Alt Lit Gossip

Lately I haven’t been able to write anything at all. Made me feel like a bloody failure. Spent all my time on Facebook instead. Last night I dreamt of Dostoyevsky — he looked like a young man, not yet thirty. He wagged a long finger at me until I said “What?” I was irritated. Who was this guy to tell me off in my own fucking dream? He said: “How could you live and have no story to tell?” —”Fuck that, mate,” I said and it was strangely satisfying to blaspheme in the presence of a great man. But he was my mate now and I might name my first born son after him. I noticed that he was fading away so I reckoned I better use my time and ask him a question. But I couldn’t think of anything clever so i just said: “What’re you thinking right now?” — And he replied: “Do you know I’ve been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn’t believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man’s disillusionment — still I should want to live. Having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup even if I’ve not emptied it, and turn away — where I don’t know. But till I am thirty I know that my youth will triumph over everything — every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I’ve asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that could overcome this frantic thirst for life. And I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t, that is until I am thirty.” Characteristically brief, I thought and really, I wanted to thank him and say something, too but he was already gone.

—msb (dostoyevsky quotes from “the brothers karamasov”)

dostoyevsky:

11/11/11, Dostoyevsky’s 190th birthday.

Lately I haven’t been able to write anything at all. Made me feel like a bloody failure. Spent all my time on Facebook instead. Last night I dreamt of Dostoyevsky — he looked like a young man, not yet thirty. He wagged a long finger at me until I said “What?” I was irritated. Who was this guy to tell me off in my own fucking dream? He said: “How could you live and have no story to tell?” —”Fuck that, mate,” I said and it was strangely satisfying to blaspheme in the presence of a great man. But he was my mate now and I might name my first born son after him. I noticed that he was fading away so I reckoned I better use my time and ask him a question. But I couldn’t think of anything clever so i just said: “What’re you thinking right now?” — And he replied: “Do you know I’ve been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn’t believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man’s disillusionment — still I should want to live. Having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup even if I’ve not emptied it, and turn away — where I don’t know. But till I am thirty I know that my youth will triumph over everything — every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I’ve asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that could overcome this frantic thirst for life. And I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t, that is until I am thirty.” Characteristically brief, I thought and really, I wanted to thank him and say something, too but he was already gone.

—msb (dostoyevsky quotes from “the brothers karamasov”)

dostoyevsky: