Writers and Good Writing and Articles and Books Should Make Us Better, Right?

    I don't think so. Not in the case of Russia, anyway. I think that they have had brilliant authors and books over many years, but look how despotic and murderous they are now! Ugh. Russia is a case of terrible actions and lives ruined. Millions of people who are searching for answers to awful circumstances. Russians show up on the U.S. borders. Not so much the other way around.

    I am thinking that Russian literature peeked a century or more ago, but have there been many good writers in the last fifty years? I cannot name hardly any. Maybe Solzhenitsyn. Some smarter than average Americans or Canadians messed up the "proper" pronunciation of him this past year. Okay, he is good. Anybody else? Been dead for a while, I think.

    Point is, good literature should produce better lives, societies, governments, living and dying. Vlad Putin, what is your problem? Not many good books for you. Or the thousand or so people of influence around you. Dracula? Frankenstein? Those would have made a better impact...

    Who are the good authors from North Korea? Ever? South Korea must have some better ones. I bet you a lot of money.

    Vietnam? They must have a few.

    The United States has many great, talented, poignant and otherwise superb authors. Maybe too many. Of course, we have produced Donald J. Trump, but I do not think that he reads much.

    Sad.

    But it is our country, which he touts endlessly, which is the one where people are drowning or dying of thirst to end up in. The one that many of us would die to defend.

    Yep, a land of great writers, books, articles. 

    Great Britain, too. France. Canada. Spain. Name a country, think of the authors, the books, the magazines, and the people that read them.

    China? Japan? Australia?

    Iran? Israel? Saudi Arabia?

    Who am I to judge? I have eyes, ears, and a brain to read and compare, analyze and contrast.

    Yes, English is my main way of interpreting most things. But I have read books in other languages, too. 

    I have read Russian books, in English, and I have enjoyed many of them.

    So: what is wrong with them?

    Not enough good recent stories, books, and authors. They have mostly gone away.

    And here we are.