Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:33:46 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Tolstoy vs Dostoevsky

>  This reminds me of the theme of Tolstoy's Resurrection, which is
>not his greatest book but is well worth reading if you like Tolstoy.  It
>has to do with a man's feelings toward his romantic/sexual past--I'll say
>no more than that.

  To dwell upon a theme I brought up earlier, I'd like to discuss
again the differences between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

  I did actually try to read _Resurrection_.  I could not find the
stamina to finish it.  Tolstoy's novels are, to my mind, very simplistic
morality plays.  From the first pages of his novels, he has passed
out the white and black hats.  The characters motivations are shallow,
and shallowly explored, and worse than lack of suspense in who is good
and bad and gets their comeuppance, is the painful inability of Tolstoy
to examine *why* a character might be acting "wrongly."  The "bad
examples" are so poorly motivated as to be almost laughable.  While it
isn't fair to call Tolstoy's novels art in black and white, they certainly
restrict themselves to primary colors.
  Compare these characters to the larger than life, complex creations
of Dostoevsky.  If one can imagine a flaw in Dostoevsky's characters, it
is that they are all blessed with an excess of self-knowledge.
Compare Ivan Karamazov to Levin.  Compare Dmitri Karamazov to Vronsky.
Dmitri Karamazov is as much the rake as Vronsky - but Vronsky's heart,
Vronsky's soul is never plumbed in the fashion that Dmitri's is.
We can find sympathy, empathy for the feelings which drive Dmitri.
While he remains an exaggeration of a type, he is nonetheless a type
which is dissected plausibly for us on the pages.  We recognize in him
those forces which drive us.  We begin to understand what makes him the
man he is.  With Vronsky, all we can do is accept his dissolute lifestyle.
We recognize the character type, we accept that he is one of them.  But
Dmitri enables us to understand the character type.
  Consider once again the issue which both novelists grapple with.  The
issue of Christianity, the existence of God.  The sum of Levin's pondering
is "should I believe, or should I not.  I suppose I'd best.  Yes, this
must be right."  Tolstoy was incapable of writing the Grand Inquisitor.
He was incapable of recognizing the issue.  And where in Tolstoy can
you find impassioned dialogue about the fate of children, about what threat
hell holds for them when their very existence on earth is torture.  Even
the buffoon Fyodor, in his comic anecdote about the reality of hell, has
put his finger on a serious and fundamental issue.

  Tolstoy gives us much to be admired in the style and construction
of his novels, the weaving of the plot lines, the studied progression
to the climax and conclusion.  But as much as Tolstoy is a great writer,
it is Dostoevsky who is the great thinker.  Dostoevsky with his awkward
recylcling of characters, his reliance upon circumstance, and the
erratic development of his plot is the author who truly pries his
way into the hearts and souls of his characters and bares them for
us.

                                 -Tim


------------------------------------------------------------
"I led a wild and drunken life," Dmitry went on.  "You heard father say this
morning that I thought nothing of spending a few thousand rubles on seducing
some innocent girl.  That's a disgusting lie, absolutely unfounded.  Those
things never required any money at all, anyway."

                        Fyodor Dosteovsky, _The Brothers Karamazov_
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