/lit/ - Literature

>>12674509
Dosto had better titles, that's for sure.

dostoyevsky

>>12674509
Both were based:

“Before you overcome the world, overcome yourself.”
—Dostoevsky

“Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks about changing himself.”

Fyodor ftw

Chekhov

Tolstoievsky

Rand

>>12674509
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is for adolescents who never grew out of angst

>>12674518
I dunno, maybe it's just the translation but "God sees the truth but speaks not soon" and "The kingdom of God is within you" are both pretty fugging good imo.

>>12674715
ill beat the fuck out of you if u say that to my face

>>12674509
Dostovesky has a lot more of a analytical writing. Tolstoy writes in an "it is what it is" and it's a lot more realistic, which I don't like, though his characters feel more real than Dostovesky. I like thinking and reflecting. Dostovesky touches on a lot of abstract, philosophical topics. Tolstoy is more of a down-to-earth writer.

Dostovesky all the way.

>>12674509
Tolstoy is more useful to historians. Dostoevsky will always stay relevant because he writes not about his times but about the people.

>>12674509
Tolstoy, but I don't see why there needs to be a debate because both are great authors.

>>12674517
Based Dostoyevsky bro.

1. Gogol
2. Chekhov
3. Dostoevsky
4. Tolstoy
5. Turgenev

I find myself agreeing with that website Thisrecording when they made their greatest writers list, that Tolstoy is like 50 whereas Dostoevsky is 10 or 11, but Chekhov beats them both.

I mean Tolstoy wrote two great books but Dostoevsky wrote at least five

>>12674509
>>12674527
>>12674561
>>12674743
>>12674760
>>12675040
>>12675060
Underaged please leave

>>12675084
Underaged pseud please leave

>>12674509
>Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy
Solzhenitsyn

people who like dosto are pseuds because jordan petermeme likes it. They only read dosto cause memerson told them to.

>>12674517
>A Dostoevsky loving undergraduate drew a military style knife after being shoved

I want a talented anon to write a short narrative of this engagement. Someone rise to the occasion.

>>12675125
It gets so much better.

turgenev for me
fuck the police

>>12675120
Peterson, GET OUT!

>>12674529
wow, turns out dostoevsky is just as pleb as peterson, no wonder you christain-memers like him

>>12675124
Shut up and take my upboat!
Edit: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger!

>>12675177
>>12675186
Obsessed.

>>12675186
Ass

>>12675129
This young man has obviously embodied Dostoevsky's literature fully, right down to his interior, his spirit is literally Dosto reincarnated.

I want more stories.

>>12674722
Both have good titles

The best Russian title is actually "Dead Souls" tho, and the original cover Gogol did himself is dope as fuck

>>12674509
Tolstoy is more skillful but Dosto is still better. Everything in Tolstoy's life was artifice, even his turn to faith at the end was probably artifice. He was without a doubt a megalomaniac. He was a genius and very very talented but still a megalomaniac. First he decided he wanted to be a great intellectual and literary celebrity and then when that wasn't enough for him he wanted to become a saint. Read 'What is Art?' and 'My Confession' and you will see his narcissism. I say this as a person who loved and admired Tolstoy above all other writers, that's why I read his entire bibliography almost. I still read him, but I mainly learn from him as a technician. This megalomania is the same reason he attacked Shakespeare so virulently. He wanted to be the greatest literary figure in the history of mankind.

Dostoevsky actually believed in what he wrote. He had complete conviction. The man stood at death's door and emerged completely changed. He probably had some sort of mental disorder, avoidant personality disorder, maybe hyper-sensitivity to emotions, but his life created the perfect storm for him to write with complete conviction and belief in his art. Tolstoy was LARPing to the very end, trying to build himself up.

You know what's funny about this? I've read Tolstoy's work extensively. War & Peace, Anna Karenina (which ended pathetically btw), A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, etc. etc. etc.

He was a great writer, he made some touching points, but nothing compares to the existentialist and nihilistic themes in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.

It's the only book I've read by him as of late, and I found myself going back to it to read it again and again at least four times now. It's that suspenseful and engaging. Tolstoy tends to drag at points, where as Dostoyevsky is very neat and linear in his story telling.

Going to read The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov very soon. Can't wait.

>>12675349

You hit the nail on the head on that one.

I'm >>12675355

You're post is exactly how I feel. Tolstoy comes off as sincere to me at times in A Confession, but towards the end of the book I felt as if though the man couldn't handle accepting the totality of our existence and he merely became a believer again just out of being physically unable to handle the unknown.

He was a great writer and thinker but even George Orwell considered him to be a bit of a fraud.

>>12675374
Ivan Ilyich though is always overlooked & I feel like that story contains literally everything that I care about and puts it better than anyone can or will again.

>>12674509

Bely is better than both of them.

>>12674517
>OP) #
>Dosto had better titles, that's for sure.
Truly an exceptional man.

>>12675410
What have you read by him?

>>12675129
Why does this make me smile so damn much?

>>12675391

I agree. It's a shame that it is too because it expresses the meaninglessness of trying to appeal to society and everyone else at large when all of this can be taken away so quickly and so easily.

Ivan Ilych was how I got into Tolstoy strangely enough. I met a French foreign exchange student while I was on holiday who loved to read and she mentioned War and Peace to me. I phoned a friend who sent me a copy of Ivan Ilych and I fell in love Tolstoy's work ever since.

>>12675349
>“I’ve never seen this man and never had any relations with him, and all of a sudden, when he died, I understood that this was the closest, the dearest man for me, the man whose presence I needed the most… I considered him a friend, and had no doubt that we’ll see each other someday…”

>>12674509
The last book Tolstoy read was The Brothers Karamazov. Imagine spending your whole life wanting to be the greatest ever and you get BTFO so hard you die.

>>12675465

While he was reading it he was taking notes on his diary about how messy and artificial many things were in The Brothers Karamazov. He thought some parts were good, but the whole was seriously flawed.

>>12675129
>>12675259
agreed this is truly dedication to a craft

>>12675497
How can I read Tolstoy's diary? Unironically I just think it would be interesting.

>>12675503
are you retarded?
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&q=tolstoy%27s+diary

>>12675509
>Are you retarded?
Yes.

>>12675432
It's become my touchstone for so many profound philosophical concepts. And I love that it starts out as a relatively light satirical short and just switches gears.

two different modes of russian culture - pagan, peasant, earthy, solar (tolstoy would perfectly fit into the ideology of new age, but with a slavic touch, he mixed evola and gandhi / real kshatriya = peaceful vegetarian) and moralistic (in a good sense), tremulous, sensitive, absolutely spiritual (in dostoevsky's texts there is nothing earthly), almost kierkegaardian.

dostoevsky - artist of the abyss and heights, a man who saw hell, an astronaut, angelically pure, weightless. his "diary" contains merciless mercy, brought to the cold war.

tolstoy - artist of earthiness, he stands firmly on his feet, he's the prince with peasant thinking. homer of the 1812. bearded (a)theistic lu(ci)ther. his "confession" struck with lightning in the body of the tsarist leviathan.

they never communicated personally. god's plan.

>>12675349
perhaps there is something between the two of them that makes these threads Greta comfy

>>12675186
>getting mad when told to take responsibility for yourself

>>12675259
Knows, he committed a crime.

Decided it was only right to take the punishment.

Based and Dostoepilled

>>12675349
Man literally was on the verge of being executed, was suddenly pardoned, and sent to hard labour for years.

Anybody that says /ourlad/ Dostoevsky wasn't genuine in his writings is a god damn liar

Lef’s be honest, Dostoevsky is just way more likable. Notes From the Underground is one of the most tragic books I’ve ever read. The cruelty and fatality he projects onto the world only to be saved by a prostitute, and then reject his own redemption out of some deep senility. And in The Idiot, Ippolit confessing to Myshkin how he would tear at his sheets in rage when he found out he was going to die.
Made me tear up, ngl.

Suddenly, with extraordinary clearness, he thought: ‘Here am I, Dmitri Olenin, a being quite distinct from every other being, now lying all alone Heaven only knows where — where a stag used to live — an old stag, a beautiful stag who perhaps had never seen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat or thought these thoughts. Here I sit, and around me stand old and young trees, one of them festooned with wild grape vines, and pheasants are fluttering, driving one another about and perhaps scenting their murdered brothers.’ He felt his pheasants, examined them, and wiped the warm blood off his hand onto his coat. ‘Perhaps the jackals scent them and with dissatisfied faces go off in another direction: above me, flying in among the leaves which to them seem enormous islands, mosquitoes hang in the air and buzz: one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million mosquitoes, and all of them buzz something or other and each one of them is separate from all else and is just such a separate Dmitri Olenin as I am myself.’ He vividly imagined what the mosquitoes buzzed: ‘This way, this way, lads! Here’s some one we can eat!’ They buzzed and stuck to him. And it was clear to him that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all around him. ‘Just as they, just as Daddy Eroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly: “grass will grow and nothing more”.

>>12675355
I've been loving War & Peace, it's an incredibly engaging book. But I can't help but feel that every character no matter what feels so one level, or flat. There's some brilliant passages with Andrei or Pierre, such as Andrei's fall in battle or the Oak tree.

But besides that, Dosto always takes the cake for me. I' remember sitting on the edge of my seat so much during C&P, when Raskolnikov is being interrogated by Petrovich. Or Svidrigailov's mental state right before [SPOILER]his suicide[SPOILER] .

The whole book was fantastic, and I'd love to read it again soon.

>>12675129
>hides in vacant apartments
literally what the fuck, this man is a Dosto character come to life

>>12675933
When does a Dosto character do that? Raskolnikov's garret wasn't vacant and I can't think of an analogue in his other works.

>>12675943
It isn't exactly the same but it is kind of like Raskolnikov hiding in the apartment that is getting painted during the murder

>>12675349
>What is art

yeah, read it. megalomania? he categorically states that everyone calling his AK or W&P a masterpiece are wrong. so he tried to define definitive standards by which to judge art, how is that megalomania? better to attempt that than pretend piss christ is art. and honestly his requirement for what constitutes true art isn't even that bad. the thesis is the work should universally communicate the same message to every reader/viewer/listener. few pass the test, and he admits his own work doesn't either... if that's megalomania, i'm a stick of butter.

>>12675943
I think it just has to do with the character being constantly around the ruins of the Earth, the lowliest of the lows.

The fact that he hides in a vacant apartment adds to the fact that he belongs to the lowliest, with no where to go or and no one to protect him etc.

At Raskolnikov had a best buddy and friends/family that really cared about him.

Dostoevsky actually writes with purpose. Tolostoy just seems to be write an interesting story around a philosophical idea of his.

>>12675956
He was pivoting towards a new goal: Sainthood. Being an amazing novelist wasn't enough for him. His standards are ridiculous, Bakhtin's idea of Heteroglossia and his analysis of Dostoevsky's work is in direct opposition to Tolstoy in 'What is Art?' so you could even say he was trying to cut down his competitor. First he writes some amazing top-drawer novels, but he's not out and out the greatest, so he decides to move the goalposts, "Art isn't about depth and multiplicity of deep meaning, it should actually be extremely simple and be able to communicate the same thing to all people." This is a way for him to put down his competitors, (dismissing Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, etc., who made works of art with serious depth that weren't immediately accessible) and create a new pathway for himself to become the greatest because now he's somehow more self-aware than everyone.

I still read Tolstoy and think he is incredible, but I sincerely believe that much of his behavior was an attempt to make himself look as good as possible.

>>12674509
>Poor Lev Nikolaevich. So aristocratic, so balanced. He tries so hard to pretend to be insane. At times quite without success. He's just eccentric. While I, who have traces of insanity try desperately to look normal, to be understood. There is Russia for you my friend.

>>12676055
Wheres this from friend?

>>12674509
anyone know any good books about dosto?

>>12676303
Joseph Frank has a super long series on him but it is amazing, maybe the best literary biography ever

>>12676303
bump, has anyone read this?

>>12674509
kill yourself for making this shitty thread

>>12674509
Im reading the idiot right now. I have read raskolnikov and karamazovs. What book should i start with from tolstoy? Is it war and peace or anna karenina after all? The other shorter works kinda look more interesting.

>>12677700
If the shorter works interest you more, go ahead and read them. Some of his best work is in them and they're not a big time investment.

>>12675445
Dosto and Tolsto embracing each other as eternal friends in the afterlife

>>12675445
actually beautiful

>>12677897
Coolio, thanks anon.

>>12677922
that might be the gayest image i have seen on this site.

>>12677700
I started with the Death of and Confessions, don't be afraid of War & Peace it's an incredibly comfy and easy read.

>>12675497
>While he was reading it he was taking notes on his diary about how messy and artificial many things were in The Brothers Karamazov
wow what a major cope
he literally coped himself to death

>>12679639
>he literally coped himself to death

He was worried about very different things at that time and shows no axiety whatsoever to Dostoyevsky. He knew he was superior. He writes about TBK almost as if he was eager for it to be better executed. He also seemed to be reading the book rather superficially, not paying much attention to it:

>October 12, 1910. (...) After dinner I read Dostoyevsky. The descriptions are good, although some jokes, very talkative and not very funny, stand in the way. But the talks are impossible, completely unnatural. (...)

>October 18, 1910. (...) I read Dostoyevsky and was impressed with his sloppy way, artificiality and manufacturing (...)

>October 19, 1910. (...) I read superficially the first volume of the Brothers Karamazov and finished it. There are many good things in the book, but it is so disorganized. The Great Inquisitor and Zossima's farewell.

Also, after Anna Karenina he was already sure of his own immensity as an artist, so Dostoyevsky was not a threat to him. After finishing Anna Karenina, Tolstoy himself said (to himself, in his journal), "Very well, you will be more famous than Gogol or Pushkin or Shakespeare or Molière, or than all the writers of the world--and what of it?"

>>12679915
He's basically on the same level as all those writers he quotes, except maybe Shakespeare.

Nobody tops Shakespeare.

>>12679915
>>He was worried about very different things at that time and shows no axiety whatsoever to Dostoyevsky.
ooohhh yeeeeaahhh
suuuuuuurreee
(sarcastic)

>>12674728
pretty angsty, anon

Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is the greatest work of Russian lit. Gogol is good too, I'm reading Dead Souls at the moment and his writing is very descriptive and funny.

>>12677700
Read Anna Karenina, it's the best

>>12674509
reminder that the only reason dostoevsky is prominent in the west is because the CIA shilled him as an anti-communist russian

>>12674509
Tolstoy has better prose, Dostoevsky has better characters and stories. Dosto for me.

>>12681937
proof?

>>12674509
I'm pretty sure Tolstoi was an old ass man by the time Dosto was first publishing, other than for Dostos alcoholic liver I'm sure he was in alright shape, but since Tolsti spent his time innawoods he was problably reletively well built for a man his age. I'd have to say Tolstoi.

>>12682554
Tolstoy was seven years younger than Dostoevsky.

Tolstoy's first novel, 'Childhood,' was published about eight years after Dostoevsky's first novel, 'Poor Folk.'

Tolstoy did gain prominence with the Petersburg literati when Dostoevsky was in exile though.

In a fight, Tolstoy has more strength, Dosto was kind of sickly but I wouldn't be surprised if he got into the occasional brawl as a young man, he was highly emotional and it was easy for him to get angry. Dosto seems kind of crazy so it's a toss up for me.

>>12674509
Yes

>>12682149
>>12681937
He's thinking of Solzhenitsyn. Dostoevsky was popular in the English speaking world before the communists were ever in power.

>>12675956
> so he tried to define definitive standards by which to judge art

That does seem like megalomania. Likewise with the idea that conveying the same message to every reader is the test of art. By that account there have never been a masterpiece of literature, and I suspect Tolstoy was aware of it, which kinda mitigates his admission that his best works were not masterpiece.

Also who does he think he's fooling right there ?

dolstoy is Jewish psy-op made to get people to quit religion and work for low wage

>>12679915
>Very well, you will be more famous than Gogol or Pushkin or Shakespeare or Molière, or than all the writers of the world--and what of it?

He ended up being somewhat more famous than Gogol and Pushkin (sadly) but for Molière it's debatable and for Shakespeare it's a definite no.

Talking about fame here not literary value.

>>12682610
I'd say Tolstoy put him down first then Dostoievsky dramatically rises back up as Tolstoy is negligently turning his back to him, and manage to bite him in the neck.

They both die as Tolstoy pummels Dosto's face in retaliation and is taken down by the onset of Dosto's vampire virus. They both reincarnate as a duo of likeminded existential vampire cops. But no gay sex, that's unholy.

>>12682679
What the fuck

>>12682623
there are actually a number of russian writers who are mostly prominent in the west because of their perceived repudiation of revolutionary socialism. bulgakov and pasternak come to mind.

Both are trash.
>Andrei Bely vs Gogol
Now THAT'S better. I'd say Gogol.

>>12682149
if you read enough novels/essays from the west prior to 1917 tolstoy is always the watchword for russian lit. dostoevsky is mentioned occasionally in passing, but tolstoy was absolutely seen as the king of russian writing. then, after the revolution, it starts shifting and with the onset of the cold war dostoevsky is ascendant. and he appeals both to vehement anti-communists and socialists disillusioned with stalinism (and exlied trotskyites with a bone to pick)

>>12684373
leskov vs chekhov

>>12674517
>Dostoevsky lover commits a murder for a higher reason
lol

>>12684373
Gogol has the best prose of the bunch

>>12684714
Gogol is the most funny and has the best plots. But aesthetically i think Andrei Bely is the best. I haven't seen a book that comes close to the atmosphere of Petersburg. Then you have absolute gems like The Silver Dove. God i wish i knew russian so i could read the rest of his work.

>>12684729
Dead Souls is so funny, and it comes across so natural for him. There's something very comedic about this man going around buying a bunch of dead slaves. I've never read Bely, I'll pick up Petersburg sometime.

Dosto

>>12684399
Leskov deserves more love

Someone post the Virgin/Chad pic of this

>>12675374
Tolstoy’s sincerity is a part of his megalomania. He pretended to so sure of his superiority that didn’t mind sharing his deepest ´confessions’, though sonehow these revealed ‘sins’ somehow only underlined his moral excellence. He was poser though he perhaps sincerely believed in his own exceptionality. It must be never forgotten that he was from one of the most aristocratic families in Russia, those people were very far from plights and problems of ‘common’ folks, and all his works and speculations must be appraised taking into consideration this fact.

>>12686468
no

>>12675129
Can you link the articles? Google is turning up nothing with that name. Is it fake news?

>>12674509
The real question is who wrote the best waifus.

>>12687677
Dostoyevsky's girls are whores but Tolstoy's girls are the ones who will cuck you.

>>12687011
>Is it fake news?
yes. Russians don't really read that much our gdp is lower than indias. and we don't really care for dosto

>>12675125
this isn't reddit, people here won't perform for your entertainment.

>>12675177
I-I can't do it.

>>12674582
based and seagullpilled

>>12688152
You people perform for my entertainment daily and you know it.

>>12674582
do you know how Tolstoy used to be Chehov's mentor and they talked about women and their youth and Chechov asked him "I haven't had much luck with the ladies that's why I quit chasing after them long ago. How were you when you were young". To what Tolstoy replied "I was insatiable"

Dostoevsky was placed before a firing squad and believed himself to be fucking dead before he was pardoned at the last moment. This influenced the rest of his writing. Tolstoy, meanwhile, was having sad thoughts about the slave feeding him soup off a silver spoon, wrote a story detailing how sad he felt about this, and had his slave bring him food and water while feeling sad so that he could stay nourished while pretending to feel very deeply sad.

They're both powerful writers with separate strengths. But Tolstoy will forever be a fake. His ramblings about the serfs in Anna Karenina wouls be right at home in a Facebook rant today.

>>12688152
>gdp is lower than indias
holy fuck
t. indian

how did things get so bad? were they always so bad?

Tolstoy writes beautifully about human nature and draws excellent characters

Dostoyevski writes beautifully about human nature and draws excellent characters and creates interesting conflicts, tension, twists, banter, more dialogue...

Dostoyevski is better.

>>12675355
The Idiot falls apart after 1/3
Don't read that, read Demons instead

Anyone who truly writes know that is much harder to achieve what Tolstoy achieved. Many people here are praising Dostoievsky only because they feel their style is similar. They somehow can see themselves doing what Dostoievsky did, but they don’t even know where to begin when it comes down to Tolstoy. I am certain that none of those people are writing seriously or have been writing for more than 5 years, and I guarantee none of them will achieve much. Also: it’s pretty certain Blood Meridian is one of the favorite books of the whole bunch.

>>12675186
why are people so autistic towards jordan peterson on here for no reason whatsoever