Dostoevsky is gauging his competition...then decides he has none.
It is a much debated subject, what is "literary" and whether or not it's OK to read them just for the sake of it. I've been raised on genre (thanks to Hollywood), action, horror, drama, science-fiction, fantasy. It's easy to make things fit into categories. But as a reader of mostly genre fiction, I find it healthy to read literary stuff. It forces you to reevaluate the format of your thoughts and find the beauty where you don't usually look. When you go back to your genres of predilection afterwards, you have more tools to appreciate its better writers. So I try to have a healthy diet of literary writers thrown in my usually dark, gritty and emotionally violent readings, that may or may not include the presence of supernatural beings.The nominees for Best Literary Novel are...
So who's your favorite?