Flavorwire

Are you more interested in the Brontës than the Kardashians? Does your heart embrace only one Millionaire Matchmaker — Becky Sharp? (Okay, two. Undine Spragg, for name alone.) We lit geeks at Flavorwire see the canned drama of the Basketball Wives, and pooh-pooh. We’d rather tune out, turn off, and reminisce about Faulkner’s drunken Pulitzer Prize speech, or the time Hemingway and Wallace Stevens got into a fistfight. Now, there’s drama we want to DVR! After all, why do reality TV stars enthrall the American public? Our guess is their affluence, good looks, and constant conflict. Well, you know what we say to that? Edith Wharton, Lord Byron, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Literary history roils with glamor, wealth, and — above all — enormous egos. It’s the perfect stuff of entertainment (and art, apparently). So which writers would be on your dream TiVo? Check out our own fantasy list after the jump!

Scott Loves Zelda

Announcer: “Next week, see Zelda start some DRAMA when Scott ignores her at their anniversary party!”

Video: Zelda Fitzgerald throws herself down a flight of stairs, while Scott stands below, talking to a group of friends.

Series highlights: Zelda pulls a Black Swan, frantically doing pliés while her mind deteriorates. Zelda and F. Scott have a major fight when he plagiarizes her diary for This Side of Paradise. The epic, heart-breaking series finale covers Zelda’s death while locked in a burning mental hospital. The actual footage is omitted. The crew survived.