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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36465
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36465
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am going to start by disagreeing with @Amadeus. The first job of a writer is _not_ to entertain. At least, not necessarily. I don't think anyone reads _All Quiet on the Western Front_, or _The Old Man and the Sea_, or _Crime and Punishment_ and goes "Ooh, that was entertaining". The works we call "literary masterpieces" are not the ones which possess in most abundance qualities like "fun", "diverting" and "providing entertainment".

Victor Hugo and Lev Tolstoy are quite notorious for digressing from the story they're telling into lengthy treatises on history, philosophy and sociology. Boris Pasternak presented philosophical thought as musings of a character, or discussion between characters, not directly related to the unfolding story (and yet the story is meaningless without them). You mention yourself Bertolt Brecht. So yes, you very much can engage with philosophy in your writing.

That said, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the rest of them are hardly easy to read. Their saving grace is that their philosophy and history discussions are fascinating in themselves, not dry reading. I don't know if it's true that the modern reader expects more entertainment, faster pacing etc., or simply that today more people have the luxury of having both access to books and leisure to read, where in the past those people would not be reading at all. But it is true, as @Amadeus and @celtschk point out, that if you hide the philosophy inside the story, your books would be more accessible.

Should you strive to be more accessible? That's your choice. I believe there is room for works that make you stop and think, as well as room for Hollywood blockbusters.

Original score: 8