Lets settle this once and for all http://www.strawpoll.me/11941559

People who vote Dostoevsky haven't read Tolstoy.

People who vote Tolstoy haven't read Dostoevsky.

I voted Dostoevsky because I like him a lot more, but both are great.

>>8876876

Dusty is entry level af tbqh, my 16 year old sister has read Notes.

I would have likely voted Dostoevsky when I was younger, but as you age you grow to appreciate Tolstoy much more.

>>8876800
where's Gogol? i don't see Gogol

dostoevsky
>saints, sinners, drunks, gamblers, murderers, prisoners, prostitutes, sadists, masochists

tolstoy
>wine, food, chandeliers

>>8877074

Gogol is irrelavant to the question

Tolstoy is for plebs who cannot fathom what a human emotion is.

>>8877089
ok well Chekhov is my favorite so put Chekhov on the thing so I can pick him

>>8877091
I'd say Tolstoy is a lot more human than the personified philosophical ideas of Dostoevsky.

>>8877071
This

Of course Dostoevsky is going to be more popular on 4chan because the characters in his novels are more neurotic and eccentric than Tolstoy's characters generally are, and therefore they are more relatable to more of the users on this site. From what I've read of both novelists, along with other scholarship around them, Tolstoy is the better writer overall, certainly a better writer aesthetically on a sentence by sentence basis. Still, they are both great so who gives a fuck?

>>8877129
Please don't swear. Say "h*ck" next time.

>>8876800
i don't read books

>>8877146
No.

>>8877156
/lit/ in a nutshell but you can vote anyways

>>8877165

Please, Rob. It's for your own good.

>>8877169
i read the appendix of war and peace and didn't like what tolstoy said about napoleon and i read the first few pages of notes from the underground and didn't think it was awful

i know that rasilonikov said something about napoleon but i've never read crime and punishment

so i will pick dostoevsky

Childhood is idolising Dosto

Adulthood is idolising Tolstoy

>>8877242
Childhood is [thing I no longer like as much as adulthood thing]

Adulthood is [thing I like more now]

>>8877253
congratulations you discovered true essence of the meme

>>8876800

Dostoevsky should have been a playwright. His novels are the best plays never written.

But it's Tolstoy. Tolstoy beats Milton. Tolstoy beats Virgil and Dante. Tolstoy can go toe to toe with Homer himself, his only competition in epic-writing, and even then, were it not for Homer's place in history, I would give Tolstoy the edge.

It's Tolstoy and there's no question of that.

File: tumblr_o3vv9hL70r1v0pigno1_250.jpg (44KB, 222x305px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 222x305px

>>8877242
>Adulthood
>Idols

>>8877326

Tolstoy has the prosaic abilities of George R R Martin

>>8877190
thanks for the analysis
Based on that information, I would say you probably would prefer Dostoevsky if you had read them both, but would completely misunderstand him

>>8878453
lol

>>8879924
what's there to misunderstand

>>8880034
your thoughts:
>wow le underground man in just like me!!! how is this possible?
>omg why did he include the epilogue in C&P it was so stupid
>i totally get raskolnikov though he just gets my tortured sole lol

TOLSTOY BTFO
O
L
S
T
O
Y

B
T
F
O

>>8881156
none of those are my thoughts or things i would think

>>8881169
prove me wrong then

>>8877129
Go back to /jp/, Tokiko

>>8877129
Thanks for the input, Rob.

Tolstoyfags are DEVISTATED

>>8876800
I read half of The Idiot before giving up.
Never read Tolstoy.
So I guess Dostoevsky wins.
I should really reread The Idiot again shouldn't I.

>>8877071
More than half the people on this board are 17-21. I guess that explains the poll results.

>>8883556
Yes you should, but read Crime and Punishment or Notes From the Underground first.

>>8877129
>more neurotic and eccentric than Tolstoy's characters
>>8878097

>>8877049
My twelve year old -- uh, classmate, technically -- has read the Odyssey. You gonna pile shit on Homer?

>>8883435

'[insert noun here]fag'fags are retarded.

Also: it's *devastated

>>8877129
>Tolstoy is the better writer overall, certainly a better writer aesthetically
But this is not true. Tolstoi is like an ice sculptor -- he scoops out all he can and leaves coldness. Dosto is dusty -- ugly and Biblical -- rough and uneven -- aesthetic af. One of my favourite authors for prose.

Though ofc I've only read translations.

For style: the two styles are so distinct as to be incomparable. They do different things for different objectives and they do them perfectly. But I prefer the Shakespearean ugliness of Dosto to Tolstoi's kinetic epics.

I have the Death of Ivan Ivanov by Tolstoy and The Idiot by Dostoyevski

which one should I read first?

>>8883604

>Dostoevsky fan
>Is a pedo

Colour me shocked

>>8883653
"Rich failure" is more precise. I'm retaking highschool exams.

>>8883663

12 year olds aren't in high chool

>>8883605
wrong

>>8876800
>Featued poll
>Who is your favorite reindeer
If you say Blitzen, you are a Nazi

>>8877071
now that i'm in the "war and peace" readalong, i can full-throatedly agree.

i thought tolstoy was too moralistic when i was younger, but with wife and kid, it's clear that he's tapped into the raw truth.

>>8876800

It's the difference between talking and having something to say
Tolstoy had more pleasing prose
But Dostoyevsky was insightful about psychology and about God among other things
This is also why Nabokov didn't like Dostoyevsky: he didn't care about substance, only style

>>8883607
I completely agree with you.

>>8883619
Tolstoy's there is much shorter. You should read Notes or Crime and Punishment before The Idiot, but if you're just going between the two read Tolstoy's novella and then The Idiot.

>>8883681
you spelled right wrong

File: portrait-of-maxim-gorky.jpg (357KB, 800x687px) Image search: [Google]

357KB, 800x687px

Maxim Gorky

>>8883697

Blitzen did nothing wrong

sometimes i want to read dostoevsky. sometimes i want to read tolstoy. i find myself wishing to read dostoevsky more often, so i choose dostoevsky.

what else is there?
>muh projected objective values
i'm sorry, i just can't take that shit seriously anymore.

Brothers Kalishakov was garbage