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I get that. I mean, I haven't ordered a kindle version of Infinite Jest for a reason. But that said, speaking of Dostoevsky and DFW, and in lieu of downloading a screenshot app, Ima post one page of text from my kindle app, as an example:
There it is, one page of text from my kindle app. Which I'd guess is about the same amount of words you get from an average teen fiction paperback ala Harry Potter or something. And nobody complains about having to turn the pages too often when reading Harry Potter. And the app makes it easy; your thumb is right there, you simply tap it on the right side of your screen and the page jumps.somehow afford to have servants).
The point is that it's not just the death-by-canonization thing: there is real and alienating stuff that stands in the way of our appreciating Dostoevsky and has to be dealt with -either by learning enough about all the unfamiliar stuff that it stops being so confusing, or else by accepting it (the same way we accept racist/sexist elements in some other nineteenth-century books) and just grimacing and reading on anyway.
But the larger point (which, yes, may be kind of obvious) is that some art is worth the extra work of getting past all the impediments to its appreciation; and Dostoevsky's book are definitely worth the work. And this is so not just because of his bestriding the Western canon -if anything, it's despite that. For one thing that canonization and course assignments obscure is the Dostoevsky isn't just great -he's also fun. His novels almost always have ripping good plots, lurid and intricate and thoroughly dramatic. There are
Of course, given a better alternative, you're right, it's nicer to have a full page sized layout. Which is why if a book is incredibly long I might prefer it in paperback or something. But , at the end of the day whether I'm reading a traditional book, an e-reader or from a phone app, I've generally found the experience to feel like, well, reading. And if any one is more comfortable, any method will ultimately suffice.
My big issue would be e-ink's relative comfort. As opposed to the color screen of a reader or phone.
