Anna Karenina

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Summary: Anna Karenina: Drug Addict
Review: One can only wonder how Anna Karenina would have behaved if she was not taking her "usual portions" of opium to help her sleep. This is what explains her pathetic behavior at the end of her life, the way she goads Vronsky into avoiding her.

My favorite character in the novel has to be Oblonsky, with his forays into society in the attempts to make more money and the hilarious visit to the medium. I laughed out loud. He is a fine hunter! He is charming! He is also a scoundrel but never the less an amusing character and a source of comic relief in this heavy scene.

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Summary: The pulse of Czarist society
Review: "Anna Karenina" can be said to have two concurrent stories, one ending happily, the other tragically, united with themes of love, marriage, adultery, parenthood, neglect, work, and spirituality, and populated with characters so genuine the reader inevitably feels that Tolstoy's portrayal of the Russian middle and upper classes of the late nineteenth century is one to be trusted. Where else can you get an insight as bluntly candid as the notion that it was considered by the aristocracy to be much more honorable to serve the Czar as a government employee, even if the job paid peanuts, than for example to work at a bank with the possibility of having a Jew for a boss? (See Part VII, Chapter 17.)

The novel begins with Count Oblonsky in the doghouse. His wife Dolly has caught him having an affair with the kids' governess and is threatening to leave him, but fortunately his sister, the titular Anna, comes to visit and manages to talk Dolly into forgiving her husband. This has to be one of the most ironic overtures in literature because it is not long before Anna, wife of a prominent man much older than herself and mother of a little son, starts her own affair with a rakish young military officer named Count Vronsky.

How Karenin, Anna's husband, handles the knowledge of his wife's extramarital interest is a great study of moral dilemma and conflict. Summarily rejecting the ideas of challenging Vronsky to a duel, which would be dangerous, and obtaining a divorce, which would shame him and reward Anna for her infidelity, he concludes that the best course of action is to try to appeal to her sense of social propriety and maternal responsibility. It's hopeless, though; she moves in with Vronsky and has a daughter by him, continually imploring Karenin to grant her a divorce, which he steadfastly refuses. One of the novel's exceptional successes is the demonstration of something Anna did not foresee: the unendurable emotional strain on an adult with two families.

The other story involves Oblonsky's friend Konstantin Levin, a landowner and farmer who is enamored with Dolly's pretty, younger sister Kitty. After being spurned by her in favor of Vronsky, he resigns himself to lifelong bachelorhood, taking care of his land, fraternizing with his tenant farmers, and concerning himself with agricultural, economic, political, and religious matters. His eventual marriage to Kitty after winning back her love seems to exemplify a favorite Tolstoy theme of man's triumph through self-redemption and the willingness to renounce a materialistic attitude.

The excessive length of "Anna Karenina" belies the simplicity and clarity of Tolstoy's writing, which has a sincerity that indicates a reflection of the author's deep personal convictions. He is never as bleak or as cynical as Dostoevsky, and though he can be mawkish at times, he always seeks the goodness in his characters without exaggerating the natural drama in any given situation. If Anna's ultimate fate seems like an exaggeration, consider how many people less troubled than her do the same thing every day in real life.

Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic: Magnificent in its essence
Review: Dostoevsky's The Idiot de-emphasizes the bitter, skein, entangled love between Aglaia, Natasya and Myshkin and through which voices the author's views on suffering, virtue and moral goodness. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is the melodrama up to the same par that deftly follows the excurciating, convoluted love triangle between Alexei Karenina, Anna Karenina and Vronsky. The opening line of the book, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," succinctly bespeaks the various aspects, intricacies, and complications that contribute to the unhappiness of three related families revolving around Anna Karenina.

The story is a timeless classic. Anna arrives in town to help reconcile her brother, Stepan, with his wife Dolly. Dolly finds out about Stepan's affair with a former French governess. She seeks to revenge on his unrepentant behavior and to shame him for at least a small part of hurt he had done her. Though she manages to resolve with him, suspicions of her husband's unfaithfulness constantly torment her. While Anna appeases Dolly's crushed spirit and implored her to forgive Stepan, little does Anna know that her brief visit would irrepressibly alter her fate and throw her into a bittersweet convoluted affair with Count Vronsky.

Handsome, intelligent, and cultivated Vronsky courts Kitty, Dolly's youngest sister who rejects Levin's proposal (though she cannot deny his love). When Vronsky later scorns her for Anna Karenina, Kitty refuses any commiseration, condolence, and condescension out of her pride. Her grief is precisely that Levin has made a proposal and that she has curtly rejected him (she pities him and thinks she deserves a better match) while the whole time Vronsky has deceived her. At the first encounter Vronsky beams at the sight of Anna's svelte, dazzling beauty, talks to her as if the words would determine their fate, and immediately decides that she can never and does not love her husband Alexei. Likewise, Anna finally comes to terms with her chronic sadness, which overcomes her that she is deceiving herself about Vronsky.

Anna is thrown into a frenzied conflict of emotions: qualm, fear, sadness, indecision, guilt, broods over lack of love, the desire of love. No matter how solicitous of her needs Alexei has been, Anna shuns him and is disgusted with his wonted coldness and indifference in their marriage. In the 19th century, a woman like Anna, who had involved in such affair was considered vile, corrupted, fallen, and disgrace. Indeed Alexei is most concerned in safeguarding his reputation, which he needs for the unimpeded continuation of his social and civil activity. He seeks to mitigate the situation as elders of society are displeased by the impending scandal. He is also in denial, in total complaisance, fantasizing Anna's passion (for Vronsky) will ease and grievous difficulty will pass and that his name will remain undisgraced. An inner disturbance causes him to feel an unwillingness that Anna be united with Vronsky unhindered. He regards Anna's nature as being "so corrupt, so perverted that perdition itself looks like salvation." It is through the portrait of Alexei's mental suffering and agony that render Anna's character and her affair etched.

As Levin notices, Anna never tries to conceal or trifle all the difficulty of her situation. Such truthfulness in her makes her all the more indomitable and wins her Levin's justification. She glumly broods over not being able to see her son Seryozha (Count Lydia abets Alexei to tell the boy of his mother's death so as to end the situation) and Vronsky realizes that the boy, with all the sensitivity of feelings in a child, constitutes the most painful part (hindrance) of his relationship with Anna. The reunion of mother and son sees an outpour of tears, joy, and bittersweet tenderness that will make readers lump in the throat. Tears and sniffles might have rendered Anna speechless but the boy understands that his mother is unhappy and that she loves him.

An underlying theme that sifts through the book and indirectly joins the threads of different characters concerns the thirst, the desire, the quest and the perseverance for love. Anna perfidiously abandoned her marriage, bore the impregnable pain of parting with her son, eloped with Vronsky without a swaying in her faith of finding true love. Her doubt of Vronsky's unwholesome love for her destines her to a path of no return. Her jealousy of Vronsky's diminishing love, the longing to seeing him suffer, repent, and love her memory as if she is no more pave for her doom. The very self-destruction she brings upon herself will only wring in Vronsky a new pang of pain and regret.

Levin (my favorite character whose modesty and virtue I'm attracted to), whose wholesomeness is both a virtue and defect, experiences the pain of losing his brother Nikolai, whose life merges into one single feeling of suffering as his body writhes and grasps for breath. Levin feels the necessity to live and to love, though he dreads the lack of a Christian belief will rid of his life (provokes in him suicidal thought). Suffering in a sense refines him and empowers him to truly appreciate life and love his family. Levin represents an enlightening transformation.

Anna Karenina is magnificent in its essence. It is an intense, convoluted, and poignant portrait of an elite's decadence. The book is dramatic in Anna's outrageous affair with another married man, audacious in her fearless breaking away from shackles of social opinions; and engrossing in her enlightening of self and toward love through interactions of other characters. The writing captures the essence of suffering and emotional struggles. The characters and the lives they lead are deftly nuanced as if the novel was written yesterday. A timeless classics. 5.0 stars.

[New translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky]

Rating:
Summary: How do you rate a classic with such a reputation?
Review: Disappointing, that's how. When a book is hailed as one of the greatest (if not the single greatest) novel of the nineteenth century, I expect a gripping story. I didn't know that I should also expect heavy doses of plain boredom. Still, I struggled on bravely and read every line, never skimming. At times I was genuinely interested and amazed at Tolstoy's grasp of psychology, and I cared about what would happen. At other times I just had to put it down for a while. It helped to read a few other books at the same time so as not to be overcome by the occasional tedium.

Everyone knows what happens to Anna in the end, it's hardly climactic. I wanted to know how everyone would react to her fate. Despite 940 pages, despite endless descriptions of farming and hunting and horse racing and philosophy, despite the novel being titled "Anna Karenina," it barely occurred to Tolstoy to cover it. She's hardly mentioned in the last 60 pages. Disappointing. Instead, Tolstoy uses the last part of the novel to explore Levin's agnosticism and the meaning of life. Anna's fate barely makes it on the radar scope. You never really find out what Karenin, Dolly, Levin or Kitty make of it. And even Vronsky's reaction (the purpose, after all, behind Anna's final act) is glossed over.

Suffice it to say that if you're looking for adventure, excitement and unpredictability, this is not your book. If you want a serious look at Russian literature, life in nineteenth century Russia, religion, philosophy, marital double standards, repression and early feminism, then by all means, pick up "Anna Karenina."

Perhaps modern readers' emotions (mine included) are too jaded by "The Practice" and "Law and Order" to be shocked by another suicide. I'm afraid that 100 years from now no one will think too much about "Anna Karenina;" it will just be the nineteenth century soap opera that popularized interior monologue.

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Summary: has the unquestionable meaning of the good...
Review: To say that I liked Anna Karenina would be one of the most grievous understatements I have made in my young life. It wasn't just good, it wasn't likeable, it was amazing. It took me completely by surprise and swept me along in its subtle glory - this is one of the best books I've ever read. Though it is a looong book, I read it faster than I've read books half its length because I became so deeply involved in its world. People may say it is far too long, but the length of this novel is, I think, one of its great assets - the benefit of an epic book is the power it has to take its time and engross you completely, so that by the end of it, you're desperate to get to the end, but when you get there, you feel sad that there will be nothing new to read of the world you cared so much for.

The title of the book and the descriptions I alwasy read of it are misleading. I bought it because it is famous, because it is a classic, and people will tell you to read it just so you can say you've read it. I'd heard it called Tolstoy's "Tragedy of Shame," but this, if it is even an accurate description, is just half the story. The half I wasn't expecting, the part that won me over, was the story of Levin, who I began not really liking and wound up caring for as much as I've ever cared for a literary character. It is his story that really begins and ends the novel, his that brings fulfillment. Anna's fate is tragic, but without Levin's storyline to give balance, it would lose a lot of its meaning. While Anna and Vronsky ruin themselves and each other in a spectacularly bad and increasingly painful relationship, Kitty and Levin show the opposite - a relationship that is not perfect, but completely beautiful because each person cares so much for its survival that they take effort to make sure their problems are resolved.

I can't begin to do justice to the novel - it's simply wonderful. I couldn't quite tell you "what it's about," either, since what captivated me were a lot of the small details, the pacing, the silent spiritual battles that take place. What makes me love this could make another person hate it. If you like action and obvious plot points, then this isn't the book for you. It's about morals, the slow but inevitable decline of a woman who chooses to publicly live outside them, the battle to find meaning in life, the small but important elements that make relationships work, pride, life.... I can't think of a book that can compete with it in its scope and emotional power. I probably haven't cleared up anything for people who haven't read the novel, but there's no way I could do that in a review. The only way to really understand what the book is like is to read it yourself, so I recommend that everyone at least try it. You, like me, might be blown away.

I'd like to make a point that I'm specifically reviewing this translation of Anna - by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - because this is the version I read and fell in love with, and I understand that other versions will, of course, word things differently. So, while I'm certain beyond a doubt that other versions will also be great (and some may be better, I can't know), this is the one I want to praise, this is the one that made Anna Karenina one of the best books I've ever read. Highly, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Read It to Say You've Read It; Then Ditch It
Review: This book is considered to be one of the best classics ever written, and it is...if you consider a classic to be book you dread picking up, a book that doesn't introduce the title character until page 80, and a book that never gets to the point.

I read War and Peace and thought it was moderate, but I had heard that Anna Karenina was Tolstoy's best book, so I thought I'd try it. Trust me; read War and Peace. While W&P isn't great, it at least has some battle scenes to provide a little action and escape from solid descriptive narrative. Also, Tolstoy's odd political musings don't start occurring until the second half of the book.

In this novel, it is mostly about Tolstoy's views on Russian society and its foibles. Skip all the farming and hunting chapters; they don't matter. In fact, skip most things with Levin until he marries Kitty--he's just lovelorn and depressed but won't admit it. While I'm all for emotion, there's only so many ways to deny love for someone, and Levin discovers them all.

In the beginning, Anna is likeable, but as the novel progresses, you're almost waiting for the train, cheering it on, waiting to shove Anna off the platform. She's the one who commits the adultery and then turns into a spineless, simpering jellyfish. For some reason, beautiful confident women who commit one sin become blithering idiots in novels while sinful men do not change. Perhaps Tolstoy is wrongly commenting on women?

While this book may be considered a classic, it just simply is not good. Tolstoy wrote to write a long book. That's the only reason. If you want a long book, read "Gone with the Wind" or "The Moonstone." They have plots and the occasional page of dialogue without two-page paragraphs. Like I said previosly, read/skim this book to say you've read it and be able to discuss it, but don't plan to enjoy it or give it an honored place on your shelf. Save that spot for something with at least a modicum of interest.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific book!
Review: This is one of my favorite books of all time! Though Anna Karenina is not necessarily an easy or quick read, you will thank yourself for persevering and reading this book. Tolstoi has an amazing way with characterization and descriptive narrative. He managed to find just the right words or phrase something in just such a way as to evoke real feeling from the reader; you can truly identify with the character/situation at those moments and appreciate the literary beauty of this novel throughout. Happy reading!

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Summary: tolstoy is a genius
Review: Tolstoy is a genius because he understands human nature. He understands it very well. Also read "How much land does a man need?" It's a great companion to this book. My only problem with this book is that the scenes about the farming and the hunting seem to go on forever and ever, but that is the point of this book. Tolstoy wrote this book to show that people do things day to day worrying about the trivial things in life instead of looking at the big picture. That's why some scenes are so boring- to symbolize how man uses his life in a way that is not up to their potential. A great read because Tolstoy is wonderful.

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Summary: A most artistic recreation of life
Review: After two months, I have finished the great novel ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy. I was nervous to take it on, this edition has 924 pages, but I am so, so, so glad that I did. I enjoyed almost every bit of the book, and feel I have from reading it a new understanding of writing and of literature.

This edition from Modern Library Classics was translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett with a revision by Leonard Kent and Nina Berberova. The prose reads very easily, in clear, accessible English for today. (But don't worry: It's not "The Good News Bible does Tolstoy.") While the book is long, and by looking at a calendar and my new paperback's rumpled cover and scuffed binding, I could tell I'd been reading it a long time, it felt as if it were passing quickly. Tolstoy's narrative moves easily from stage to stage -- there's no feeling of contrived suspense or narrative manipulation. The lives of the characters progress naturally, and what Tolstoy tells the reader, the reader believes and doesn't question (this reader didn't.)

The story focuses on just a few main characters, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina (and her husband Aleksey Alexandrovich Karenin), Count Aleksey Kirilich Vronksy, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin and Kitty Scherbatskaya. These individuals propel the story, and it is their lives and relationships that we follow most closely. Supporting characters include Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky, his wife Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya and Levin's brothers, a small cast for a grand Russian novel.

On the back cover, a quote about the novel, attributed to Matthew Arnold, says that we are "not to take ANNA KARENINA as a work of art; we are to take it as a slice of life." I think it is really both.

The theme of the novel centers on relationships, and those relationships in 19th Century Russian artistocratic society of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Anna Karenina is an elite, beautiful woman married to a powerful government official, Aleksey Karenin, with whom she has a son, Seryozha. She falls in love with and has an extended affair with the rich, dapper Count Aleksey Vronksy, and has a child with him, a daughter. Their story follows her inability to ask for or later receive a divorce from her husband, and her increasing unhappiness in the relationship with Vronsky, as she is bannished by society and resents the freedom he has as a man to move in his old circles. Her jealousy and insecurity grow throughout the course of the novel, rendering her nearly mad.

The other relationship, which serves as a contrast and foil for Karenina and Vronsky, is that of Levin and Kitty Scherbatskaya. Levin is a somewhat older man than the young and beautiful Kitty, daughter of one of Moscow's many princes. He is an aristocratic farmer and cares for his family's vast agrarian holdings in the country thoughtfully and meticulously. At the beginning of the novel, he has been courting Kitty, but had returned to the country for awhile. When he returns to ask her to marry him, he sees that she is infatuated with Vronksy, whom he doesn't trust. Vronsky meets Anna Karenina at a ball and stops calling on Kitty, breaking her heart. After a long separation, Kitty and Levin meet again and she agrees to marry him, happily. Their storyline follows their marriage and the birth of their son, Dimitry.

It is definitely true that this novel is most definitely a slice out of life. The characters are incredibly realistic as is the pace and plot of the novel. But the artistry lies in Tolstoy's effective setting of one relationship against another. It's not as black and white as it might be in a lesser writer's hands. The "good couple" Levin and Kitty have difficulties in adjusting to each other and in their relationship. Levin, like Anna, is jealous, but unlike Vronsky and Anna, he is motivated by love and generosity to overcome his angry feelings for the benefit of a harmonious home. Other aspects of the two different relationships are set off by one another. A very compelling character is made of Aleksey Alexandrovich Karenin, whom Anna despises, but who undergoes a convincing and sad degeneration of self as Anna leaves him and he maintains custody of the son that she loves. (He gets caught up with a society woman who has converted to a fundamentalist, ecstatic Christianity and gives him advice, ultimately leading him to allow a French faux-mystic to decide the fate of his marriage to Anna.)

The novel has a well-known climax, which I won't reveal if you don't know it, but it has beautifully written and rich "falling action" which allows the reader to come through the shock and pain to what Levin discovers beyond the love of the family life he craved.

This is definitely a masterwork, completely readable and worth the time spent on every page.

Rating:
Summary: Anna Karenina
Review: Yes, it is a classic. Yes it is a masterpiece, and true, it is an unbelievably big novel.

I had to read Anna Karenina for a 19th century writers course, and I must admit I was intimidated by the size of the book - bearing in mind the length of the semester and the other books one ought to read.

Tolstoy starts his masterpiece with a Biblical quote: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay"
The relevance of those words will be evident to the reader as the novel progresses; the novel is simply about life, passion. There are no perfect beings in this book, there is no right or wrong, but simple, even mundane day to day details - no matter what people say about Anna Karenina, you have to read it for yourself. You will feel the urge to judge, but you will not be able to do so. Tolstoy is a genius, he will make you understand, and that's the correct word. You might sympathise, or feel that the characters are justified, and you might not, and it's all irrelevent in the light of understanding.

The novel is a feast of pathos and linguistic genius; in fact I did not want the book to end. Don't be discouraged by the book's length, reap the rewards at your own pace.

'You frightened me, 'she said. 'I am alone and was expecting Serezha. He went for a walk; they will return this way.'
But though she tried to be calm her lips trembled.
'Frogive me for coming, but I could not let the day pass without seeing you, 'he continued in French. In Russian the word You sounded cold and it was dangerous to say Thou, so he always spoke French to her."

Tolstoy took care of the finest details and whims that go in the characters' heads about the smallest details in life, and you will love him for it! You will be surprised by the things you will learn in this book, like for example the names of the silliest things around the house in Russian! :)