I'm rather 'well read.' I don't say this boastfully as I feel a lot of it was a waste of time (although I also found a lot of philosphy/literature etc. very insightful).
I try to read a few "classics" now and then, and I definitely read more than just sci-fi. I like history, philosophy, biographies, etc., as well. But you touch on something we all have to struggle with: Time. There are only so many hours in the day to read, and every time I sit down to read, I have to make a decision on whether or not what I'm thinking about reading is a good use of my time.
So... I'm going to get a certain amount of raw "escapism", pop-fiction stuff, that I need just to stay sane. That's a given. Now, how much time do I have left to read Homer, or obscure French and Russian "literature"? And to what end? Just to impress hipster douche-bags and self-appointed "intellectuals"? Or because reading that stuff is actually going to add value to my life? Is reading Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina going to do more for me than reading Teach Yourself Haskell in 21 Days or Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" books, or whatever?
The last few books I've read (other than technical books) include Run by Dean Karnazes, Born to Run by McDougal, The Belgian Hammer by Lee, Eat & Run by Scott Jurek, Racing Through the Dark by David Millar, Slaying the Badger by Moore, Running on Empty by Marshall Ulrich and The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton. Would I be better off if I'd spent that time reading "literature" instead? I don't know, but I'm sceptical.
OTOH, I have a whole pile of stuff lying here by Nietzsche, Kieerkegard, Hume, Foucalt, etc., that I'm planning to work through. But I'm reading it just because I find it interesting, not because I see it as having any more inherent value than "low brow" literature.
Mostly I would read Tolstoy for the same reason I would read Nietzsche - to break through our regrettable tendency to take the past and its people for granted. It's one thing to read about the ideas Nietzsche developed on a Wikipedia article, it's wholly another to read him in his own words and suddenly find yourself thrust into contact with a whole mind, a living, breathing bundle of thoughts and anxieties and dream, a human being palpably aching to find meaning, caught in the middle of one of the greatest social upheavals of human history. To get a sense, just for a moment, of the sheer enormity of the fact that whole generations of people lived and died without knowing anything of the world we lived in.
19th century literature is special. There is so much heat, passion, confusion, pain and soul-searching in it - it feels so close, yet so far, from the world we live in. For me at least it is humbling and amazing that people like Tolstoy laboured on and left behind such vivid traces of their souls for us to discover and enrich ourselves with.
Edit: I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that the value of literature is that it helps you develop reverence and respect for the enormous reality and weight of history. Arrogance and shocking stupidity are the natural consequences of not realising your tiny place in history. The best literature breeds deep humility.
Of course that might lead you ask "then why are you planning to read it"? To which I can only say "because it sounds interesting and exactly because I haven't read much Russian literature and I want to broaden my horizons a bit". But I'm not reading it because I want to be able to impress some hipster pseudo-intellectuals, or because it's something you're "supposed" to read. I just want to see what it's all about. Same with Crime and Punishment, which I started recently (but got distracted from and set aside temporarily).
Mostly I would read Tolstoy for the same reason I would read Nietzsche - to break through our regrettable tendency to take the past and its people for granted.
I agree with that, but I find that fiction from (and set in) Victorian era England has been my primary outlet for thinking about and appreciating the past in that regard. That's certainly not to discredit the Russian stuff you speak of, just saying that reading Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or whatever, isn't the only way to tap into that historical perspective.
It's one thing to read about the ideas Nietzsche developed on a Wikipedia article, it's wholly another to read him in his own words and suddenly find yourself thrust into contact with a whole mind, a living, breathing bundle of thoughts and anxieties and dream, a human being palpably aching to find meaning, caught in the middle of one of the greatest social upheavals of human history.
Indeed. I greatly enjoyed reading Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and have quite a few of his other works on my list.
I wasn't trying to claim that Tolstoy et al are better and more important than anyone else, just trying to counter the suggestion that the only reason to read them is to try and impress people. Faux-reading to try and cultivate a sophisticated appearance is, I think we can agree, just stupid.
Personally if I had a choice between Tolstoy and Saramago or Le Guin, I think I would pick one of the latter. And yes, Nietzsche is the 19th century bomb.com
NB: I read a lot of non-fiction too. An educated person has to have his or her fingers in a lot of intellectual pies I think.
Indeed. I have this dream of learning Latin and most of the associated Romance languages one day, but I haven't gotten very far yet. I was making some headway with Spanish, and then my one Spanish speaking friend kinda disappeared due to marriage, so I haven't been as motivated without anyone to practice with.
And my Portugese speaking friend got deported back to Brazil. :-(
Still, one day...
Might be helpful?