Where did the great writers go?

        What do I find to love?  To fill my time with? Books, my wife, a few people, and my thoughts, are my most pleasurable things. Each day comes and goes. But when I look back on my day, and find myself the happiest, it is when I have sat and read, talked with my wife for hours, and got to spend my time thinking over what I read, and where those thoughts lead me for the day.

       It is rare to find me reading the work of a writer that is alive today. So few current writers have found anything new to write about, and their style does not touch what was done over one hundred years ago. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Crowley, Nietzsche, and Heidegger changed literature as it was known. They took the narrative and found new ways to express it and bestow information upon us that enlightened us.


       Tolstoy told history like no other thought it could be done. Dostoevsky finally got one deeply into the mind of his characters. One knew just what they were thinking without needing to be told. In The Idiot we could see and feel the interactions of the characters, not just from what actually took place in his words, but from what they were thinking and feeling. We knew the emotions and internal conflicts more than any other part of this amazing novel. We almost didn’t care about the action until it finally exploded, and forced us take account of its happenings.

       Crowley and Nietzsche made us question the world and all our former religious beliefs. No longer did we just go into our religious congregations and simply follow what we were being told for face value any more. Both were deemed the Anti-Christ for looking into what was actually there, deeply and philosophically. No longer would the interpretations of the pulpit be solely satisfactory. They refused to simply believe what was told to them, and  taking the Buddha’s advice, questioned everything. And if that was not shocking enough; their use of language put them far above any other writer during their time. Reading their work has a flow that did not come out of any other writer. Even the headiest concepts of Nietzsche just flowed without hesitation. While any other writer would have stumbled to find the right words (and how to connect these ideas onto a page with cohesion)  this man knew just how to write so one is not only drawn into beautiful and poignant ideas, but it awed by its flow and perfect decorum of word usage. One’s only regret of reading him will be that there is not enough! The heart aches for more but there is none!

       Heidegger took the ideas of all the great thinkers before him. He gathered all of them together and created a new frame work of use; a new and useful system that awed and transfixed its readers. And if the ideas and intermingling of these thoughts and practices were not enough, he changed German word usage to what it is today. These changes not only affected the readers of his country, and his time, but changed language around the world. “Nesses” added to the end of a word would not impact us as it does today if were not for his writings; and that is only one example. Even translations of books, in other languages, are now translated with the current way of word usage brought about by Heidegger’s sentence and word structure. Even those who were too simpleminded to understand his theories benefited by this man’s ability to write and express himself in printed word.



Will literature one day return to these great minds and writers? Or will we suffer to be spoon fed by simpletons and baboons of the human languages forever? I only hope we return to seeing what the greatest did, and learn.

Questions and Response from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

1. Dostoevsky wrote, in "The Idiot, that his idea was to “portray a perfectly beautiful man.” Did he succeed? Can you formulate what is “beautiful” about Prince Myshkin? If Dostoevsky did not succeed, in what particulars did he fail?

I view that Myshkin was not beautiful. He was neither aesthetic nor socially acceptable. We find that he was very sickly and was unable to care for himself without direct assistance from a caregiver. He angered those around him in many ways; Rogozhin became so angered with him that he tried to kill him. Myshkin was made to be naïve. Although he cared greatly for those around him, and only spoke ill of them to their faces. It was in an attempt to help them. Although his views were almost always taken as slights and insults, he viewed that what he said should have be said and understood just as he spoke it. His naiveté was his beauty, even though all those around him saw it as his greatest flaw and detraction.

2. Is it difficult, or even impossible, for one to go through life in imitation of Christ – because of the inevitability of human egoism or because of “our age of vices and railways”?

I view that is it impossible to be truly Christ-like because of “our age of vices and railways”. The time that Jesus was said to have lived, and our modern world are very different. Jesus came from a well-off enough family to be able to go into the wild and learn what he must, and to come to terms with being the Son of God. His notoriety then allowed him to be able to not “work” for a living. Food and shelter were given to him any where he went because his reputation preceded him. In the Bible, every stop he made he was taken in by a follower of his work and teachings.
In the case of Myshkin he was also taken in by family or those that felt sorry for him because of his illness. At the beginning of the story, they were ready to kick him out of their homes because he upset them so greatly. However, when he suddenly came into contact with a great sum of money, due to the death of a relative, he was welcomed back with open arms because they thought he may help them financially since they had opened up their home to him when he was poor and in need. But all the while they ridiculed him for being jobless and only having a talent for pretty writing. Those around him viewed him as an unbearable burden and viewed him being a “philosopher” as a waste of time and belittled him for it constantly.
It shocks me to see that they put up with the Prince as they did. I view that anyone wishing to do the same, in our modern time, would be treated even worse. Plus, we have had so great a number of people claiming to be the second coming of Jesus that without showing god-like powers no one would believe anyone acting in absolute accordance with Jesus’ teachings could be Jesus. I believe that one cannot live in a totally Christ-like nature without being seen as a freeloader and waste in today’s society. They would be viewed much like the homeless are viewed.

3. Is there anything in this novel for the atheist? Can the religious issues be read as metaphors for psychology or as psychological symptoms?

I do view that an Atheist can read and get a great amount of insight into religious psychology from this novel. I base this intrinsically on myself being an atheist and having gotten a great deal from this classic novel myself. I simply saw the religious issues as societal issues. They were more over inquires into the society, and mass psychological issues to me.
Prince Myshkin expounded upon not seeing how anyone could be Catholic after all that was shown of Catholicism during the Reformation of the 1600’s. I felt this came from the view points of the author himself. After having read other examples of Dostoevsky’s religious views, and views of Christ, I felt that the words of Prince Myshkin were merely the feelings and ideas of Dostoevsky himself. This novel and that character, were just ways for him to be able to get out his personal views of religious diversification and his feelings upon those subjects. By definition, the personal thoughts of an individual and how they affect his actions is psychology. This is especially seen as true because he did not go into any non-Christian religions, and therefore anything outside of his own thoughts and mind. The closest he came to this was talking of Jesus being a Jew and not understanding how the Jews did not progress to viewing him as a savior when they had walked among Him as a people.
These views were seen, by myself, as a way of looking into the society, and the psychology of the individual people. This was much like when I looked into the lives of those in Ireland during the religious wars that took place there. That case seemed to be just what Prince Myshkin spoke of, but with physical violence as the ultimate result. (I believe that Russia may have come to the same result if economic and political issues had not become the greater concern that they did.)

4. Can one extract from this novel a critique of the social structure in which the characters must move and live and have their being?

I believe one can critique the social structure of the characters from this novel. I believed that it showed very well the limits of the society, and the unwritten laws of society that they were obliged to hold on to. We saw this greatly in the cases of the female characters and who they were and were not allowed to be with, and the times of day certain interactions were allowed to take place. We also saw how certain topics were only allowed in letters and could not be spoken. Then, there was the rigidity of engagement vows and who could be seen with the engaged woman by the public without scandal. I feel these were expressed very well and in a very understandable manner even for those unfamiliar with that culture and sociological practices.

5. Are the tribulations of Alglaia and Nastasya the result of their personalities, or even their womanhood? Or are they caused by the position of woman in the particular society that the novel portrays?

I feel that both their personalities and their society have a great deal to do with who they are. Alglaia has been brought up sheltered and pampered. The only family that she ever lived with was the household of her parents.
Nastasya lost both of her parents and was shunned in society, and by herself, for being a married man’s mistress while she was too young to be able to change her situation. In today’s society the man would be seen as the wrong-doer and Nastasya would be seen, rightly, as the victim. Plus we saw how her being a kept mistress caused her great trouble and psychological turmoil. It was very easy to see how these events lead to her choices in romance, company, and ultimate death throughout the novel. It also showed where she had more freedom of choice in society but her own psychology did not allow her the same level of freedom. So, in reality, she was never free of the choices that were thrust upon her while she was young.
We can also see how these same life choices were in Aglaia’s life, but her young age and privilege helped her. We also see how their lives were completely decided by their elders. Both of these women had very little decision over what happened in their lives, in youth, and when they did try to make a choice the society around them forced them to alter what really took place. We were shown that being a woman in the late 1800’s of Russia was not enjoyable or free. These women simply had to take the life that was given to them and submit to it. If they tried to fight it they found themselves in an even worse place than if they had just let their world be decided for them.