Quote Originally Posted by Sir C View Post
You haven't defined any parameters. What is he better at? Being wordy, turgid and incomprehensible to the less educated? You might as well claim that Radiohead are the best band in history except on the odd occasion when they made the mistake of being too accessible.

You may prefer Tolstoy's prose. That is because you are a pretentious student type, and you have every right so to do. If it gives you pleasure to wánk on about literature with your equally nerdy chums, good for you - I hope you all enjoy, and that one day one of you will see a real naked lady and describe her to the rest of the group. It will be the nearest any of you get to a sexual experience. But I digress.

Tolstoy is objectively better at 5th form art student wánk, whilst Jackie Collins is objectively better at titillating frustrated housewives. They're not trying to do the same job.
They are both writers. They both write novels. The difference is that Tolstoy's concern the vast sweep of history, religion, philosophy, man's inhumanity to man and the human condition, while Jackie Collins' concern people in Beverley Hills having rather unconvincing sex.