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Originally Posted by Taq Man
Believe me I want to get there. I'm Russian after all. It just seems like Tolstoy and expecially Dostoevsky are way more concerned with the characters than the story.
Can you give me your top two reasons for loving War and Peace? perhaps I will give it a third try.
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The characters are the most vividly realized of any I've ever read. I also liked the battle scenes. I even like the essays they often take out or put in an appendix. I ate it up. It's not a tough read, just very long. Anna Karenina was great too, maybe more sophisticated in a way, but still I like War and Peace better. Since I read War and Peace I've re-read passages for years. You may want to start with some of Tolstoy's shorter novels like Hadji Muhrad, The Cossacks, or The Kreutzer Sonata.
I think the Russian novelists get religion about right (more so Tolstoy than Dostoyevsky).