Summer Reading: It's a Depressing World, Gentlemen!

So I've woken up after sleeping for like, two hours and can't fall back into the sweet arms of slumber. And so I started Stumbling. And I found this picture:


This is distressing on multiple levels for me. Let me share my sleep deprived thoughts with you.

First of all, there is the assumption being made by this young woman's shirt, that the Twilight Saga isn't good literature. Which begs the question, what is good literature? And if we take the next step after that, what is "good" and how do we evaluate art? And what is art?

So maybe that last one is a step too far. I'm too sleepy for this I think.

Anywho, the second thing that stung me after stumbling upon this photo is as follows: The reason I was on my computer instead of reading like a normal person is that the book I'm reading isn't holding my attention. What is this book you ask? The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Yeah. I'm a bad scholar. I would rather be reading about Edward and friends than Alyosha and the brothers K.

Dumb.

Dostoyevsky's novel is considered by many to be the greatest novel of all time. The man himself is often referred to as the world's greatest novelist. To which I reply: SNORE. Perhaps I just have my hands on an inferior translation, or perhaps haven't gotten to the "good" stuff yet, but this novel just reads like emo Charles Dickens. And I don't like Dickens very much at all. It begins:

"Alexey Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Karamasoz, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us because of his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place."

I repeat: SNORE.

I have been running around calling myself a lover of Russian literature because of Vladimir Nabokov's heartbreaking and gorgeous novel Lolita. I also recently dove into a few of Gogol's short stories and had a Hell of a good time. Now I have to specify and be all like, "I really enjoy the works of Nabokov and Gogol, but find Dostoyevsky to be long winded and too full of thick prose," and sound even more pretentious than I already do.

But come on. "And still remembered among us because of his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place." Just gonna be real, I already don't care. Is it any better than the opening line of Stephenie Meyer's magnum opus, "My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down"?

My point here is that neither of them can compare to this, which I consider to be the greatest opening line of anything in the history of forever: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." Nabokov wins literature.

And yeah, it's dumb to just compare the opening lines of novels to distinguish how "good" their prose is but I'm too tired to fish through books looking for quotes.

Listen, perhaps this is a modern thing, but the two biggest (and best) pieces of advice given out to writers are "write what you know" and "show don't tell" A short bio of Dostoyevsky will reveal that the first one isn't much of a problem for him. But the entire first section of this novel is him saying "this character is like this and was like that and this character doesn't like this because he is that" and then he throws them all into a church and they argue about God.

Cool story bro.

Compare this to Twilight. Regardless of Meyer's intent, the character of Bella tells us upfront she is plain and not attractive, but then all the boys at her new school want on her and all these mystical creatures want a piece of that Bella action. As critical readers we infer from this that she is unreliable as a narrator, self absorbed, and is actually a relatable and accurate depiction of the teenage angst "woe is me when nothing is actually wrong with my life" mindset. Meyer shows us her character traits through action and dialogue. She doesn't tell us, "Bella thinks she's ugly, but really she is smokin hot and also is kinda selfish and misled because she's been pampered by her mother her whole life and lacked positive male role models" The author is making us think.

For me, this offers a more enjoyable and engaging reading experience than, "First of all, I must explain that this young man Alexey, or Alyosha as we fondly call him, was not a fanatic and in my opinion, at least, was not even a mystic... He was simply a lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was because at that time it struck him as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the worldly wickedness to the light of love" I don't have to work for this info and I am not as engaged.

In conclusion, Stephenie Meyer is a better novelist than Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Just kidding.

But for real. I'm not gonna lie to you. When I read Twilight I was more engaged and had more fun than now when I'm trudging my way through Dostoyevsky's masterpiece. Does that mean I'm not a "good" judge of literature and am immature? I don't think so. Does that mean Twilight is "better" than The Brothers Karamazov? Hell no. Does that mean we throw around phrases like "good literature/art" and "bad literature/art" without evaluating what the purpose of art is in the first place or taking personal taste and subjectivity into account? I'm gonna go ahead and say yeah.

And Hell, I'm gonna keep reading this book and maybe in a few weeks or whenever I finish I'll post something about how I take it all back and Dostoyevsky is actually brilliant and better than Meyer and sparkly vamps are stupid.

Whatever.

I gotta go bed now.