The possibilities were good, but this is poor stuff. I hope someone will take the gag and make it funny:
Lawrence Hall
Dostoyevsky Writes
to the Coronavirus
More than one scribbler has re-written the first lines of
famous novels as humorous takes on the covid-time. I go them one better in
re-writing the first lines of famous Russian novels:
Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor
Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day and
still remember among us due to his tragic death when his stockpile of hoarded
toilet paper fell and crushed him.
-Dostoyevsky, The
Brothers Karamazov
Reveille was sounded, as always, at 5 a.m. – a hammer
pounding on a rail outside Camp Fast-Track Vaccines H. Q.
-Solzhenitsyn, One
Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man
came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as
though in hesitation, towards K Bridge in search of P. P. E.
- Dostoyevsky, Crime
and Punishment
“Well, Peter, still no sign of the promised disinfectant aerosols?
-Turgenev, Fathers
and Sons
On they went, singing “Rest Eternal,” and whenever they
stopped there was a sign reminding them to maintain a distance of six feet from
each other.
-Pasternak, Doctor
Zhivago
I am merely copying out here, word for word, what was
printed today in the State Gazette: Glass rooms in glass buildings are not
enough – you must also wear your glass masks.
-Zamyatin, We
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family
estates of the Microsoft Corporation.”
-Tolstoy, War
and Peace
Happy viruses are all alike; every unhappy virus is
unhappy in its own way.
-Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina
Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring,
shuddering noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the
workingmen’s suburb where vaccines were developed.
-Gorky, Mother
The Melekhov farm was right at the end of Tatarsk village,
next to Dr. Fauci’s house.
-Sholokov, And
Quiet Flows the Don
-30-