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I'm not nearly as well read as you, but I've really enjoyed Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I enjoyed Tolstoy's constant arguing against the Great Ma

I'm not nearly as well read as you, but I've really enjoyed Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I enjoyed Tolstoy's constant arguing against the Great Man Theory, even if I disagree with aspects of his position. And I love Nabokov, both Lolita and Laughter in the Dark. I've just started reading Checkhov's short stories. They're almost comically dark. I like them.

russianlitreply 6y ago
The internet is a deception. Of that list the only one I’ve read everything they’ve written is Akhmatova. Part of my brash delivery is because I’ve read a higher percentage of the total works of the two I deride than the ones I recommend. Mostly because I kept chasing the social dragon that they were ‘great works’. The difference being that I think back and consider insights of what I’ve read from the recommended author’s texts almost daily and only think of the derided authors when someone else inevitably praises them. If you like dark comedy you may like some of the works of Gogol from that list. He probably leans harder into the academic category of ‘magical realism’ when his grounded stories take a turn for the absurd but the absurdities can have a humor of their own.