Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?

[Anonymous]

Of these two Russian literary giants, who do you prefer and why?

[Anonymous]

tolstoy: because he wrote the greatest line ever, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

and The Death of Ivan Ilyich is just such a good story

[Anonymous]

Tolstoy for me!

[Anonymous]

Probably Dostoyevsky. I love Tolstoy of course, but Dostoyevsky just speaks to me.

[Anonymous]

I honestly like both. Depends on my mood. They are both amazing.

[Anonymous]

Dostoyevsky for his satire / humor - The Nose, The Idiot etc.

Tolstoy is too long winded.

[Anonymous]

They are such totally different writers ….

My Russian prof had a real thing against Tolstoy—in particular with death of Ivan kitchen she would say “90 pages of a king painful death? For what? Because he was an ordinary man?” (Imagine it in Russian) she found him very, very judgmental and hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

Tolstoy. His characters are so well developed, and his observations on human nature are brilliant.

But yes, long-winded. I always skip Levin’s treatise on Russian agriculture in the middle of Anna Karenina. Ditto the appendix on history at the end of War and Peace.

[Anonymous]

Dostoyevsky. More intimate storytelling.

But I prefer Gogol over both.

[Anonymous]

Tolstoy. Much more engaging and less dense

[Anonymous]

Dosotevsky

[Anonymous]

Dostoyevsky. Read The Gambler.

[Anonymous]

Dostoyevsky, the Brothers K

[Anonymous]

I do love the line “I am a sick man. I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man. There’s something wrong with my liver.”

[Anonymous]

Dostoyevsky all day every day. Extremely readable. Tolstoy is so long winded.