I can't, but I'll try. Dostoevsky is the soil, the dark roots of people's inner experiences. Tolstoy is everything else—he's history, he's the air and the sun, he's war and love. The scope of Tolstoy, which is the level of a Homeric epic, dwarfs Dostoevsky—and much more beautiful
I don't think Dostoevsky has ever captured even a semblance of the aesthetic beauty that Tolstoy routinely captured. This is partly because they led drastically different lives—Tolstoy, the aristocrat, who lived a long life, versus Dostoevsky, the short lived peasant.
As a result, in Dostoevsky, you get fascinating character portraits, but everything else about the world is dimmed—its nature, its sense of time, its sense of historical perspective, and humanity is relegated to cramped rooms, whereas in Tolstoy it's entire countries & ballrooms.
Is one ever truly better than the other, from an objective literary perspective? Not really—it's a matter of taste. But I think when I go to literature, I go there to expand my spirit, to broaden my world, to gain something I don't have yet. I get that with Tolstoy.
But with Dostoevsky, what do we get? We get what we're already familiar with—pain, suffering, horror. It's just fundamentally not as interesting to me, and I think stylistically speaking, as a writer myself, I will always prefer the writer who is more polished.
Which is clearly Tolstoy. Again, I don't hate Dostoevsky, but as far as my aesthetic and philosophical preferences goes, I'm firmly in the Tolstoy camp.
I'll say this—when I first read Crime and Punishment, I found myself in a mirror. When I read W&P, I saw the solar system.
I'll say this—when I first read Crime and Punishment, I found myself in a mirror. When I read W&P, I saw the solar system.
Maybe no one will care for this little literary rant, but figured I'd indulge you.
Maybe @Princ3Myshkin will have a good response to this in the Dostoevsky camp, which I will welcome.
Maybe @Princ3Myshkin will have a good response to this in the Dostoevsky camp, which I will welcome.
As an addendum, I must admit that in college I took two classes which strongly featured Tolstoy—one in Russian literature, and the other in a class solely focused on Tolstoy. So it's possible that my exposure there has led me to see a greater depth in him than in Dostoevsky.
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