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Wes & Erin discuss Wes’s Chekhophilia and Erin’s slavophilia. Wes once outlined a screenplay for “The Brothers Karamazov,” the 1959 movie based on the book with William Shatner as Alyosha. But he much prefers Chekhov to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and cannot forgive Tolstoy for his dislike of Shakespeare. Erin likes Tolstoy because he’s weird and Chekhov because he’s attractive and medical. Erin lists writers who were also doctors, and we try to say why they make such good writers. Chekhov ruminates a lot in his work about the tension between being an artist and being more practically engaged with the world. We talk about the incredible painter Ilya Repin, among the many artists and intellectuals who were Chekhov’s friends.