David Bentley Hart compares them as novelists, and puts Tolstoy higher. I can't give a very respectable opinion on that, because the only Tolstoy I've read was Anna Karenina many years ago, in my twenties. But I'm going to venture tentative agreement with him. In reading or re-reading Dostoevsky's major novels–Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and Devils–over the past four or five years, I've been struck by their defects as novels. They're great and fascinating works, to be sure, but they don't entirely persuade me, in either character or plot. I want to read War and Peace sometime in the reasonably near future.
Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky
30 responses to “Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky”
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My kind of subject, Mac! Yes, Tolstoy is far superior as a novelist IMHO. Characterization and plot are immensely more interesting than Dostoyevsky. In the past four or so years I have read War and Peace, re-read Anna Karenina, read The Brothers Karamazov twice, and recently re-read Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky is fascinating to me, and I enjoy the interior lives of his characters, and overall psychological evaluation of we as humans. He also is more likely to bring Christianity and the Gospels into play with his novels. Perhaps this is because of the awful things he has his characters do? Tormented souls turning towards Jesus for answers? The two big Tolstoy books are just amazing to read, hard to put down, and you fall in love with the characters certainly in a way you do not with Dostoyevsky’s! Anna Karenina has been called the greatest novel, and War and Peace the greatest book (Tolstoy said it was not really a novel). Then of course there are the translations, with the P/V duo currently all the rage. I will admit that Constance Garnett has her limitations, but I love her Anna Karenina; her War and Peace not so much. P/V are fine, but there are plenty of others that do great jobs with these two titans of literature. Most of them seem to be British for some reason. Americans are just too silly for such serious endeavors. 😉
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Well, I’ve read both W&P and the Brothers K three times. I read W&P to get lost in the story. I would never want to get lost in the Brothers K! That’s and idea book.
I started Anna K, but at the time, I just couldn’t keep going. The thought, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” just kept running around in my head, and it wasn’t a time in my life when I wanted to get involved in the consequences of her actions. “House of Mirth” was just the same.
AMDG -
Interesting. I’m surprised that I’ve not seen this piece by DBH before. To be honest I’ve never been all that interested in Tolstoy, although I realize I should be, and have made it a point to read A.K. before too long.
When I finished Bros. K a month or so ago I happened at the same time to be reading some essays by George Steiner. Steiner, of course, had written a book called ‘Tolstoy or Dostoevsky,’ so I got it out of the library. I didn’t read the whole thing, because it required first hand knowledge of some of Tolstoy’s work, but I found the introduction very interesting. It seems to me that Steiner’s conclusion is that while Tolstoy is the better novelist qua novelist, Dostoevsky has a notably truer view of humanity. It will be interesting to see if this comes up in Hart at all — I can’t imagine it won’t. -
I would like to read AK sometime, though.
When my granddaughter was about 14, she told me that her favorite book was “Crime & Punishment” so I started to read it, but something happened like a tree fell on the house or something and I never got back to it. I really liked it up to the point where I had to quit. Another one of the million books I want to get back to.
AMDG -
I’m hoping to re-read AK sometime in the near future; it’s been on my list. I think it was at least 15 years ago that I first read it.
I enjoyed War and Peace, but it’s awfully difficult to top the Karamazovs.
I have no memory of that DBH piece; perhaps I missed it the first time. I’m looking forward to reading it. -
Well, if you like a book where everybody is insane, the Brothers K is just the book for you. I’m rather fascinated by it, but I think it’s about 90% an intellectual interest. Most–I think all but one–of the people I know who really love it are men.
AMDG -
My assumption in each case is that she is an American convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, probably from the Episcopal Church, whose defection to the Christian orient was in large part inspired by reading The Brothers Karamazov at an impressionable age, and so she simply cannot imagine what depraved aesthetic criteria could prompt anyone to deliver himself of so bizarre an opinion.
Well, if nothing else happens to delight me today, this sentence will be enough.
AMDG -
Especially funny since I’m fairly sure DBH is himself a convert from the Episcopal church to Orthodoxy (right, Rob?). I guess he knows the types.
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“I started Anna K, but at the time, I just couldn’t keep going. The thought, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” just kept running around in my head, and it wasn’t a time in my life when I wanted to get involved in the consequences of her actions.”
Well, there is more than enough of this kind of thing in real life these days and that’s enough to deal with!
I really enjoyed AK, however. Mostly I found the description of Russian life as it was then for the upper classes to be very interesting, if disturbing.
As a cautionary tale, AK is very good. And it’s not all sad, since it’s not only about Anna, but also characters such as Levin and Kitty. I seem to recall their story being quite happy. -
You know, Maclin, IMO your blog wins the internet almost daily. 🙂
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Well, I already know about Russian upper class life from reading W&P three times. I did like Levin & Kitty and one day in the far, far future, I will probably read AK.
AMDG -
Right on, Louise! This place is the best of the Web for sure.
And I thank Mac especially for the link to this DBH piece because it gave me this: “the wild tumults and tourbillions of Dostoevsky’s fiction”. What a phrase. And “tourbillions” was new to me. -
Thank y’all. It’s very encouraging, especially as I haven’t been posting as much in recent months as I used to. I’m in a Period of Transition.
But it’s the conversation that really makes this blog, and that’s your doing. That always stops me whenever I consider stopping. -
Rob, DBH does mention that Steiner book.
EG, what you say about D & T pretty much echoes DBH’s view. -
I know – I read the piece after I fired off my immediate reaction! If only I could somehow write about authors and literature for a living. 🙂
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I read the piece last night, and not having read Tolstoy I can’t really comment on him, but even so, it seems to me that DBH is overstating his case. He says “…considered purely as an artist, Dostoevsky is immeasurably inferior to Tolstoy.”
“Immeasurably inferior”? Really?
I’m going to order the Steiner book. And read some Tolstoy. -
Here’s the Eighth Day Books description of Steiner:
~~~The lack of a question mark in the title reveals much about Steiner’s mind concerning his two subjects. In one sense, the title is more in the nature of a statement than a question. For Steiner, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky represent the most sublime literature of the modern age. Again and again, Steiner’s phrases contain Homer, Shakespeare, Dante…Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Their work is ”massive,” ”titanic,” ”epic.” Thus far, they are placed together, and the title implies, ”These are the two greatest novelists of all, they have no rival.” But there is another sense in which the title implies a question. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky represent the two most fundamental and divergent outlooks possible on the world, on human nature and God. The burden of this study is to reveal the radically irreconcilable nature of their visions, and Steiner does this not just by analyzing their novels and stories, but by taking us inside them — his readings of their texts are simply brilliant. When we finish this book, the questioning aspect of the title becomes stark: Which outlook do we share? Whose vision will we choose? Tolstoy’s or Dostoevsky’s?~~~ -
I thought that “immeasurably” was a bit much, too.
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I have noticed that DBH has a tendency to insert immoderate qualifiers into his writing: “never”, “always”, “immeasurably”, “completely”, and so on. I assume it is part of his rhetorical strategy.
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Well, one reason why I can’t let myself about reading Tolstoy is that this weekend we are having the other Tol…. and that discussion will be sure to make me want to read some stuff.
AMDG -
Surely you’ve read it all, Janet.
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Right, Craig. Hyperbole for effect.
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That’s funny Robert, but as I was writing, I was thinking, “Robert will probably come up with something I’ve never read and I’ll have to read it.”
Actually, I only got about halfway through his letters and I really wish I hadn’t remembered that just now.
AMDG -
I haven’t read them, so you don’t have to worry about me mentioning them.
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I have, so I guess I’m better than y’all.
Seriously, I thought they were very good, so am a little surprised that you didn’t finish them, Janet. -
It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I loved them and was really wanting to get back to them, but something happened and I got distracted.
AMDG -
Right now I’m reading Copleston on the problem of universals. I’m not sure I can tear myself away from that. 🙂
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Oh, I’ve got a lot of those that I haven’t read.
AMDG -
“something happened and I got distracted”
I’m glad that seldom happens to me.
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That’s probably why you are better than we are.
AMDG
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