'Burnt Norton and East Coker in Dialogue with the Uncollected Poems' (2026) https://xitter.twitterapi.xyz/t.co/DY6tOvBHTI Literature and other arts • Christian ✝️
The Book Land
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Woolf about Dostoyevsky:
'It is directly obvious that he is the greatest writer ever born.'
Some call it a false dichotomy, but I still very much believe - no matter how much one may deeply enjoy both - that one's preference here says a lot about oneself, and that it's one of those cases when not having a preference is hardly imaginable.
Who are you picking? Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?
It's Dostoyevsky's birthday today, and given also my recent tweets, I'm very curious regarding my followers' and mutuals' preference when it comes to choosing between him and Tolstoy.
Who are you choosing?
79%Dostoyevsky
21%Tolstoy
47 votes • 18 hours 4
9
660
It's Dostoyevsky's birthday today, and given also my recent tweets, I'm very curious regarding my followers' and mutuals' preference when it comes to choosing between him and Tolstoy.
Who are you choosing?
79%Dostoyevsky
21%Tolstoy
47 votes • 18 hours'For me the most interesting characters are outwardly static, but inwardly charged with energy by an overriding passion.'
Andrei Tarkovsky,
Sculpting in Time
Thank you everybody who has followed! It is a particularly perfect day to reach 10k, as it is Dostoyevsky's birthday - my favourite novelist.
Those of you who are new here... you can expect lots of poetry, philosophy, theology, and the arts in general.
'Literature is news that stays news,' Ezra Pound once wrote, and it gladdens me to see people thirsting for this kind of news. Turn off the TV, or put aside the newspaper - and open a book. Immerse yourself in those refreshing yet timeless words.
Once again, thank you all.
This is perhaps how I would rank Dostoyevsky's long novels, though I am not entirely satisfied with it - as expected.
1. The Brothers Karamazov
2. Crime and Punishment
3. The Idiot
4. Demons
5. House of the Dead
6. Humiliated and Insulted
7. The Adolescent
How'd you rank them?
On this day in 1821, one of the greatest figures of world literature was born - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky.
He was born in the midst of poverty and disease, since his family lived in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, on the edges of Moscow. An epileptic and a hypochondriac himself, Dostoyevsky made disease and illness a multivalent symbol and force in his work.
In his own life, the author lived through, battled, and endured fits of epilepsy, debt, forced labour in Siberia, a mock execution, gambling, and poverty - writing to pay off his debts. Yet how could one produce such miraculous masterpieces as he did, in conditions such as he endured? George Steiner argues that Dostoyevsky was an incredibly healthy man - for otherwise how could he have endured such illness and hardship? This observation Steiner bases on Thomas Mann's, who saw the Russian writer's epilepsy as 'a product of over-flowing vitality, an explosion and excess of enormous health.' This 'enormous health,' Steiner believes, used sickness as 'an instrument of perception,' and so Dostoyevskyan illness was, like Tolstoyan health, a mark of 'creative might.'
So, epilepsy is more a positive force in much of his fiction - as in his life - than a negative one. Epileptic seizures offered, indeed, a sort of religious illumination, and 'nowhere does Dostoevsky suggest that the "idiot" [Myshkin] regrets his hallowing affliction.' 'He is able to convert his sickness, the greatest menace to life and reason, into the sublimest secret of his art' (Zweig). However, as Zweig notes too, this was also the case in Dostoyevsky's own life, and he quotes Dostoyevsky himself:
'Each time Dostoeffsky describes the moment which precedes the epileptic attack, his words assume the lilt of a pæan: "You who enjoy good health never suspect the delight which permeates us epileptics a second before the seizure. . . . I cannot tell you how long these moments of bliss last . . . but you may believe me when I say that I would not forgo them were I offered all the joys of earth in exchange." '
Happy birthday to the greatest novelist of all time - few people have changed me like you have, Fyodor. I sure hope you are resting in peace in the arms of the Lord. ✝️☦️
On this day in 1821, one of the greatest figures of world literature was born - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky.
He was born in the midst of poverty and disease, since his family lived in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, on the edges of Moscow. An epileptic and a hypochondriac himself, Dostoyevsky made disease and illness a multivalent symbol and force in his work.
In his own life, the author lived through, battled, and endured fits of epilepsy, debt, forced labour in Siberia, a mock execution, gambling, and poverty - writing to pay off his debts. Yet how could one produce such miraculous masterpieces as he did, in conditions such as he endured? George Steiner argues that Dostoyevsky was an incredibly healthy man - for otherwise how could he have endured such illness and hardship? This observation Steiner bases on Thomas Mann's, who saw the Russian writer's epilepsy as 'a product of over-flowing vitality, an explosion and excess of enormous health.' This 'enormous health,' Steiner believes, used sickness as 'an instrument of perception,' and so Dostoyevskyan illness was, like Tolstoyan health, a mark of 'creative might.'
So, epilepsy is more a positive force in much of his fiction - as in his life - than a negative one. Epileptic seizures offered, indeed, a sort of religious illumination, and 'nowhere does Dostoevsky suggest that the "idiot" [Myshkin] regrets his hallowing affliction.' 'He is able to convert his sickness, the greatest menace to life and reason, into the sublimest secret of his art' (Zweig). However, as Zweig notes too, this was also the case in Dostoyevsky's own life, and he quotes Dostoyevsky himself:
'Each time Dostoeffsky describes the moment which precedes the epileptic attack, his words assume the lilt of a pæan: "You who enjoy good health never suspect the delight which permeates us epileptics a second before the seizure. . . . I cannot tell you how long these moments of bliss last . . . but you may believe me when I say that I would not forgo them were I offered all the joys of earth in exchange." '
Happy birthday to the greatest novelist of all time - few people have changed me like you have, Fyodor. I sure hope you are resting in peace in the arms of the Lord. ✝️☦️
'Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.'
Jack Kerouac,
On the Road
Tomorrow is Dostoyevsky's birthday, and today I'm finally starting this classic of literary criticism (for the first time): Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.
I will be rereading, too, one of Dostoyevsky's major novels: Crime and Punishment.
Each stanza of 'Abandoned Love' could be a self-contained poem.
And people wonder that Dylan won the Nobel in Literature. One could question the Academy regarding their reasons, but Dylan has, in recent years, been one of the only people to have actually deserved the prize - in my humble opinion, anyway. Which tells you a lot about the current state of literature.
This has been one of my favourite Dylan songs for about two years; and I only grow to love it more.
It sounds so much like... well, like abandoned love. Attachment knocking repeatedly at the mind's door, though you locked it out... And I'm not talking just about the exceptional lyrics, but the power of Dylan's voice - so strong, but at the same time on the verge of breaking, not into silence but fierce, impotent tears.
It moves me profoundly.
'Wherever the children go, I'll follow them.'
open.spotify.com/track/06jUW…
This has been one of my favourite Dylan songs for about two years; and I only grow to love it more.
It sounds so much like... well, like abandoned love. Attachment knocking repeatedly at the mind's door, though you locked it out... And I'm not talking just about the exceptional lyrics, but the power of Dylan's voice - so strong, but at the same time on the verge of breaking, not into silence but fierce, impotent tears.
It moves me profoundly.
'Wherever the children go, I'll follow them.'
open.spotify.com/track/06jUW…
I've finished reading The Western Canon, my first time reading Harold Bloom.
Despite my many (often vehement) disagreements and my shock at some omissions, I am so amazed by Bloom's critical strength (and of course by his erudition) - that I couldn't help but get Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, which seems brilliant, and which I greatly look forward to starting.
Even where I think, or feel, too differently from Bloom, I am always tempted to reread the authors he's discussing, to reconsider my critical preferences, and to strengthen my own differing arguments. Reading Bloom, for those who truly love reading, is an extremely fruitful exercise, as well as immensely enjoyable. Of course, I believe much of this is possible because Bloom argues from a position of sanity. His conclusions and temperament may differ from those of many of his readers, but he manages to actually place the aesthetic value of literature above all other considerations, something which more universities should start doing again - though, in a world growing more politically correct by the hour, that seems unlikely.
Anyway, can't wait to keep reading him. (Very much looking forward to future disagreements as well!) I also know several of you hold some of his works in very high regard, so I would love recommendations!
It's finally here!
I'm very honoured to be a part of this new @larotondereview anthology, and I'm grateful to @TheDarkestStar_, who has truly done a wonderful job.
Can't wait to read the rest of the poems!
Here's the link, if you want to purchase it: amazon.com/Colors-Karina-Lon…
