Why Slava Hates Russian Classics (a thread)

Tolstoy: spins a good tale, a little too aristocratic, a bit too much French, but engaging and...
SUDDENLY: "EVERYONE, CLEAR THE ROOM, I AM ABOUT TO GO OFF ON A LONG-ASS TEDIOUS TANGENT, WILDLY UNNECESSARY AND ALSO TOTALLY WRONG!"

(repeats 1,327 times throughout the novel, which, by the end, could kill a bystander if thrown at close range more efficiently than a train could kill a fallen woman)...

Dostoyevsky: "No tangents for me. No, siree Bob. What I am going to do instead is GRAB THE FUCKING READER BY THE LAPELS AND SCREAM IN HIS FACE FOR 587 PAGES STRAIGHT UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS THE FULL DEPTH OF MY SUFFERING FOR THE SOUL OF MOTHER RUSSIA, HUMANITY AND CHRIST!"...

(Also, hates realistic plots, well-rounded characters, subtlety, plot twists and Jews)

Gogol: spins a really good yarn, funny, interesting, great characters you kinda love hating, manages to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.
Some time later: "Heeey, why don't I write horrible ultra-nationalistic dreck chock full of anti-Semitism everyone will remember me for?"

Turgenev: "All women are wall-flower virgins... and speaking of flowers, would you find 128 hours of your life to spare for this mind-paralyzing description of nature? It's only about eleventy gajillion pages long."

Chekhov: "I am the funniest writer Russia ever produced. Here is my masterpiece comedy, "The Cherry Orchard", which ends with an old man dying of sadness in an abandoned house. If you like something lighter, here is a collection of short stories, titled "Everybody is Dead"...

Chernyshevsky: "I have literally zero idea how to write a novel. In fact, since Wikipedia isn't invented yet, I don't even know what it is. So I will just throw a bunch of psychedelic shit together in hopes it inspires Lenin to fuck up Russia once and for all"
(Spoiler: success!)

Gorky: "I've invented socialist realism and also oxymorons. I am the most patriotic XX century Russian writer, which manifested in living abroad without ever learning a word in a foreign language. Most of my crap is eminently forgettable, which is why I grew a Mark Twain 'stache"

PS. Why Slava Loves Russian Classics

Ilf and Petrov
Bulgakov
Pushkin

And most of Gogol, if you burn "Taras Bulba" out of your brain as if it never existed. Which it did. So you can't.