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Harmon: "I think it's not a question of taste, so much as a matter of density or complexity in the novels, coupled with how good the writing is."
But density and complexity are not the only positive qualities for fiction. Orwell, for example, has the vices but also the virtues of an essayist as novelist: clarity, straightforwardness, and visceral energy. You may take away less insight into the human condition, but more understanding of the world-shaking events of the middle of his century.
Tolstoy's attempt at the same thing, expressing political insights in his fiction, is much less successful. His political digressions detract from the story - plus, in the case of his War and Peace theories about the invasion of Russia, he's a crackpot.
(Let me repeat what I said earlier: no question that Tolstoy is a greater novelist than Orwell.)
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