The great debate

[Anonymous No.13898907]

Nabokov "intensely disliked" The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, while calling Tolstoy the greatest Russian writer of prose fiction. I disagree and think Dosto's stories are much more soulful and resonate more strongly than Tolstoy's, whose stories I find less memorable.

[Anonymous No.13898921]

>>13898907
dostoyevsky is the greatest author of all time i can’t read tolstoy without falling asleep

[Anonymous No.13898928]

>>13898907
ahhh so that's why i can't stand nobby's masturbatory cumrag excuse of writings.

[Anonymous No.13898929]

>>13898907
if you can grab it, try to get the everymans nabokov translation of lermontov's hero of our time. The introduction by him is shitflinging at russian literature for like 20 pages, and is an enjoyable read

[Anonymous No.13899049]

>>13898929
Why did Nabokov hate everything

[Anonymous No.13899057]

>>13898907
This isn't a debate, everyone in the know picks Tolstoy, only kids and conservative ideologues prefer Dostoevsky.

[Anonymous No.13899177]

>>13899057
>everyone in the know

huh?

[Anonymous No.13899207]

Why should there be a debate between the two? They are both legends in their own right. I don’t really see much of anything in common between them other than the fact that they were both Russian

[Anonymous No.13899221]

>blocks everyone's path

[Anonymous No.13899233]

>>13899221
Is that Andrei Bely?
I liked Petersburg. It was definitely a tough read. Reminded me a lot of Ulysses but it still had a totally unique structure.

[Anonymous No.13899245]

>>13899057
>Conservative ideologue prefer pauper commoner
>Liberals prefer rich aristocrat that rapes peasant girls

[Anonymous No.13899252]

Nabby was a hardened cynic, so it's no surprise that he'd dislike Dosto's works.

[Anonymous No.13899258]

>>13898921
> i can’t read without falling asleep
strange self burn

[Anonymous No.13899264]

>>13898907
there is no debate, Nabokov is just wrong about everything. Dosto and Tolstoy are both based.

[Anonymous No.13899268]

>>13899221
Where to go after Petersbourg ?

[Anonymous No.13899270]

Tolstoy is technically more proficient but he's a robot. There is less humanity in his works.

[Anonymous No.13899276]

>>13899221
Groucho Marx? huh...

[Anonymous No.13899288]

>>13899270
>There is less humanity in his works.
this is just plain wrong. have you read anything else than war and peace?

[Anonymous No.13899291]

>>13899270
>There is less humanity in his works
I don’t know about that. The way he conveys true love and happiness in that love, like between Kitty and Levin, is absolutely sublime.

[Anonymous No.13899294]

>thought each other's work was the best ever made
>Died reading each other's books
>Never got to meet
:(

[Anonymous No.13899298]

>>13899294
>>thought each other's work was the best ever made
retard

[Anonymous No.13899349]

>>13899268
I think Silver Dove is solid.

[Anonymous No.13899354]

Nabokov disliking X is usually a sign that X is good.
Man, he must have been insufferable irl.

[Anonymous No.13899405]

>>13899298
"When Tolstoy learned [of Dostoevsky's death], he grieved deeply. In a private letter, he wrote: “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…” The last book that Leo Tolstoy had read in his life, during his final days before fleeing Yasnaya Polyana and dying at Astapovo station, was “The Karamazov Brothers” by Dostoevsky."
:(

[Anonymous No.13899445]

>>13899245
>pauper commoner
>Dostojewski — an aristocratic house of Russia, Lithuania and Poland, a cadet branch of the Rtishchev family
Specifically Fyodor's ancestors lost their aristocratic rights somewhen during the Polish uprisings and cancellation of local nobles' titles, plus Fyodor's father broke ties with his family over the clergy career thing, but he was still of aristocratic pedigree, even if not a leet count.

[Anonymous No.13899484]

>>13899445
>what your ancestors did matters in how i perceive you and the validity of your ideas
y-y-y-y-y-yikes

[Anonymous No.13899529]

>>13899354
> this is what you believe when you only read flashy quotes

[Anonymous No.13899530]

>>13898907
Here is my opinion: I think that Dostoevskij delves in philosophical problems with which we are more familiar now, but in order to do this he describes situations and characters that are far from the reality of life, while Tolstoj's ability is exactly in making those problems emerge from apparently banal everyday life situations.
Take prince Myshkin in Dostoevskij, or Natasha Filippovna or Raskolnikov. They are wonderful characters, but it is very rare that you meet someone like them in real life - or someone who even thinks like them. There is a balance one has to reach, when building a character, between creating a "kind" or an "individual": Dostoevskij creates characters that are fully individuals, but not kinds. They are not recognizable outside of his novels, which is why most of his family theaters, and heart-felt discussions on evil and philosophical dialogues which could rival many essays in quality never happen (or happen extremely rarely).
Toltstoj is more masterful as a novelist, in my opinion, because despite the fact that what he describes could seem banal and prosaic (a woman leaving her husband, a man marrying) he manages to create characters that we can both associate with people we meet and that are, also, fully developed individual. Tolstoj's characters, to put it simply, are real people. His care for detail and little things is, in my opinion, superior to Dostoevskij, and both the world and the people he depicts are "more real" or "more true", if you don't want to use the criterion of realism for literature.

That said, both are incredible novelists who deserve immortality. But I believe Dostoevskij can be greatly engaging when you are young (at least it was for me) because the tension of his moral dilemmas, and the dramatic aspect of many of the relations he depicts fit better to the agitations of the young mind. As I was growing, though, I find myself appreciating Tolstoj more and more, in his ability to evoke real scenarios, real psychology, real interactions between human beings - and in his ability to make meaning emerge from those alone, without the necessity of putting up a theater of contrasting extremes.

[Anonymous No.13899567]

Does anyone know if the Maude translation of War and Peace is any good? I got like 400 pages into it before quitting because it was so mind-numbingly boring, and I wanna if it's just a translation issue

[Anonymous No.13899603]

>>13899270
Tolstoy describes emotions better than anyone else I've seen what are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.13899685]

>>13899221

what is borat doing here

[Anonymous No.13899728]

>>13899049
refined taste. Read Salinger

[Anonymous No.13899730]

>>13899484
>i treat everyone as having equal potential
Are you retarded or just acting out?

[Anonymous No.13899775]

tolstoy is like that grandpa that gives you cookies and milk then tells about lessons and experiences he learned.
dos is like that bitter grandpa that smokes and tells children to fuck off when he sits alone on the park bench.

[Anonymous No.13899810]

>tolstoycels in full damage control

[Anonymous No.13900053]

>>13899810
t. Underground Man

[Anonymous No.13900111]

>>13898907
The fact that people compare these two just because they're famous Russian novelists from the same period is retarded. They are nothing like each other, Tolstoy writes in a very calm, almost crystalline prose about a bunch of themes that he weaves together deftly into a pre-arranged narrative, with very believable characters in terms of psychology and behavior. Dostoevsky writes delirious hundreds of page rants in which the lines between philosophy, religion, character, and event become pretty much unimportant, he is just desperately trying to get across his practically revelatory understandings of the world, it is nothing like the carefully crafted artistry of Tolstoy. Both men had profound understandings of psychology and religion, but Tolstoy systematizes, whereas Dostoevsky just expresses and exults, Tolstoy's metaphors are always quite clear, Dostoevsky's are like a web of metaphor on metaphor, you're not even sure where the bottom is, is TBK about three brothers or about three dispositions towards God? There is no answer to the question because there is no system because it's all clearly just interconnected for Dostoevsky, what lies at the heart of his work is basically inexpressible in normal terms because his 'normal world' is itself infused with religious portents and significance.

basically one is the consummate artist, the other is more like a prophet.

[Anonymous No.13900125]

>>13898907
Nabokov was a self-hating Tatar, so he had to side with Lithuanian over the Tatar.

[Anonymous No.13900149]

>>13899270
This couldn't be more wrong. Tolstoy's characters seem so real, and while I like Dostoevsky his characters seem like caricatures, mouthpieces for ideas.

[Anonymous No.13900323]

>>13899530
>Dostoevskij

[Anonymous No.13900340]

>>13899775
I'm going to say the exact opposite.
Alyosha is probably the most loving and affable characters in literature. So i guess Dosto loved kids.

[Anonymous No.13900350]

>>13898929
I just added that book to my abebooks cart yesterday damn, gotta order it for sure now

[Anonymous No.13900358]

>>13899049
He was based.

[Anonymous No.13900419]

>>13899405
Where did Tolstoy go?

[Anonymous No.13900432]

>>13900111
Yet Tolstoy afterwards renounced all his work as worldy drivel.

[Anonymous No.13900434]

>>13899049
Inferiority complex.

[Anonymous No.13900435]

>>13900419
to some monastery

[Anonymous No.13900439]

>>13898907
>Nabokov "intensely disliked" The Brothers Karamazov
BASED

[Anonymous No.13900445]

>>13900435
What was the reason?

[Anonymous No.13900464]

>>13900149
This is exactly what I thought while reading TBK. Dosto goes over the top to make a point with some of his characters

[Anonymous No.13900480]

>>13898907
In every measurable category, Tolstoy is better, but Dosto has some sort of x-factor which cannot easily be quantified. “Rebellion” and “The Grand Inquisitor” are two of the greatest chapters in the history of the novel, and I believe their power comes from more than just a theological ramification. There is something quite aesthetically pleasing, but it’s not down to the language, it’s something to do with the staging, the drama, and aesthetics of the symbolic images. Dostoevsky has some aesthetic sensibility which was more than language, maybe it was like Shakespeare’s power with metaphor.

Both are obviously incredible and one could hardly pick two better authors to learn from.

[Anonymous No.13900496]

>>13899567
Maudes are the best translators of Tolstoy, but you could try the revised Maude, Norton Critical Edition revised by George Gibian.

[Anonymous No.13900928]

>>13900439
No.

[Anonymous No.13900942]

Personally I had more fun reading Anton Chejov but I have great things to say about Dostoyevsky's takes on language development.

[Anonymous No.13900977]

>>13900942
>Chejov
in what system of orthography do you convert a х to a j?

[Anonymous No.13901009]

>>13898907
At least compare Tolstoy to other great novelist, not a 2nd rate YA writer trying to pass as profound.

[Anonymous No.13901017]

>>13900928
TBK is the most overrated novel of all time

[Anonymous No.13901034]

>>13900445
He had an existential crisis. Read A Confession.

[Anonymous No.13901198]

>>13899405
>The last book that Leo Tolstoy had read in his life, during his final days before fleeing Yasnaya Polyana and dying at Astapovo station, was “The Karamazov Brothers” by Dostoevsky.

The book was so bad Tolstoy preferred death to reading it.

[Anonymous No.13901751]

>>13901017
That would be War And Peace

[Anonymous No.13901788]

>>13901034
read it
terrible book

[Anonymous No.13901805]

>>13899567
I think you just happen to find War and Peace mind numbingly boring itself. Maude is the best translation. Granted the seal of approval by Tolstoy himself.

[Anonymous No.13901820]

>>13901788
then why are you asking dumb questions?

[Anonymous No.13901845]

>>13899294
Dostoevsky met Turgenev though. Dost was addicted to gambling. He was staying at this elegant hotel (which had a gaming room) in the Germanies and at one point the staff let him know that in light of his gambling debts he would not be allowed to leave the hotel (he would continue to receive top service). They figured he would write a bestseller and pay them that way. Dost had writer's block. Turgenev shows up and, ever the perfect gentleman, pays Dost's debts in full. Dost never forgave him.

[Anonymous No.13901863]

>>13899530
couldn't be put better in my opinion

[Anonymous No.13901864]

>>13901820
because he prefers Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.13902028]

>>13901820
Sorry, I am not the anon talking to you were talking to, i am someone else. I just thought it was amusing that you think Confessions is some masterpiece. It's fucking garbage in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.13902037]

Nabokov was a pseud but he was 110% right about Anna Karenina, it is the greatest novel ever written and by quite some margin

[Anonymous No.13902089]

>>13902028
Where have I said that A Confession is a masterpiece, halfwit? I only mentioned it because it tells the story of Tolstoy's crisis. It's an interesting account, although it is clearly not intended for halfwits such as yourself.

[Anonymous No.13902147]

>>13900977
Spanish, most likely. The Russian Х sounds like the "ch" in English "loch", which in turn sounds like the Spanish J like in "Don Quijote". It's a fair spelling in Spanish.

[Anonymous No.13902200]

>>13902037
I'm just finishing up The Wealth of Nations, might give AK a read next, is it easy to get into?

[Anonymous No.13902211]

>>13902200
It's quite notoriously easy to read, although you can dive as deeply as you want

[Anonymous No.13902275]

>>13902211
nice, I just picked it up at a second hand book sale, haven't read any Tolstoy before

[Anonymous No.13902345]

>>13899405
This is so moving

[Anonymous No.13902594]

>>13898907
In terms of style and use of the Russian language Dostoevsky and Gogol are better writers than Tolstoy imho. Dostoevsky in translation is still brilliant and so is Tolstoy, both were great ideas men, I don't see why we have to pick one or the other. The duality and commonalities between their bodies of work makes them much more interesting to read together.

[Anonymous No.13902655]

>>13899405
I hope Tolstoy and Dosty are friends somewhere.

[Anonymous No.13902916]

The Spengler analysis of this very debate is stellar. Dosto wins btw, every time.

[Anonymous No.13903015]

>>13902037
based

[Anonymous No.13903020]

>>13902916
Spengler wrote about Dosto vs Tolstoy? Where?

[Anonymous No.13903043]

>>13902916
Spengler was a kraut and therefore genetically predisposed to be an philosoautist deaf to arts. Of course he would prefer Dostoevsky whose works are perhaps first rate polemics but certainly second rate works of literature.

[Anonymous No.13903049]

>>13903020
In Decline a bunch

[Anonymous No.13904048]

>>13903043
>kraut
>philosoautist deaf to arts

>he hasn't taken the frühromantik pill

[Anonymous No.13904077]

>>13901017
Because its unfinished work