Derek J Fiedler

@WyattMyshkin That sounds right in line with Dostoevsky 😅 I'll check out your book. I really enjoyed Notes from the Underground. Did you write your novel in the same fictional memoir style?

Exactly. I felt the characters could’ve been contemporary hipsters in Brooklyn. One of the two novels I completed, The Millennial Psycho, is a bit of an homage to Notes from the Underground, but also many overlapping themes with Demons. I think I reduced price to 99 cents. If you thought you’d give it a look… I could run a promo so it’s free lol. Would just need some advance notice as to when you’d look on kindle. At this point in my writing adventure, I just want to be read. That may sound more pathetic than it actually is.

I can't shake the feeling that I am overdue for reading Dostoevsky. Besides the Brothers Karamazov, what book would you suggest?

@WyattMyshkin Quite the relevant premise for our time - interesting.

Incidentally, I thought it was his funniest. The depictions of intellectuals and the murder club an insight to where godlessness can lead when there is no “up” or “down”. Unrelated but am planning to read Secret History by Donna Tartt — because it sounds like a similar premise

@josiahwatson99 @rsnokes Agreed 🤝

@rsnokes @derekjfiedler Wow... I never thought about the Arrested Development connection until now. Now that I am thinking about it, it's certainly there. Goated comedy for the first few seasons.

@simonsbookclub Such a critical tension of the generations. Interesting.

@derekjfiedler I loved Demons. Such a great depiction of the staleness of ideas in the old met with the violence of the radicalized young.

@_zilaal 😂 Hey I'm a fan of the 6 episode BBC series on VHS. The Kiera Knightley version is not allowed in my house, per my wife's direction.

Pride and prejudi...sorry, I meant crime and punishment.

@bomac_macbo Indeed it is. Thank you, sir.

@derekjfiedler Brothers Karamazov can be daunting. Crime and Punishment is probably the best starting point.

@rsnokes Well I appreciate hearing it from you. Thanks for sharing. Years ago, Arrested Development arrested my attention. Makes sense that its foundation was Dostoevsky inspired.

@derekjfiedler It’s not an original idea — I read it in an interview with Mitch Hurwitz, as I recall. Totally intentional.

@DanielConlin6 Which Dostoevsky novel would suggest?

@derekjfiedler If you feel the need to announce that you are "overdue for reading Dostoevsky" then you are a sad attention seeking wanker. Read to improve your life, not to improve yourself, or show off. Both of these things will fail.

@bomac_macbo That's a given. Which ones to start with?

@derekjfiedler All of them.

@a_o_lundan Good to know. I will commit to reading past the halfway point.

@derekjfiedler Crime and Punishment. It's the only Dostoevsky I have read, though... but I would recommend it. The first half was a bit of a struggle for me, but the latter part was captivating!

@TheKalampedia I appreciate the reading time categorization. It helps.

@derekjfiedler If you are short on time, Notes from Underground. If you have slightly more time, The Idiot. For a proper Dostoevsky experience, Crime and Punishment.

@trottskyathome Hamlet-like you say? Interesting 🤔

@derekjfiedler Crime & Punishment is a banger, but my personal Hamlet-like favorite is "The Prince."

@rsnokes Sir, you just blew my mind connecting Dostoevsky with Arrested Development 🤯

@derekjfiedler 1. Crime and Punishment 2. Watch every episode of “Columbo” and now appreciate it as a comic commentary on Crime and Punishment 3. Watch “Arrested Development” and now appreciate it as a comic commentary commentary on the Brothers Karamazov

@WyattMyshkin Interesting. What captured you when reading Demons?

@derekjfiedler Demons was my favorite. Crime and Punishment close second.

@2m_rvs Ooo that is the dilemma of our time.

@derekjfiedler more importantly, which english translation?

@PepePrevost There be dragons 🐉 Challenge accepted.

Notes from the Underground is the perfect starting point. The problem is you’ll be chasing that dragon from then on, and probably won’t find it in his other novels...

@BoxOfficebrawlr Watching Signs is on my top 10 movie theater experience of my life.

Signs > Disclosure Day

@TheBabylonBee @PageauJonathan is this the article you talked about writing?

@PageauJonathan Has Spielberg not posted on Social Media before? YouTube, Facebook, no? Could have avoided a galactic plothole.

I promised no spoilers as much as possible, but here is the basics for Disclosure Day. It is one of the most shocking pieces of propaganda I have seen in a while. It is the last call of the WWII consensus: aliens are your saviors and empathy is the only virtue. In a post-Epstein world, it dares have a story of children seduced and kidnapped by aliens pretending to be Disney-style animals, taken to Hansel and Gretel's house (this is what it is called in the movie) to be "imbued" by aliens in a way so traumatic that they forget and repress it until they are adults, only to discover that this initiation has given them the power to: See people's secret thoughts. Pretend to be other people and use that to manipulate. Make things in plain view disappear. Translate foreign and alien languages. Be a "passenger" for the alien's message to the world. This is nothing to say about its take on Christianity and the suggested apostasy around accepting these beings. Then finally the entire movie is a final desperate appeal to the traditional media as the only purveyors of truth. The entire drama of the film is a man who has irrefutable video proof of aliens looking to release it. The whole movie is a series of chases against the evil corporation that wants to keep it hidden. He ends up releasing it on the evening news! Yes, you heard me. He releases it on the evening news which is then transmitted to all the traditional media companies that are named: ABC, CNN, Fox News etc. Anyone under 70 will realize that the movie could have ended in 10 minutes with a laptop and wifi. It is really mad. Don't go see it.