Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?

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ΠΕΛΕΒИΗ

Tolstoy is a better, more heartfelt, more sincere writer than Dostoevsky ever was even at his best. Dostoevsky's novels are childish compared to Tolstoy's masterworks.

Tolstoy for short stories, The Duster for novels

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>>7310748
>It was one of Kitty’s best days. Her dress was not uncomfortable anywhere; her lace berthe did not droop anywhere; her rosettes were not crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers with high, hollowed-out heels did not pinch, but gladdened her feet; and the thick rolls of fair chignon kept up on her head as if they were her own hair. All the three buttons buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand without concealing its lines. The black velvet of her locket nestled with special softness round her neck. That velvet was delicious; at home, looking at her neck in the looking glass, Kitty had felt that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might be a doubt, but the velvet was delicious. Kitty smiled here too, at the ball, when she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare shoulders and arms gave Kitty a sense of chill marble, a feeling she particularly liked. Her eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips could not keep from smiling from the consciousness of her own attractiveness. She had scarcely entered the ballroom and reached the throng of ladies, all tulle, ribbons, lace, and flowers, waiting to be asked to dance—Kitty was never one of that throng—when she was asked for a waltz, and asked by the best partner, the first star in the hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned director of dances, a married man, handsome and well-built, Yegorushka Korsunsky.

Gogol

>>7310916
>kekol

>>7310839
Indeed what this gent said.

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>Tolstoy, Leo. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Read complete works between 14 and 15. Nobody takes his utilitarian moralism seriously. A genius.

>Anna Karenina. Incomparable prose artistry. The supreme masterpiece of 19th-century literature.
>The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A close second to Anna Karenina.
>Resurrection. Detest it.
>The Kreutzer Sonata. Detest it.
>War and Peace. A little too long. A rollicking historical novel written for the general reader, specifically for the young. Artistically unsatisfying. Cumbersome messages, didactic interludes, artificial coincidences. Uncritical of its historical sources.

>Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.

>The Double. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol's "Nose."
>The Brothers Karamazov. Dislike it intensely.
>Crime and Punishment. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole.

>>7310846
>somebody uses a passage I picked out from Tolstoy to make fun of him in my place

Thanks. This means something big to me.

>>7310949
Who is this retard who says these things about based Dosto? Fucking hack with glasses or a pipe in his hand cant tell because text box is over the picture now.

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>>7310949
>The Kreutzer Sonata. Detest it.
Confirmed normiefag.

>>7310966
Nabokov is too patrician for you.

>>7310949
What a pleb

Dostoy is a drooling retard compared to Tolstoy.

>>7311109
die scum

>>7311109
Both of them are drivel for plebians.

Hey, I'm not a huge reader, but I was thinking about reading a Tolstoy or a Dostoevsky novel, so I hope you don't mind if I piggyback on this thread. So can I just ask: Who's better?

I read a LOT of Dostoyevsky when I was first getting into literature in highschool, haven't ever read any Tolstoy besides the death of Ivan Ilyich. From what I hear I'd probably prefer Tolstoy but Anna Karenina and W&P both seem like way too much effort for me at the moment.

Dostoevsky wrote about what it means to be a fucking human being.

>>7310949
How was Tolstoy a utilitarian?

>>7311128
>plebians.

>>7310568
Chekov.

>>7310748
It´s just an opinion but I actually felt the contrary of what you say, War And Peace it´s a beautiful novel but compare, let´s say, Natasha´s first ball and his relationship with both Andrei and Pierre to when Raskolnikov and Sonia argue in the middle of the night and everything that leads to that moment from their relationship in crime and punishment, that scene along with others from CandP and BK feel more sincere and meaningful than most of the War and peace bourgeois tantrums. Now don´t get me wrong, i love both writers but I also agree with what another Anon said, Tolstoy definetly is a superior short story write(three deaths is a masterpiece).

>>7312413
By the idea of commune in Christian anarchist if im not incorrect.

>>7310568
hope or misery?

>>7311132
Tolstoy
Read War and Peace

>>7312526
How is that utilitarian? Christianity is incompatible with utilitarianism, and Tolstoy was an absolute pacifist to boot.

>>7312579
>Christianity is incompatible with utilitarianism

Authentic Christianity is utilitarianism at its best. And that may be vague, but isn't the teachings of Jesus Christ a forerunner to the modern understanding of utilitarianism?

>>7312644
You son, literally have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Go read some Jeremy Bentham and come back and repeat what you said without feeling like a fool.

>>7310846
That's beautiful

>>7312413
>>7312526

Nabokov clearly means utilitarian in the "function/utility > beauty" sense. Note how it's not "utilitarian morality" but "utilitarian moralism," as referring to a style of writing.

>>7312644
wow

>>7310748
>Tolstoy is a better, more heartfelt, more sincere writer than Dostoevsky

How can one post be so wrong? Tolstoy is all artifice. Even he himself admitted that Dostoevsky had the most soul.

>>7311132
They both are good, I recommend you to start eith Crime and Punishment and then read other books by Dostoevsky or War and Peace

>>7312684
>eith
"With" I mean

>>7312649
Please explain

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When will it end?

>>7310933
>>7310916

Gogol is probably my fav Russian writer, but I've a penchant for shorter fiction.

>>7310949

Wow he was a pleb alright

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>>7311090
Did he actually say that?

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This hot pot

>>7310949
I feel bad for Nabokov. He seemed incapable of enjoying a lot of beautiful things.

>>7310949
/lit/'s scaruffi.

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>>7310949
I feel like to really appreciate Dost you need to struggle with your faith, or have struggled at some point. Luckily I was raised religious, so his books speak to me.

>>7312902
>I feel like to really appreciate Dost you need to struggle with your faith, or have struggled at some point.

This this this

>>7312902
never struggled with faith, godless heathen since the day i was born

still appreciate dost

-shrug-

>>7312854
except scaruffi is a hack who probably hasn't even read/listened to/watched 80%+ of the media he "reviews" and "rates," whereas nabokov deliberately made troll opinions to piss off people like /lit/ards. world of difference desudesudesu

Tolstoy

why do we have to compare them like this? it makes no sense

Nabokov's comments aren't pronouncements he's imposing on you. He was merely documenting his reading experiences with different authors.

>>7313132
Nabakov's opinions are truth. Only plebs disagree with him on anything. Unfortunately I still fall into that category, but I hope to one day understand the truth.

>>7312902

Everybody has struggled with the idea of death and has thought about the existence and morality of God in that context. That's why Dost is so popular

To fully understand Tolstoy on the other hand you need to be a nobleman that has freed his serfs or a fedora tipper a la Pierre from War and Peace

both, you numpty

>>7310568
Dostolstoy

>>7310568
Yes.

i love these guys!

Maxim Gorky

>>7312644
At best, you could argue Christian morality is a form of rule utilitarianism. At worst, you have actually no idea what Christian morality or utilitarianism is.

>>7312644
I came up with this theory as a ten year old, I still believe it

God wants to maximize humanity's happiness while also judging evil. Laws like thou shalt not kill (even if for a good cause) are due to humans not knowing whether the outcome will lessen overall pleasure, thus these actions are condemned

>>7313376
Tostoloevsky

>>7315738
Dusty Toast

>>7310568
>>>/his/

>>7310846
>English

>>7310846
oh God how I hate this kind of things. My attention span is very small and this kind of things pisses me off in books.

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>>7312902
I used to be somewhat seriously religious until I was 15, then lost my faith, but that's not what was on my mind when I was reading Dostoevsky. I like him a lot more for the nascent psychological reasoning
One of my best experiences reading a book was reading Crime and Punishment because I felt so eerily similar to Raskolnikov
I was obsessed with Wittgenstein, I'd fully bought into the end of PI and believed that most concepts or abstractions in philosophy were vacuous to the point of meaning nothing, and that they only existed as unfounded characterizations, nothing more. So, I was studying philosophy and thought that non-observational or non-descriptive language (so, most forms of reasoning) had no legitimacy, so neither did ethics/theology/etc. On top of that I was already pretty depressed. I wouldn't eat (accidentally dropped 20 lbs from 160), generally looked sickly, avoided people and stayed up all nights and sometimes the day until probably half my waking hours felt surreal out of sleep deprivation. I'd talk to myself when I'd go outside and obsessed over why social structures or institutions were cruel or absurd and how I'd be forced to participate in them for the rest of my life and probably hate it. Instead of murder, I fixated on suicide but I approached it in the same way as Raskolnikov}
Shit, I was even dark-haired and was attractive enough that I could pull off the rambling without seeming like a school shooter (I'm still convinced that was the only reason I only mildly spooked people)
When I finally finished the novel and he converted to Christianity I cried and hugged myself and watched the sun rise as I thought I'd found the solution to all my problems, just practicing love
I mean that didn't pan out, but I've never identified that much with a character since

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Tolstoi is the former Russia, Dostoyevski the coming "Russia. The inner Tolstoi is tied to the West. He is the great spokesman of Petrinism even when he is denying it. The West is never without a negative — the guillotine, too, was a true daughter of Versailles — and rage as he might against Europe, Tolstoi could never shake it off. Hating it, he hates himself and so becomes the father of Bolshevism. The utter powerlessness of this spirit, and "its" 1917 revolution, stands confessed in his posthumously published A Light Shines in the Darkness. This hatred Dostoyevski does not know. His passionate power of living is comprehensive enough to embrace all things Western as well — "I have two fatherlands, Russia and Europe." He has passed beyond both Petrinism and revolution, and from his future he looks back over them as from afar. His soul is apocalyptic, yearning, desperate, but of this future certain. "I will go to Europe," says Ivan Karamazov to his mother, Alyosha; "I know well enough that I shall be going only to a churchyard, but I know too that that churchyard is dear, very dear to me. Beloved dead lie buried there, every stone over them tells of a life so ardently lived, so passionate a belief in its own achievements, its own truth, its own battle, its own knowledge, that I know — even now I know — I shall fall down and kiss these stones and weep over them." Tolstoi, on the contrary, is essentially a great understanding, "enlightened" and "socially minded." All that he sees about him. takes the Late-period, megalopolitan, and Western form of a problem, whereas Dostoyevski does not even know what a problem is. Tolstoi is an event within and of Western Civilization. He stands midway between Peter and Bolshevism, and neither he nor these managed to get within sight of Russian earth. The thing they are fighting against reappears, recognizable, in the very form in which they fight. Their kind of opposition is not apocalyptic but intellectual. Tolstoi's hatred of property is an economist's, his hatred of society a social reformer's, his hatred of the State a political theorist's. Hence his immense effect upon the West — he belongs, in one respect as in another, to the band of Marx, Ibsen, and Zola.

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Dostoyevski, on the contrary, belongs to no band, unless it be the band of the Apostles of primitive Christianity. His "Daemons" were denounced by the Russian Intelligentsia as reactionaries. But he himself was quite unconscious of such conflicts — "conservative" and "revolutionary" were terms of the West that left him indifferent. Such a soul as his can look beyond everything that we call social, for the things of this world seem to it so unimportant as not to be worth improving. No genuine religion aims at improving the world of facts, and Dostoyevski, like every primitive Russian, is fundamentally unaware of that world and lives in a second, metaphysical world beyond. What has the agony of a soul to do with Communism? A religion that has got as far as taking social problems in hand has ceased to be a religion. But the reality in which Dostoyevski lives, even during this life, is a religious creation directly present to him. His Alyosha has defied all literary criticism, even Russian. His life of Christ, had he written it — as he always intended to do — would have been a genuine gospel like the Gospels of primitive Christianity, which stand completely outside Classical and Jewish literary forms. Tolstoi, on the other hand, is a master of the Western novel — Anna Karenina distances every rival — and even in his peasant's garb remains a man of polite society.

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Here we have beginning and end clashing together. Dostoyevski is a saint, Tolstoi only a revolutionary. From Tolstoi, the true successor of Peter, and from him only, proceeds Bolshevism, which is not the contrary, but the final issue of Petrinism, the last dishonouring of the metaphysical by the social, and ipso facto a new form of the Pseudomorphosis. If the building of Petersburg was the first act of Antichrist, the self-destruction of the society formed of that Petersburg is the second, and so the peasant soul must feel it. For the Bolshevists are not the nation, or even a part of it, but the lowest stratum of this Petrine society, alien and western like the other strata, yet not recognized by these and consequently filled with the hate of the downtrodden. It is all megalopolitan and "Civilized" — the social politics, the Intelligentsia, the literature that first in the romantic and then in the economic jargon champions freedoms and reforms, before an audience that itself belongs to the society. The real Russian is a disciple of Dostoyevski. Although he may not have read Dostoyevski or anyone else, nay, perhaps because he cannot read, he is himself Dostoyevski in substance; and if the Bolshevists, who see in Christ a mere social revolutionist like themselves, were not intellectually so narrowed, it would be in Dostoyevski that they would recognize their prime enemy. What gave this revolution its momentum was not the intelligentsia's hatred. It was the people itself, which, without hatred urged only by the need of throwing off a disease, destroyed the old Westernism in one effort of upheaval, and will send the new after it in another. For what this townless people yearns for is its own life-form, its own religion, its own history. Tolstoi's Christianity was a misunderstanding. He spoke of Christ and he meant Marx. But to Dostoyevski's Christianity the next thousand years will belong.

>>7310846
this is "garbage", i feel.

it should be:

Kitty put on comfortable clothes. Kitty went to a dance. In the ballroom she danced with Yegorushka Korsunsky.

>>7316161
FOR GODS SAKE MARY THEY ARE MINERALS

bump for quality

>>7310568
Tolstoy is the greatest novelist ever to have lived. So him by default.

>>7316161
>>7316163
>>7316165
I can get onboard with the Spengster sometimes, but again (as usual) he's being much too conservative in his thinking. He has an impressive but heavy chip on his shoulder over the West that makes his ideas sink constantly into the kind of senseless negative that only the purest reactionary can get ahold of. If he had lived long enough, I'm absolutely sure postmodernism would have shattered him and his ideas.

>>7311096
Not really, he just had controversial and very strong opinions.

>>7312947
Not all faith is religious faith.

>>7312948
>he was just pretending to be retarded
>>7313376
>>7315738
>>7315829
Gogolstoievchkovine: Superussayan 4.

A glorious fusion of Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, Pouchine and Chekov (who isn't counted as fifth member for some reason).

Dostoyevsky is way fucking better than Tolstoy cause Tolstoy is fucking boring. Dostoyevsky writes shit about the human condition whereas Tolstoy writes pretentious shit. Go on any site, whether r/books or 4chan, and you'll find everyone prefers Dostoyevsky, in other words, Dosto is way fucking better.

>>7320022
>this argument
>caring about what r/books thinks about anything ever
I prefer Dostoyevsky but you're making us look bad

>>7320022
>Go on any site, whether r/books or 4chan, and you'll find everyone prefers Dostoyevsky, in other words, Dosto is way fucking better.

Modern /lit/, everyone.

>>7320022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

>>7310568
>Dostoevsky

>>7320125
>>7320141
>falling for bait this terrible

Modern /lit/, everyone.

>>7320535
>falling for bait this scrumdiddlyumptious

Modern /lit/, every xir and xe.

>>7320559
>forgetting nieself's personal pronoun

Modern /lit/, everykin.

>>7310568
i like TOLStoEvsKY

>>7320569
>discriminating against nokin xires
>liking Tolstoy

Modern /lit/, every4chin.

>>7316178
Good morning, Ernest!

>>7310748
Where do retarded opinions and fights over who had a bigger dick come from? Both were superb writers with faults and benefits.
Dostoevsky is better

>>7310568
I prefer Dostoevsky but then again I've read all of his major works multiple times. I need to read more Tolstoy.

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>>7320625
>not liking Tolstoi

>>7310949
wow -- i know it was a different time, but nabokov seems insufferable here
>lol tolstoy is great stuff for kids

>>7310846
>Not liking that passage
What are you even doing on a board for the discussion of literature?

"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."

>>7312902
*tips fedora*

>>7312668
>clearly

>>7316178
That is much worse

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Tolstoy or Tolstoi?

>>7323236
that's a beautiful portrait.

>>7323236
тoлcтoй

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>>7310846

Finding this passage some evidence of a failure at writing is a sure prove that you and others here don’t have any idea what great writing is. For example: could you dissolve your own being when you were writing and reconstruct your own mind as that of a young society girl? It seems that you don’t like the subject of the writing, but if you think about who was the author (a male, extremely proud and arrogant, a shy man when in contact with girls of society but very fond of prostitutes and gipsy girls, one who was mostly tormented by lascivious thoughts, but not love) it is almost a miracle that he could incorporate in his brain that of so different a person. Could you think like a young and popular girl? Do you really know what they think before a ball or a party?

And for the record, Tolstoy was able to use the same level of detailing and the same submersion into other human-beings brains in all kinds of situations, and he could do it even with animals (for example, the wolf in the hunt scene of war and Peace, and the Kholstomer horse in the short-story). He is able to offer every aspect of life to the reader with the same microscopic detail and truth as in this small scene you quoted. If you don’t like scenes of girls preparing for balls, just keep reading and enjoy the other thousands of scenes that the author is going to offer you.

Tolstoy was one of the few writers that can be called genius with no shadow of a doubt. To me only Shakespeare is superior to him.

>Tolstoy or Dostoevsky
Lermontov, actually.

>>7316178
Absolute trash.
>>7310846
Brilliant prose--an entry to another's mind.

>>7324692
Sweg

>>7310846
>translations

>>7324687
if you break down the passage, it's exceptionally simple.
1. playing dress up
2. competition with women for Chad's cock
3. happiness from beating other women and being the chosen one for the most fit alpha male

even r9k autists could write that passage. the idea that there is something exceptional there is laughable.

>>7324804

You could not write it. It only seems simple when you look at the thing when it’s already done. You say that if you break it in units it reveals its simplicity, but the same can be said about the drawings od Da Vinci, Rafael and Michelangelo: break them down into small parts and they seem quite easy to make, and yet to have such dominance of line, the knowledge of economy, to know how to use light and shade and cross-hatching, etc., it’s extremely difficult.

For example: try to write a modern day equivalent: two or three girls on their room getting prepared for a party late night. Go ahead; see if you can do it.

And he does the same thing with every single scene. He knows what details to show; when you read it you think that those details are obvious, for everybody perceive and understand them; yet when it is you who is writing these obvious things refuse to present themselves in your mind.

You seem to confuse many characters screaming and grinning their teeth’s and spitting when they speak and having convulsions and seizures and speaking philosophical lines with profundity and humanity. Yet this is an extreme view: humanity and life is not always on the dark or on the light: most of it is composed of grey areas, of the everyday life, and that is the most difficult thing to portray: it is much easier to paint the extremes, for they stand out.

the idea that there is something exceptional there is laughable.

The exceptional thing is the complete fresco, altough the smaller parts that compose them are all extremelly well done.

>>7324850
I'm referring to your idea of: "it is almost a miracle that he could incorporate in his brain that of so different a person. Could you think like a young and popular girl? Do you really know what they think before a ball or a party?"

Which is a complete joke. There is no "miracle" here in terms of "incorporating his brain into someone else's". Basically your entire write-up was garbage. But to continue, it is precisely this reason, the purply prose combined with the fact that there is no great insight here that makes the passage terrible and insulting to the reader. It's obvious that the writer thought he was doing a grand thing with it but in essence it's like watching a kid having an epiphany discovering that 2+2=4, except the kid is a fully grown adult who is now screaming it into your ear repeatedly. Tasteless.

>>7324850
do you know how translation works?

>>7324889

Wow man, now you are one arrogant motherfucker, aren’t you? Just admit it that you prefer Dostoyevsky and that you did not read the complete War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but just small bits of it. You probably have not even read the short stories of Tolstoy. That is the only explanation for your blindness and pretentiousness.

>>7324899

A good translation, especially of a prose work who uses mostly a very clear and simple language, does not take almost nothing out of the force of the original. You are acting in a childish way.

>>7324920
so no, you've never read a book on the process of translation and have never translated anything. thanks for the answer

>>7324928

I have studied several translations of Shakespeare in comparison with the originals, thinking about several problems like maintaining the metrics, trying or not trying to keep the sonorous effects, using or not using only prose, but not verse, using free-verse and avoiding the ten-line syllabic metric, how to translate words that don’t have equivalents in the original, and so on.

I have also read works of simple and plain English prose in their original language and in translations for my language, and in my university dissertation to graduate in Law I translated several passages of Shakespeare (I used free-verse on the verse passages, and respected the metaphors and the imagery with absolute sincerity, using specialized dictionaries to illuminate passages with strange words). I maintain contact with Shakespeare translators and recently with a very talented friend who translated the Canterbury Tales.

So yes, I have some experience in translation, and I still think that to validate only the original works, especially those of simple prose, like Tolstoy, is a pedantic and arrogant attitude.

>>7324928
>>7324976
BTFO
>>7324889
>>7324915
BTFO

>>7324704
>Brilliant prose--an entry to another's mind.
>gladdened her feet
>that velvet was speaking
>the velvet was delicious
>a feeling she particularly liked

>>7325087
>translations

>>7320022
>Dostoyevsky writes shit about the human condition whereas Tolstoy writes pretentious shit

One of the top 10 dumbest things I've ever read on /lit/.

Anyway, the difference between the two, and why Tolstoy is the superior writer, is that Dostoevsky as an author shows a distaste for life. All his major characters are larger-than-life sick, diseased, madmen, murderers, tortured souls, alcoholics etc.. Tolstoy, on the other hand, has a pure love of life. He can intimately and beautifully represent the joys of finding a thistle in a ploughed field, or the simple selflessness of a muzhik, or the excitement a young girl feels dressing for a ball >>7310846, Tolstoy is like a calm, clear eye that looks on everything he sees in life and takes it into himself. The simple and undramatic that is everywhere around us which he uses to build up a complete picture of a character or scene.

Tolstoy could have written like Dostoevsky if he had wanted to (see The Kreutzer Sonata), but Dostoevsky could never have had the talent to write like Tolstoy.


As Joyce said:
>Tolstoy is a magnificent writer. He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical! He is head and shoulders over the others.

With Dostoevsky it's:
>BAH GAWD KING, NASTASYA FILLIPOVNA JUST THREW THE MONEY INTO THE FIRE BAH GAWD HERE COMES ROGOZHIN WITH THE KNIFE BAH GAWD HE'S HAVING AN EPILEPTIC FIT
for 800 pages

plus tolstoys prose is miles better

>>7320022
I think people prefer Dosto because his name is cooler. Tbfh

>>7324725
le patrician face xd

>>7324976
You think translating Modern English into Modern English is anything like translating Tolstoy's Russian into English? You're fucking daft lad. What you're creaming your pretentious pants over isn't even close to Tolstoy's prose, it's some translator's best interpretation of it.

>>7326517
Kekked at the Dostoevsky impersonation.

>>7326555
I'm not sure how to explain to you how wrong you are. You're like a first year philosophy student trying to claim that Socrates was all in Plato's head. You're out of your depth and you're acting pretentious as fuck and everyone can tell. A translation can remain so faithful to the original as to give you an obvious and absolutely pristine sense of the original authorship. Especially if multiple masterful translators have parsed a work.

>>7326555
armchair undergrad detected

War and Peace? More like War and Peace of shit!

>Anyway, the difference between the two, and why Tolstoy is the superior writer, is that Dostoevsky as an author shows a distaste for life. All his major characters are larger-than-life sick, diseased, madmen, murderers, tortured souls, alcoholics etc.. Tolstoy, on the other hand, has a pure love of life. He can intimately and beautifully represent the joys of finding a thistle in a ploughed field, or the simple selflessness of a muzhik, or the excitement a young girl feels dressing for a ball >>7310846, Tolstoy is like a calm, clear eye that looks on everything he sees in life and takes it into himself. The simple and undramatic that is everywhere around us which he uses to build up a complete picture of a character or scene.
>Tolstoy could have written like Dostoevsky if he had wanted to (see The Kreutzer Sonata), but Dostoevsky could never have had the talent to write like Tolstoy.

>>7326517
Jesus Christ, all those opinions

>Unironically hating Dostoyevsky

God damn, both authors were good, but their style isn't the same. If you want to be entertained, read Tolstoy. If you want to think, read Dostoyevsky.

>>7330436
literally Reddit: The Opinion

>>7330629
>le reddit shitpost

Nice job lad. And what do you propose, that someone can't like both authors? The purposes of their works aren't even the same, so what is the point in trying to say one does something better than the other when the other's objective wasn't the same in the first place? Kill yourself.

>>7330721
>so what is the point in trying to say one does something better than the other when the other's objective wasn't the same in the first place?

We are not comparing purposes, and Tolstoy wasn't some kitsch entertainer anyway. Dostoyevsky wrote trash. Nobody takes his strawman parables seriously. A non-entity. He means nothing to me.

>>7330748
And that is literally just an opinion.

>>7330759
As opposed to what? A mathematical analysis? Please think before posting.

>>7330768
You complained about my opinion, and yet all you have to offer is yours. I thought that trying to say which author is better is frivolous.

You should really read this.

http://www.themillions.com/2012/04/tolstoy-or-dostoevsky-8-experts-on-whos-greater.html

Andrew Kaufman hits the nail on the head.

"All mediocre novelists are alike; every great novelist is great in his own way. Which is why the choice between nineteenth-century Russia’s two supreme prose writers ultimately boils down to the question of which kind of greatness resonates with a particular reader. My own sympathies are with Tolstoy, and even my criteria for judging a work of fiction, I admit, are relentlessly Tolstoyan"

It's all about the reader. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Now, I think you should think before replying.

>>7330785
Your opinion was ephermal trash--barely worthy of an upvote on your home site.

Mine was insightful, profound, and enlightening.

Maybe if you spent less time parrotting r/books you could learn a thing or two about critical thinking.

>2016-2months
>tolstoy or dolstovsky threads
>ishygddt

>>7330789
Since your only reply is to say that my opinion is incorrect and that I am from Reddit, I can only assume you couldn't stand to hear someone say that they thought your beloved Tolstoy wasn't better than Dostoyevsky. Your opinion was no less ephemeral than mine, and it certainly wasn't insightful, profound, or enlightening. Consider suicide, my friend.

>>7330798
I see you've resorted to insults?
Please, keep the garbage in /b/.

>>7330800
>Insults

Not really insults, but okay. You resorted to telling someone that their preference in literature was wrong. Do you think you're smart or something? You sound like a high school sophomore who just finished his first pre-AP English class.

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>>7311132
Read Demons. Likely the most relevant work by either for the average /lit/izen