day, more than two years ago while I was going to Gubbio, Patrick a boy of 27 years old from Austria. I was rushing as always I do, and just at a kilometer of distance from my house Patrick asked for a passage. He was speaking in english, he had black hair, and a firm and cleaned face. For all these reasons, I said him: with pleasure.

I didn't know what to wait from this new encounter, but in general I have a positive attitude. I tend to see in everyone a new and pleasant discovery.

Patrick told me he lived in a rural village close to Innsbruck, where, substantially he wouldn't never had the possibility of becoming nothing else than a factory worker, which of course is more than good for most people but Patrick wanted something else and became a cook. He travelled around the world, from New Zealand to many other european countries, discovering new cultures, ways of life.

But, what it was touching of this 27 years boy, in Umbria for the Franciscan pilgrimage was that he is an avid reader. His knowledge of literature is immensely big.It was surprising to me. Immensely weird to me. In the area where I live in there are some avid readers. A man of 88 years, maybe the most remarkable one. "I go in my bedroom at 6 o'clock PM and then the rest of the time I read and listen to the radio" confessed me one day.

Sure, our land is not a land of readers. Born as peasants, most people think that there is a real scission, separation between reading and working also in the fields as if the two activities couldn't stay close and enriching the other one.

Reading in Italy is not considered important as it is in northern european countries, where peasants, fishermen, barists, waitresses, everyone is an avid reader. In Italy no sure why, reading is seen as a silly activity, reserved just for the years of school where people must learn to reading and counts. The most boring years after all.

I have always considered myself a weird creature; normal maybe in another context, sure an UFO where I live in. My American friends with which we talked of books moved to the USA, and I was and I am alone with my learning and reading. 

Patrick was a big surprise: after the first phrases of introduction for knowing each other better he asked me if I read a lot of russian literature, in particular the Brothers Karamazov, a book, I guess, he felt so badly;  I became little little because there are classics that, where possible should have been read during the teen age age but that I hadn't. In particular I neglected Russian Literature. 

I thought that the boy was making the difference. The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings became our conversation for most of the time while I was driving to Gubbio. Bible, Tolkien's catholicity, the recreation of the Genesis in the Silmarillion...

When I left him, in the square of Gubbio Patrick confessed me that he didn't bring with him any cell phone, just a journal where he annotated everything of that trip and let me show that. We exchanged addresses and e-mails and then, I couldn't forget, I promised to myself that I needed to read that book!

Sometimes in our existence meetings of few minutes can make the difference, presenting us new suggestions, new visions and the possibility, also of new/old good readings!

Anna Maria Polidori