Thank you! I love:

Astrid Lindgren | Pippi Longstocking | 1945
Dear Pippi,

You were such an amazing swimmer, you didn't even need to wear a bathing suit like the rest of us! In you'd go, clown shoes, namesake stockings, patchwork minidress (so short!), and then out you’d come, dripping and alive.

Once, at a party, my sister got so drunk she waded into the lake with her jeans on. Her body was aglow with moonlight and love.

"Just like Pippi," I said.

"I never know what the fuck you're talking about," she said.

We're still very close.

Sincerely,
Helen

That red letter A just made ya swoon, eh Paul? Cuckold fantasies? *eyebrow wiggle*

"Philip Roth | The Prague Orgy | 1985
Dear Nathan,

Remember when you went to Prague and marveled at the way that artists and intellectuals were forced to work menial jobs? You said it was like seeing "Gore Vidal bicycling salamis to school lunchrooms in Queens." Well, you know what? Yesterday I was driving out to Belle Harbor to visit a friend and guess what I saw? That's right! Gore Vidal was bicycling salamis to school lunchrooms. He was on a Serotta. Sweet ride.

Sincerely,
Tim Lewis"

That is such a fucking brilliant and obscure bit of humor.

p'shaw, where is the Bella hate?

like...

"bella,
You are a such a stoopid skank, you don't deserve Edward, I would key your car, but you are such a clueless dumb skanky ho, that shit ain't worth it. Step off!! stupid Forks bitch! everyone hates U.

signed,
Edwards' real true eternal love, not some bitch ass eating disorder girl like stinky-ass bella !!"

I am reading crime and punishment now, and that letter just about sums up how I feel. That and, "Do you REALLY have to monologue for 3 pages? really?!?!

From what I've seen, it's frequently difficult for Americans to follow the long monologues of Russian novels (and also those of virtually every other language). I would say that most Americans are unused to that literary style, and simultaneously lack the intellectual discipline (for a lack of practice) required to pay attention except when Suzy and Stephanie are going back and forth with one-liners about the uselessness of their husbands, the difficulty in raising children, and the way in which they've become used-up old cows for never doing anything worth noting in life.

As someone having specialized in English language literature in the past, I find that it's a medium that tends to lack sophisticated literary style, and simultaneously is grossly shallow, short-sighted, and simply ignorant in its aim and subject matter. The great Russian satirists, interestingly enough, elucidated this to me; and I have found Shakespeare to be rather clownish, overly concerned with sexual innuendo. Shakespeare never had the depth of art to communicate true tragedy as Sophocles whose "Ajax" I find myself re-reading repeatedly.

@6: Yeah? Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Oh, that Hester Prynne, she's a hottie.

@6- So you're a stuffy asshole? Thanks for telling us.

@9: It's odd that he mentioned Sophocles; I had him pegged as an Aeschylus man - the kind of guy who loves the plays where the characters drone on and on about SHIT WE ALREADY KNOW.