/lit/ - Literature

Not if you would read a bunch of shorter classics with the same total amount of words instead. But it's good.

what do i get out of tolstoy that I don't get from dostoyevsky?

Yes, a thousand times yes. Its incomparable.

>>4826311
a different story ? duh

>>4826311
They're two entirely different writers

>>4826290
It's like a well written version of Ice and Fire.

>he hasn't read War & Peace

>>4826319
could you expand a little bit? dostoy is the king of describing human emotions and irrationality. what does tolstoy do? I'm not daunted by names or language, but my time is limited and I'm wondering what insight tolstoy offers

>>4826323
this makes no sense as a greentext. every human in existence has not read at some point in their lives. this thread is about convincing someone its worth reading. and all you do is post that picturee?

>>4826329
intrigues.

>>4826323
I go to read War and Peace. Then I worry about translations. Then I buy two parts of it sold as a trilogy. That killed the desire to read.

>>4826337
>is the best book of all time worth reading

Yes it is, anon.

>>4826339
ok good job. that has intrigued me. I will order this book now. first person in this thread to offer anything concrete, with only a single word even. well done

>>4826323
Being this gender normative.

War and Peace was originally names "War what is it good for?".

War and peace was originally named "War what is it good for?"

i'm sick of autistic stem majors coming here and asking if reading classics is worth it? go read a computer you fucking nerd

>>4826512
You are so cool.

>>4826512

Sounds like someone suffers from an inferiority complex towards STEM.
How's working at Starbucks working out for you?

>>4826536
do u realize what you've just done

>>4826516
>>4826536
The guy literally said "go read a computer you fucking nerd" and you take him seriously

>>4826544
>Implying I took them seriously.

>>4826536
shitpost fa days.

>>4826544
lol'd

Why is this considered a classic?
I'm only 40 pages in and like it so far, but what is the main attraction? Now it's just some rich families bitching about their connections and such.

Tolstoy was a hack.

>>4826290
Why don't you read it and find out.

Not OP, but what is the /lit/ approved translation?

>>4826329
Tolstoy is able to establish a historical background and is able to both emphasize the humanity and grandness of characters through their psychology. If you want to know about life during the Napoleonic era, this is the fucking book to read. Despite "the art" of storytelling, often books are just meant to be a solid record of events. Tolstoy makes the record entertaining.

>>4826329
tolstoy is more of a story teller. compared to dosty, you don't read him because you want to learn, you read him because you want to see something beautiful.

personally i prefer tolstoy for this reason. i don't find dosty (or any author) particularly profound, and so their exposition is sort of boring to listen to, but ymmv.

>>4829130
well put.

>>4826329
Tolstoy is a fox, Dostoevsky is a hedgehog

That's the best I can give you, really

>>4826329
tolstoy hated men, dostoyevsky was intoxicated with love for them

>>4826647
Russian novelists are famous for spending a fuckton of time on character development.

>>4826478

Go to bed Elaine

W&P is the best book ever.

Tolstoy > Dost. But Dost is still great.

>>4829185

This guy knows his yozhik. Something, something Gogol; something, something Russian soul.

I like to use my old standby joke when people ask me what it's like to date a Russian:

Starts off Tolstoy, ends up Dostoyevsky.

Nobody ever laughs.

>>4826329
tolstoy is the peak of what empathy, reconciliation, understanding, etc. can do for the novel. when you hear people say that novels are about empathy, they have an idea of the novel that tolstoy is king of. he's the ultimate 19th century realist novelist.

>>4831623
>>4829130
>>4829185
OP here, I actually thought, Fuck it, I'll just read Dostoevsky and ignore Tolstoy, but now I don't know. I probably just HAVE to read War and Peace eventually. It's size really puts me off, though; you can read so many other good stuff considering War and Peace is 1400+ pages long.

>>4831665

Read Tolstoys Death of Ivan Illych, and some short stories first.

>>4831665
just read the death of ivan ilyich first and then you'll probably be happy to read war and peace

>>4831674
>>4831675
Thanks, will do!

>>4826290
Oh, HELL yes.
A very enthralling book, masterfully done.

>>4831682
Even when you get to it, W&P is a quick an easy read for its size, it took me less then 10 days with not much effort

>>4831665
why dont you read another book along with it you read a chapter or two of w&p and then when you get bored just pick up your other book

>>4826541
lol

>>4826544

>Implying the correct answer to shitposting isn't either silence or shitpost harder

He did fine.

>>4831646

Probably because it's a joke Pasternak its time

My advice for every classic is that if you generally give no fucks about literature and lack critical thinking ability in that area, you should just not read anything. Go do something else instead of spending all that time reading a classic only so you can go online and tell people it's not really that great and totally overrated.

Considering its length, is life worth living?

>>4834250

Unfair comparison. Every minute of War and Peace is a minute I can't read another classic. If War and Peace is only middling, my time would be better spent elsewhere.

>>4834399

>classics
>always worth reading

>>4834467

>implying

I enjoy my fair share of trashbooks and genre lit too, calm your tits. Basically, reading War and Peace is a doorstop, if I'm going to reject every other book and activity I could do instead to start that brick, it better be one fucking good book.

I'm reading w&p (page 1100 aprox right now), and i'll be finished after a month of starting it. So it is not that time consuming

>>4834149
fuck you. I generally try to avoid blatant antagonizing on the internet, but fuck off, you elitist pig. never tell someone not to read, because that's just your way of feeling superior. if you want to feel superior, go watch the Real Housewives

>>4834590

>Being this underemployed

>>4834612
unemployed in fact. But i only read when i'm about to sleep (11 pm - 12 am)

>>4834600

But they don't want to read them. That's the point. If you're reading the classics because you think it makes you a better person or so you can complain about it, why bother? People who like the classics don't read John Grisham novels for fun and then occasionally pick up Tolstoy for work. They actually enjoy reading Tolstoy. If you don't enjoy it, why would you do that to yourself? It seems moronic.

My advice is also mostly directed at 4chan where people halfway through a "classic" novel make threads complaining about it and asking you to convince them it's worth their time. If they have to be convinced, it's probably not worth their time. Go do something else.

>>4826653
le edge xd

>>4834612

Not him, but I read about 50 pages an hour, so that's 22 hours and say I read 2 hours a day (not that big of an ask), that's 11 days. How fucking slow are you?

How long did you guys take to read this?
I got through it in 5 days

>>4834650
faggot

>everybody taking this b8 seriously

It obviously depends on your goals, faggot. Do you just want an enjoyable read? Then I don't know if it would be worth it to you, because I don't know your tastes.

Do you want to read a classic that is referenced and understood by a large part of academia? Then yes you should read it, it's a classic for a fucking reason. If you want to know about classics then read the classics.

The best thing might just be to find the nearest fire and die in it.

>>4834641
Damn, i cannot enjoy the lecture if i go quicker than 30 pages / hour.

>>4834650
>not reading it in one day

>>4834668

Some things I read slower, but something like War and Peace I'll be reading about 50 pages an hour. Even if you read 30 pages an hour (which is pretty standard anyway), it's still not going to take you more than a month if you're reading a reasonable amount each day (not more than 2 hours even).