Do I read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky first?

I'd recommend to start with Dostoevsky. But t's going to be a hard read anyway. Especially Tolstoy, this guy wrote 5 pages describing a fucking tree. Also, if you start with Dostoevsky, read "Idiot" first

Yevgeny Zamyatin

If you read Tolstoy first, you’ll never want to waste your time lowering yourself to Dostoevsky’s level.

The only idiot I’ve read is you for reading a five page description on a tree.

Is there an abridged version to these massive tomes?

turgenev

>abridged version

Pushkin -> Gogol -> Dostoevsky -> Tolstoy -> Turgenev -> Chekhov -> M. Gorky

t. Irwin Weil

Unironically go ask on reddit for abridged shit

Tolstoy was a meme before memes existed. His two most famous works are overrated as fuck, go with Dostoevsky, there's a lot more to choose from and he at least has some interesting ideas and characters.

I'd say start with notes from underground re: dostoevsky. and prob war and peace before Anna, or maybe just some of his short stories.

but really they don't have too much to do with each other other than both being Russian and concerned with the same sort of Russian identity and religion and etc.

if you're not an imbecile they're both pretty easy to read, it's not like Joyce or something. I'd recommend the pevear/volokhonsky translations as well, they've translated all the major shit and really welll

>His two most famous works are overrated as fuck, go with Dostoevsky
t. numale who prefers half baked philosophical musing disguised as fiction to writerly craft

> craft
Vladimir, you were so crafted you staged your own interview!

youtube.com/watch?v=RpjTgHMUbAk
(Questions and answers were prepared and written down in advance.)

/thread

only correct answer

Hi,

This is a bit of a stretch but, one time I drove you home and we talked in Russian and about Russian lit. It wasn’t really my place then to make any type of advance but I would be glad yslee tb cam noy obshalac