Who was the better author?

Now that's just oversimplification of what Dostoevsky wrote
is correct however

Tolstoy’s writing is better in terms of style, structure, pacing, etc. he is also amazing at creating a real world through small details and characterizations. Dostoevsky has certain aesthetic sensibilities that are top-tier, he knows how to creat scenes and symbols that hit you on some spiritual level beyond what can be easily measured or observed. Think of the horse killing in Crime and Punishment or the Rebellion and Grand Inquisitor chapters in TBK. Both are geniuses, both have interesting thoughts and perspectives on humanity and the world. I choose not too pick one over the other, at different times in my life I have preferred one over the other, but that has more to do with where I was at as a reader and student of literature than their individual abilities. I will say this, if you wanted to be a writer and you chose to read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky exclusively, you’d be hard pressed to find a combo of better authors to be your teachers and examples. Read everything written by both of them.

19th century Russians
Pushkin>Gogol>Tolstoy>Lermontov>Chekhov>Turgenev>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dostoevsky

Both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were heavily influenced by non-Russian authors. Tolstoy had a picture of one author in his study, a Portrait of Dickens above his writing desk. Dostoevsky was heavily influenced mostly by French and German authors like Balzac (who he translated) and Schiller (especially apparent in C&P and TBK). Dostoevsky did look up to Gogol a lot but Dosto and Tolstoy were influenced far more by their non-Russian predecessors.

I read Dostoevsky before I started in on Tolstoy, so I am slightly partial to Dostoevsky because of that. But I think that no single work of Dostoevsky's is better than Anna Karenina. Tolstoy's characters are more multidimensional. Dostoevsky tends to have characters that are simply cutouts representing an exaggerated form of some 19th century philosophy. Tolstoy has cutouts too, but he gives them more depth than Dostoevsky does.
Dostoevsky's biography tends to give his work more power than would be accorded to the work than if it stood on its own. It's impossible to read his description of an execution in The Idiot without being overcome by his experience.

turgenev cannot be beaten. his Living Relics blows every tolstoy work i've read out of the water, remember the only good part of Anna Karenina when Lev is working with the peasants? yeah, turgenev writes like that, but better, and with more nature and humanity.

Living Relic is my favorite from A Sportsman's Sketches. (Also love the one with the singing contest in the bar.) I think Putin said that if you want to know Russia to read A Sportsman's Sketches.

This is my russki

Tolstoy is a brilliant storyteller and Dosto has brilliant ideas.

Where do i begin, user? Thanks in advance.

Can't go wrong with any of it.
Fathers and Sons is his masterpiece novel.
Or try First Love for a sample novella.

never read tolsto, but interested, anything he wrote could match this iconic dosto paragraph?

Attached: dosto.jpg (912x456, 168K)

I've just finished Ann a Karenina and can say one thing, dostoevsky had a greater grasp on the human condition, both writers knew what insanity, despair and whatever leads you to suicide is like but dost knew it better, he also knew what a scoundrel was like because he was worse than Tolstoy I've heard, oblonsky was funny but dostoevskys scoundrels are the height of fictional characters imo, the underground guy and the guy who kills himself in c&p I mean. Both writers point towards what I call " the high and lofty" in their writing, nature, family, the insanity of love and babies ect, Tolstoys peasant farming scene is incredible and heart warming, but for me as someone who has undergone intense religouse transformation Dostoevsky understood what it's like to overcome doubt and despair through faith, Tolstoy dodged this where Dostoevsky triumphed, " I did not come to faith as a child, my hallelujah was born in a furnace of doubt" and it shows in his work, one last thing, both writers show how reason gets trumped when life is the the line, Dmitry, Anna ect but I think dost knew it better, the way the underground guy punches the cab driver on the drive from the restraunt had me roaring in laughter, tolst rarely made me laugh except with that line " long hair short wit"

Probably something in The Death of Ivan Ilyich would give you a similar feel.

friend, thats turgenev

>The Death of Ivan Ilyich
I've heard people mention it a couple of times.
Is it worth a read?

This. Both have their merit for different things.

Yes

From what I've read, Dostoevsky is better. It's subjective, but I personally find Dostoevsky better at making a memorable book and having much more consistent themes. I guess Tolstoy is better at writing a book, but at the end ask yourself who's work leaves a longer lasting impact. I enjoyed the shit out of War and Peace, but for the love of god I can't remember how some of the characters stories ended.

tolstoy forced his wife to breastfeed until she developed such horrible mastitis that her father had to intervene and tell his fucking son in law to stop using his daughter like a cow.
there's enough said of anna karenina in the epigraph, but if that doesn't spell it out, he definitely self inserts himself as Lev to mary sue a "perfect relationship" and Anna is the incomprehensibly loathsome puppet that rues her sinful indiscretions. it's all hypocritically moralistic and obnoxious, and i don't say that because nabokov said it.
it's no wonder why though a strong voiced artist of his time, he still created such stale things, the one thing i really tend to feel is an easy way to distinguish the two is how easily the concepts, the emotions, and the themes shine through even clumsy translations. in that regard, i would offer that dosty more easily transcends such limitations because he was likely not a prosefag as it seems tolstoy is purported to be, and could impart that frenzied rat in a trap effect, whereas tolstoy rarely touches the heart whether by fear, paranoia, or otherwise. he does attempt to touch the soul, but Dostoevsky beats him there, perhaps as well.

Tolstoy, and it’s not even close.

I remember somebody posted a news article here about a Dostoevsky fan and a Tolstoy fan having an argument, and the Dosto fan stabbed the Tolstoy fan and ran and hid in a warehouse or something. I can't find the article on google, it might have been only in Russian. Does anybody else remember this?

it was a while back but that sounds vaguely familiar.

found it!
independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-teacher-kills-friend-in-heated-poetry-versus-prose-argument-9095784.html

ah yeah thanks, I guess I misremembered the details. But I remembered the important part and that's that it was in Russia.

that thing they spoke back then wasn't English

holy

>He doesn't just kill people who oppose his philosophical views

is it true that both were devout christians?

Is that the drunk civil servant in Crime and Punishment?
haven't read it in english

19 year old angsty me: Dostoevsky

23 year old wiser me: Tolstoy

Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church at the end of his life on account of some extreme view on theology, but yes, both were Christians.