Well, you stated the obvious difference: one set of novels is Western and Tolstoy is not. His sensibility and his viewpoint are Russian. Embedded in his works,

Well, you stated the obvious difference: one set of novels is Western and Tolstoy is not. His sensibility and his viewpoint are Russian. Embedded in his works, especially Anna Kerenina in my opinion, is a prescient understanding of history and if you are the type to infer this sort of thing, human nature. It's rather interesting that you include Pride and Prejuidice in your examples because that's a novel that a non-westerner would not understand fully. It relies too much on our embedded understanding of a very specific social structure, culture, class dynamic, etc. to the point where even an American who hasn't watched a fair amount of PBS might not fully appreciate it. It's probably worth picking up a lecture series on the novels and another on Russian history. And I'm not going into all the deeper, more philosophical content many see in the works.