European Lit

In going through the readings for my 19th cent European lit course, it has occurred to me that the Russians really do stand supreme. If literature is meant to capture the imagination, how can one compare Stendhal or Balzac's coming-of-age narratives to Turgenev's writings? Even Goethe's "Elective Affinities" its layers of meaning and metaphor notwithstanding, fails to move me as does Turgenev's brilliance in "Fathers and Sons." I realize this may not be a very populare opinion at all, but I can't help noting that the enlightened Western Europeans were really no match for their Russian counterparts. This may just be me, but between Stendhal and Dostoyevsky the choice is almost not a choice at all. Though there are, of course, exceptions, I think the Russians take the cake. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev. . even Nabokov, what delights.