Tolstoy went to placis. Dickens didn't go, namely to the war. He went beyond europe. At the end of his writing life he came back to that experience in an astonishing story. Some of the greatest things that tolstoy ever did are short stories. And this one is called haji murat. Is a long, short story. But what he wanted to do really was throw open a window. You could simply climb through that window and be in that world. Sometimes the writing, compared to dickens's great, extravagant, look at me, applaud me, theatricality, is flat and limpid, andsome, even chilly.
Dickens. Tolstoy. Their names and reputations shake the ground – and so do their books, if you drop one. But whose legacy is more enduring? Whose vision truer and more relevant today? Should you embark on War and Peace or Our Mutual Friend? To battle it out, in 2018 Intelligence Squared brought two celebrated writers, John Mullan for Dickens and Simon Schama for Tolstoy, to our stage. They called on a cast of star actors, including Tom Hiddleston, to bring their arguments to life with readings from the authors’ finest works. The debate was chaired by author, playwright and broadcaster Bonnie Greer. This is the first instalment of a three-part episode.
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