Dr. Burne

Glenn Stephen Burne, Ph. D. was my stepfather and really, my primary parent from age 9-15. He was a very interesting man. Those Dos Equis commercials always reminded me of him, and incidentally, he always requested that beer in Mexican restaurants far before those commercials were made.

My days to contemplate Dr. Burne (which I called him until my daughter was old enough to speak - when my two-year-old was calling him by his first name, I followed her lead) were the 17, 18, and 19. Of course, today is the twentieth and still, I haven't written anything.

I decided to start with two books - neither have I read in full, but shall in time, as a way to "visit" with Glenn. He was a professor of Irish Literature, among other things, and told me that if I wanted to read Joyce I should start with The Dubliners, which is a collection of short stories. I have Glenn's copy of James Joyce, The Viking Portable Library, published in January 1947. It's a hardback with his name inscribed and an article about Mama tucked just inside the cover. He checked the stories from The Dubliners that he was probably going to use in a class. One of those stories was called The Encounter, and it was pretty creepy. Initially, it was about boys enchanted with the Wild West and Detective Stories who wanted to set out on an adventure. That part was great, and I think it may have inspired him to look more closely at explorers and travel logs as well as to actually seek out adventure in his own life. Joyce writes: "But real adventure, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad." The creepy part came in when they "encountered" an odd man who wanted to talk with them about how many girlfriends they had and how it would please him to whip bad boys. Yuck! I guess pedophiles have always been out there and Joyce allows the boys to escape before things escalate.

Glenn wrote a book about the great explorer, Richard Burton, the first white man to ever record anything about Mecca, and likely the first white man to see it at all.  He had a dream of taking his sabbatical and going out to his boat every day to write. Instead, he wrote his book at our kitchen table and he stayed home to take care of me before I was diagnosed with Crohn's and no one really knew if I would live or die. My 13-year-old self had gotten up to  100 pounds, and my 14-year-old self was 75 pounds. I remember how excited he was to read about Burton's journey to Mecca. He told me all about it. So, of course, the other book I  am reading is Richard F. Burton by Glenn S. Burne.

It gives an About the Author section:
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Glenn S. Burne studied in France for two years and subsequently received his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Washington. His publications include a book on Remy de Gourmont, a volume of translations of Gourmont, and a book on Julian Green, along with articles and reviews on modern French and American literature. Professor Burne teaches modern literature at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he served as chairman of the English Department from 1971-1977. He is a member of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, the Modern Language Association, and is past president of the Philological Association of the Carolinas.

I think a better description is given of him in the first part of the preface he wrote describing Richard F. Burton: "Every historical age produces a handful of men and women who stand so far outside their societies, whose personalities and careers are so brilliant and bizarre and their achievements so great that we can rarely account for them - we can only stand in awe of them." Glenn was a true Renaissance Man. He was trilingual; a decorated Lieutenant who served in the Pacific Theater of WWII on an LST, a sailor, a cyclist, a scholar, an outdoor enthusiast - I was honored to know and love him.