Opus 2022-177: Let’s Start a Rumor

I finally finished The Brothers Karamazov and found myself wondering if Dostoevsky was really a woman.  I see that happening a lot in current science fiction.  If you see an author with initials instead of a first and middle name then there is a good chance it is a female author.  But my question is based more on style than the handle.

While it is not politically correct to bring it up, women tend to be more in contact with their emotions than men.  When they write they tend to focus more on emotions and relationships.  Men will get into action and physical conflict.  Obviously there is overlap and there are exceptions.  I realized that one of the reasons I had such a hard time finishing The Brothers Karamazov was because of all the long, tedious scenes that focused on emotions and relationships.  If it had not been a classic I felt duty bound to read, I would not have finished it.  I fell into scan mode.  The reader is faced with page after page of sharing inner thoughts about love and hate and visions and temper tantrums and all kinds of things that would be at home in a mental hospital.  I found that by skimming through I missed nothing I needed to know.

About the time of this thought I came across a short clip by Andrew Klavan about women swordfighters.  In discussing a movie with a woman as protagonist he commented that women heroes were no problem as long as they were women.  He said the main character was excellent.  The conflict she was having as part of the story was well done and entertaining but then she was dropped into a spot where she had to pick up a sword.  She defeated two trained soldiers, presumably with no training herself.  At that point the movie lost him because she became a man.  The catalyst for this was a discussion of the fact that a woman could never defeat a man in a sword fight.  I will let you listen to him and see if you agree but the point was woman and men are stronger in different ways.

If I really wanted to write a doctoral dissertation on my speculation I would be forced to read all of Dostoevsky’s works to test my hypothesis.  I am getting too old to make it through such a task and I find I am not serious enough to be interested.  I will leave that to you.

homo unius libri