Leo Tolstoy could kick Jane Austen's butt

I have a very strong dislike of Jane Austen. I do not like her books, at all. In fact I find them tortures to read. Having only read "Pride and Prejudice" I admit my opinion may be under informed. But one, I don't care, and two, an author my write many different books but the style personality of those books are always the same, so I feel pretty confident in being able to make this claim. My biggest beef with Austen is how she writes her love relationships. "Pride and Prejudice" is nothing more then one long, exceedingly boring conversation between two very annoying people. Every page in that book that does not involve a conversation between Elizabeth and Darcy is either other people talking about them, or some stupid plot filler used to get the reader to their next conversation. Here let me summarize the whole book for you

Elizabeth: "Oh Mr. Darcy, I hate you, no I love you, no I hate you, no wait I thought I loved you but it turns out I really didn't because so and so said this and that, but wait it turns out they were wrong so I actually do love you."

Mr. Darcy: "duhhhhhhhhh ..... blah blah ... duhhhh, me love too."

The End

I compare this to what I am reading now, "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. Now "War and Peace" being a great literary epic, I find it hard to fairly compare these two books. Where I do see a comparison is with the love stories in each. Several characters in "War and Peace" have relationships with each other to various degrees as the story progresses. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed reading these parts. I actually look forward to seeing how each relationship progresses, something I never came close to with "Pride and Prejudice."

To put it simply Tolstoy writes people some much better than Austen. Most of the characters you follow through "War and Peace" you meet in childhood and watch them grow and change. The character development is amazing. Its not just that you understand a character at one point in the novel, you watch them change throughout. You watch them become new people, but at the same time you notice parts of their personality never change. You understand them well enough to know how they will react to various situations them come upon.

I understand that this may seem obvious as to how character development is supposed to work, but take Elizabeth's development in P&P. One could argue that by the end of the novel she experienced a change, that she was a new and better person. To me, she hasn't really changed at all, she is still the same person, but she simply understands herself better than before. It seemed pretty clear from the beginning of that novel that she loved Mr. Darcy, it simply took her the whole book to realize it; so much so that I wanted beat the crap out of them by the end for being so stupid. With W&P its different, you get a sense that as a character develops they reach a better understanding about themselves and then something happens, like they go to war, and they change, they are a different person, once again confused about themselves and needing to develop further. I find it much more realistic and relatable.

Aside from this, I really just can't stand the dialogue in P&P, its annoying and so pointless at times. I read W&P and I think, wow I could see that actually happening, or that reminds me of this person or that person. He also doesn't waste words, what is said is exactly what needed to be said for the reader to understand. Another factor I like is how Tolstoy isn't so inwardly focused on love. In W&P, love is a very important theme, and it is really shown to be the driving factor for his characters. But the book is about life, not love, yet through this you see how important love is in life.

I feel I cannot explain this as well as I would like too, you may just have to read them yourself, but I think I made my point. By the way, if you want a short, but very good, read, pick up "Hadji Murat" by Tolstoy, very good and I think you might see a little about what I am talking about.