More sites like this one...

[Mogwai]

I'm planning on making more sites like this one for additional authors such as Dickens, C.S. Lewis, E.A. Poe, Austen, etc.

What are some of your authors you'd like to see on a website like this one?  I'll take any and all into consideration if the popularity is enough for that author and he/she is a genuinely great author...

[Stavrokin]

Borges is fasinating me now
but   i forget taking his collection with me
and fail to find more poems on net

[amaechi]

i will like a site like this about the great african writer chinua achebe.

[Mogwai]

Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys.  Anyone else have any authors they'd like to have a site like this up for?  It does take a lot of time so the authors I narrow down to will be done carefully - they also have to be somewhat popular to make the site worthwhile.

Would anyone like to see Tolstoy on a site like this?

[Stavrokin]

 
Tolstoy? not bad, but there is an open secret that
the man who love Dos seems having no intersets on
Tolstoy, though he may admit that Tolstoy is as great
as Dos.
like me, I read Tolstoy's works after reading alomost
all Dos' boods, which make me impatient on Tolstoy, even on the great Anna that was admired by Dostoevsky.

[Mogwai]

which make me impatient on Tolstoy, even on the great Anna that was admired by Dostoevsky.

That's funny you say that - Anna Karenina is the next book I have lined up to read (unless A Raw Youth bumps it back a notch!).  I bought the hardcopies of Demons and Anna a few months ago - nothing better than long, Russian novels of literary brilliance!  

[Stavrokin]

yeah~
Generally speaking, i agree with you.
Lots of chapters are nonessential, like some men said the purpose of long story is just for long story.

however i haven't read A raw youth.
I am rereading The Idiot now.
where can i got the hardcopies of A Raw Youth and then I could bump ii back notch in collaboration with you.  

Actually it’s not because of the length of Tolstoy, may well be the way of his thinking that make me unbearable.

[Mogwai]

Didn't the BBC make a good Anna Karenina movie in the last decade?  Is it on DVD yet?  I'd like to watch it after reading the novel...

I'd LOVE to see the BBC do a movie based on Demons or The Idiot.  

[Stavrokin]

 

BBC?
what about the movie based on Anna
the actress is a wonderful Franch woman
I forget her name  

[xxfire3dxx]

I would love to have a site like this based on the work of the great Alexander Pushkin! And I don;t think it's true that you can't  like both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I love both their works because they are so different and still so magnificent in their grandeur.

And speaking of which, you have a really great site here! But why limit discussion to just Dostoevsky's work? Include  some other great writers too, because I think these works not only transcend categories, but are also far from being mutually exclusive.

[Ivan]

I can't stand Tolstoy!  Ever read any of his religious writings?  He such a Christian propogandist in them, so much so that I'm shying away from his other writings.

As far as other great writers go...

NIETZSCHE!  I know he's not Russian, but Germany is pretty close to Russia  
I could help you out if you wanted to do a site on Nietzsche, he's been the subject of my research/interest for quite some time.

(Great site!)

[xxfire3dxx]

Yes, it is true that Tolstoy promotes Christianity but if one really tried to understand his writings, one would see that he doesn't advance just some Christian doctrine per se but rather the idea that a person should believe in a higher power and strive to live a good life. As to his religious works, I think they just constitute his belief system and in no way have I ever seen them interpreted as being part of a "propaganda" meant to impose his own belief system onto others. In all his works, Tolstoy simply uses his religious beliefs to put out a positive message.

Which is also why I think many people turn away from Tolstoy in favor of Dostoevsky because they think the former has a romantic view to things, while D is renowned for getting down and dirty in what seems as a more "realistic" life that his characters experience. There's both truth and fiction in this view of the two writers. But speaking of religion, it seems to me that Dostoevsky promotes Chrisitianity just as much as the next guy but he does it in a completely different manner.

[Mogwai]

Thanks for the input, guys.  My umbrella site I have - GreatClassics.com - will have numerous sites like this one.  I'll try to implement as many authors as I can...but it takes time.  Thanks again for the input!  

And thanks for being here on the forum as it's starting up - it needs people like you to get discussions going and the site growing...

[Ivan]

I have to admit that the only thing I've read from Tolstoy is A Confession.  I felt totally betrayed as a reader in this work and it made me dislike Tolstoy immensely.  
This doesn't mean that I will never read him again, it just means that he got bumped down on my list of "authors to read."

I have to like the author in order to be interested in his or her literature.  I felt like Tolstoy used his previous atheistic experiences to promote Christianity.  It seemed all too much like those experiences were created for the sole purpose of promoting Christianity or for promoting belief.
I'm not saying that I'm right, I'm just saying that those were my experiences.

[xxfire3dxx]

And I have to admit that I've never read A Confession but from what I remeber about Tolstoy's life I think that this account (I'm pretty sure it's nonfiction) was written long after all his other major works. And I remember reading somwhere that it was here, in the later part of his life, that he radically changed his whole belief system. For those of you that don;t know, Tolstoy was "Count" Leo Tolstoy for a reason - he pretty damn rich. But  when he radically changed his philosophy, he abandoned it all and went to live on farm, trying to live a simple Chrisitian life. That is also why he dies such a horrible and lonely death - he freezes to death after running half naked through the snow away from his wife - who, unlike her husband, was very much satisfied with the easy rich life, so I don't think she ever gave Tolstoy his peace of mind after the radical switch.

But, more to the topic, I highly recommend you read his other works for which he is so famous. And I don't understand what you mean when you say that you have to like the author to be interested in his/her literature.  Do you mean personalty-wise, their philosophy, or their style of writing? Because I think if it's anything other than the last reason, I think you'll miss out. In real life Edgar Allan Poe was seriously twisted I think and Fitzgerald was a horrible drunk, but who cares? their work is beautiful and a joy to read.
Sorry if I sound like someone trying to convert a Dost fan into a Tolstoy one (as I've recetly been told you somehow can't be both).