It should not be forgotten that some of his work was written in fixed size chunks on rather tight deadlines for regular publication in newspapers, periodicals, etc - to pay his bills. Much of his stuff was thus not written as a unified whole as such before it was released, and little 'blue penciling' took place by an editoral process to create a tight fast moving 'movie-like' gripping ('modern') narrative. Movies had not been invented at all yet either...

Now try and read "War and Peace" you complainers...