So we can add theatre to the list of things Mo knows nothing about

[Burney]

I understand that. But why does that make Tolstoy's novels better? More to your taste, perhaps. More educational, so better in some vague moral sense? For the average punter Tolstoy's writing will be dull when it isn't indecipherable; and a writer who cannot make himself understood has failed, no?

One offers edification, the other titillation, so yes, there is a moral dimension to the superiority. The whole concept of art is bound up with a sense of moral purpose.