Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed with translation
Review: I am very disappointed with one aspect of Pevear and Volokhnosky(aya)'s translation--their decision in every case but one (Anna's) not to translate female Russian names in gendered form. This is unfortunate since females in Russia like Scandinavian have gendered names. I don't know why the translators decided not to translate female Russian names accurately and fully--political correctness or the feeling that English readers just couldn't get it (despite the fact that they have translated last names in their proper gender form in earlier books). Whatever the reason the fact that they didn't translate all Russian female names in their proper gendered form is very unfortunate. What I don't get is the inconsistency of the tranlators. They properly translated Anna Karenina as Anna Karenina rather than as Anna Karenin or Ann Karenin (which should have been done if they followed their own standardised general practise). Moreover, they did not de-genderise the first and middle names of females. For instance, if we followed Pevear and Volokhonsky(aya)'s general rule throughout the name Tatyana Alexandrovna Kalinina would become (in its de-feminised masculine form) somethnig like Tatyan Alexander Kalinin. By the way, if we followed Pevear and Volokhonsk(aya)'s practise Kristen Lavrensdattar would become something like Kris Lavren. This is simply perverse and inaccurate translation. Thankfully the Maude's get it right.
Rating:
Summary: Is the phrase "Tolstoy epic" redundant?
Review: The reader educated enough to be interested in anything by Tolstoy probably needs no introduction to the plot and a suggestion for which translation to choose would almost certainly be more useful. I pick three here: Pevear and Volokhonsky - The new kid on the block. A bit stilted and surprisingly unimpressive, considering there have been many other translations to build on. The following two are better choices. The Maudes - Literally accurate, but consequently a bit dry. Nevertheless, a solid translation worth reading. Constance Garnett - Slightly looser, but more poetic for it. The most enjoyable to read. Her esteem as a translator is not undeserved.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the greats of Russian novels
Review: This book can be a bit tedious to read (which is why I gave it only 4 stars) but if you can get past that - then it really is excellent! This was the first book I read in my foray into Russian literature, and I have been inspired to read more as a result. Tolstoy is a master of the descriptions of the interactions between characters. It is a fascinating study of the life and hardships of a Russian woman spiked with some life phillosophy. Overall, it is a very enjoyable book.
Rating:
Summary: An "ordinary world, but radiant now."
Review: "That is a profoundly sad book," another customer at the coffeehouse said to me today as I was reading this new translation of Tolstoy's classic novel. I would have agreed the first time I encountered Anna Karenina, "as unhappy as a woman can be" (p. 725), twenty years ago. After all, this is a novel haunted by death and adultery. However, while reading Tolstoy's triangle of unfaithful wife, "magnanimous" (p. 723) husband, and "blunt" lover "with a mediocre mind" (p. xiii) a second time, I realized that this is as much a novel about life and joyful marriage as it is about death and adultery. "All happy families are alike," Tolstoy begins his novel; "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" (p. 1). He then introduces us to the most ordinary Russian aristocrats of the 1870s, "concerned with the most ordinary issues of the day, behaving in the most ordinary ways, experiencing the most ordinary joys and sorrows" (p. viii). Tolstoy insightfully shows us how one woman's "cruel pain" of adultery is felt not only in her husband's heart (p. 278), but in her own heart, as well as by the members of her family, household, and society (p. 1). Readers, too, will experience that pain. Tolstoy asks hard questions about marriage. Many readers won't like his answers. He considered two married people with children "tied together by divine law forever" (p. ix), and his novel challenges the artistic and ideological ideas of his time, including the nihilism in which his depraved Anna sought refuge. "No honour, no heart, no religion--a depraved woman" (p. 279), he says about his complicated heroine. However, this is not only a "classic novel of adultery" (p. xii). It is also a novel about "the meaning of life and death, which lately had been coming more and more often" to the minds of the characters we meet here. And it is a novel that examines both the harmony as well as the discord, the joys as well as the pain of marriage. Yes, ANNA KARENINA is a profoundly sad novel that may wrench your heart for years to come, but it is also a novel that reminds us that extraordinary radiance may be realized in every ordinary life. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: A great novel
Review: Let me be the one person who makes this short and sweet. Anna Karenina is a great novel, one of the greatest novels ever written. Is it long? Yes. Is the agrarian/socialist subplot seemingly out of left field and boring? After a while. Is this book worth reading? Absolutely. Anna Karenina as a love story/saga is on par with Gone With the Wind or Cather's The Song of the Lark. It drags in some places and there are too many characters to count (though Tolstoy does a wonderful job of introducing each character as one might be introduced to new acquintances-you meet person A who introduces you to persons B & C, B introduces you to D & E, etc.-it's not that difficult to keep them straight), but the romance and richness of plot are enough to keep going. If you enjoy sweeping tales that follow the lives of numerous people and provide tremendous insight into attitudes and mores of a particular time and place, read this.
Rating: 
Summary: Flaubert did it first and better!
Review: I am aware of the heresy being committed here, however, I go on -- read "Madame Bovary" and save yourself the time. This book is overlong by at least - and I'm being generous here - 400 pages. The technical merits of the novel are fairly mediocre. Tolstoy may have been a great thinker, but, one has to wade through a seemingly unending swamp of turgid drivel before arriving at a pearl. The agreran subplot is a huge (I can't begin to even explain how colossal)artistic mistake (even Nabokov admitted this snafu, although he down played it!) Always count on Nabokov to stick up for Tolstoy and bash Dostoyevsky. All the claims lobbed at Dostoyevsky over Tolstoy are mere facade -- they both had the same downfall -- a love of philosophy and a dearth of prose ability. Dostoyevsky the mystic lost his footing whenever he went over 160 pgs. (his best works are Notes From Underground" and "The Gambler"). Tolstoy was a social reformer and that is what Anna Karenina is about. Tolstoy, the sledgehammer, not only indicts all problems in the world, he attempts to solve them all to the misfortune of the novel itself. The transitions are poor to nonexistent. There is alot to respect in the sheer breadth of the piece, however, breadth doesn't mean profundity. Flaubert's "Bovary" is a work of art that has influenced the state of fiction today and still continues to do so (it braved new ground in counter-point, without which we'd have no "Ulysees"). I can't think of much higher praise than that.
Rating:
Summary: Domestic Psychology
Review: This novel would be an enriching pleasure for anyone who thrills to absorbing, insightful fiction. The massive work surveys Russian society, examining its mores, expectations, customs, and denizens in a detailed, enthralling way. Tolstoy applies a sharp eye to the social situation of his day but also to human nature in general. His wonderful attention to the appearance and gestures of his characters provides an exceptional counterpoint to the inner musings he charts. By moving from viewpoint to viewpoint amongst the dozen or more primary characters, the reader is able to see the divided desires Tolstoy wants to explore. Indeed, one of the themes of the novel is the complexity of human experience. Within each of us are warring impulses and goals; how we reconcile to these competing desires makes for fascinating reading. Affiliative love versus sensual love, concern for another person versus self-pride, parenting duties versus desires for self-actualization, conformity versus self expression-- these and more conflicts are played out in a variety of social circumstances. By the second quarter of the book, once most of the primary players have been introduced, the book moves into a series of set pieces, each nearly able to stand as a short story about relationships or circumstances. The third quarter coalesces into the most absorbing interplay amongst the many characters, and the pages fly by. By the last quarter, philosophical musings come more to the forefront, and the autobiographical aspects of the novel are in frank display. Tolstoy's efforts to delve into human nature are rich, and he uses a great deal of detail, both internal and environmental, to provide both realism and a nearly stream of consciousness quality. Considered in its historical context, the work is all the more impressive. The plot does not necessitate all its characters to come together in a way that more modern works might insist, and so the book does not rely on chance and coincidence as much as on the psychology and propensities of its players. What happens to each person seems at least as much due to their personality traits and actions as to fate. The Modern library paperback edition that I read, although handsomely produced, suffered from rather poor proofreading. Instances of lapsed punctuation such as missing quote marks and misspellings ("herd" for "heard") were distracting. The editors of this Garnett translation seemed to miss a number of awkward turns of phrase. One chapter opens thusly: "When Vronsky got home, Anna was not yet home." Perhaps most perplexing is the choice of Mona Simpson as author of the guest introduction. Her merit for this project is not clear to me, and certainly her rambling, Larry King-like recollections of the novel seemed to trivialize this important work.
Rating:
Summary: Long, but ultimately rewarding
Review: This novel is the story of not only Anna Karenina, and how one decision has such a disastrous impact on her life; it is the inter-twining stories of her relatives and friends living in the glass-house environment of the Russian aristocracy. This is a story about relationships, and opinions, and it explores how the are never clear-cut; and how opinions and feelings can and will change over time. This is a story that can only be described as lush - so full of characters, description, plot and action! It is very easy to get annoyed with the characters - they are leading such pampered lives in their manors, holding balls, ordering around servants. The reader vacillates between feeling sorry for them, and wanting to slap them - don't they realise while they worry about their petty relationships or not being asked to dance the Mazurka there are lives so wretched they will bring about a revolution? As soon as you feel sorry for a character, they show how petty or stupid they are - landowners complaining that the peasants break new machinery because they find the new, easier manner of doing work 'boring' compared to back breaking labour; or the women getting jealous when their husbands are home five minutes late! Tolstoy does attempt to explore the idea of privilege and obligation, but it is not the central focus of this story - the central focus is relationships and society. The charm of Tolstoy is that he uses such universal themes of human lives that you can't help but identify, at least a little, with the characters. And the other great gift of Tolstoy's is one of descriptive writing - buildings, fields, balls and landscapes simple or magnificent, all are a joy to read. I only wish that I could read Russian, and enjoy this in the original rather than a translation! While it is inevitable that such a huge book will have boring passages, they were fewer than I had predicted, and I found skimming over them didn't adversely alter the story at all. The only other annoyance was that there was so much French in my translation - perhaps a French dictionary by your side would be a good idea! (The Russian aristocracy of the time spoke French as much, if not more, than they did Russian, so it is not that odd). Don't be put off by the size of this tome - there is sure to be much in it to interest all types of readers. Note: though I do think he should have stopped the book after Anna's death -the book loses steam after that, especially the chapters about Levin & his 'what is the point of living' thoughts. This lost it a star in my rating.
Rating:
Summary: A flawed major masterpiece
Review: All literary masterpieces are alike in their perfection. Each imperfect novel is flawed in its own way. Though inside "Anna Karenina" there resides a masterpiece, as a whole this novel is seriously flawed. Yet the sub-masterpiece it contains, by itself, amply justifies reading "Anna Karenina" in full. What is "Anna Karenina" about? Ultimately it is about what makes humans suffer and about what Tolstoy thinks is the right way to relieve this suffering. His brilliant ideas about the causes of human suffering start from the fact that everybody has more than one goal in life, and attaining these goals is what defines happiness for most people. The trouble is that these goals invariably clash and the more one approaches one of them, the more elusive the others become and so one starts to suffer. Anna wants to be a good mother to her son, but also to fully experience the love of a man who is not her husband. Count Vronsky wants to make a career commensurate with his family's position in society and at the same time to live openly with another man's wife. Prince Oblonsky wants to see his family prosper and endure, while at the same time pursuing an active sexual life with many women. Exploring the painful consequences of these conflicting goals is certainly a valid approach towards understanding human suffering. This by itself would give this novel a solid philosophical and psychological underpinning. Trouble is, once he gets to the root of the problem of human suffering, and this is no mean feat, Tolstoy believes he knows the right solution as well, and starts preaching it. The spiritual solution he comes up with is embarrassingly naïve, if not outright silly. One could forgive him for this naiveté were one not treated to similar harangues also about the problems of Russian agriculture of all things. That these problems interested Tolstoy does not justify their extensive, muddled and by now hopelessly obsolete discussion in "Anna Karenina", which was surely intended as an enduring work of literary fiction. In spite of these shortcomings, what makes this book so compelling is Tolstoy's artistry. One may feel disappointed by the novel as a whole and still thoroughly love many of its short chapters, for many are true gems. Tolstoy is a keen observer of human body language and is able in a few perfectly chosen words to describe one simple gesture which fully captures the mood and intention of a character. He uses internal monologue with true mastery, as in the chapters between Anna's last quarrel with Vronsky and her suicide. He can also abuse this technique, most egregiously in the part of the hunting scene recounted as Laska's inner monologue, Laska being .... Levin's dog! As self-parody this might be funny, though out of place, but one cannot escape the impression that Tolstoy simply got carried away. Excesses of all kind mar this book. Take one of the most stunning metaphors which appears in the skating scene, "He [Levin] stepped down, avoiding any long look at her [Kitty] as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking." As if uncertain of the strength of this metaphor, four paragraphs later Tolstoy has Levin "not losing sight of her for a moment although not looking at her. He felt the sun approaching him." Just in case, two pages later he is at it again "her face lost its kind expression ---as when the sun hides behind a cloud ---..." At one point a valid criticism of Wagner's operas is voiced. This is interesting, because it suggests that Tolstoy's use of the leitmotif may have been borrowed and adapted from that composer. Virtually each time a character appears, his or her leitmotif is sounded, Anna's leimotif being her small hands and the many rings on her fingers, Countess Lydia Ivanovna's, her "beautiful dreamy black eyes", Vronsky's, his beautiful white teeth. The toothache Tolstoy visits on these white teeth after Anna's suicide has an effect not unlike the change of tonality at the end of Ravel's Bolero. The descriptions of social events, balls, dinners, receptions, horse races, opera performances, are of a beauty so remarkable as to totally eclipse the scenes of country life involving the curmudgeonly Levin and the Shcherbatsky clan. The greatest strength of "Anna Karenina" is Tolstoy's deep understanding of his characters' motivations, rationalizations, deceptions and self-deceptions. Even Karenin, hardly anyone's favorite nice guy, is capable of noble acts and of decency, and is not presented as some evil caricature. Small peripheral characters like Madame Stahl, the pietist, become truly memorable (in her case it is revealed that she is confined to a wheelchair not for medical reasons, but for reasons of vanity, so she can hide her short ugly legs). Anna's whirling in the depressive vortex that ultimately claims her life is so convincing as to appear inevitable. In addition to its septet of main characters (Anna, Karenin, Vronsky, Kitty, Levin, Oblonsky and Dolly) there is an eighth main character around, the narrator. Like the other seven, this narrator has his own conflicting goals, deceptions and self-deceptions. Although one might argue that the Levin character is the Tolstoy stand-in, one might equally well have him share this role with the narrator. Between the two of them they come endowed with a sufficiently extensive list of shortcomings, to account for all the serious problems of this major novel (among them, both the "agricultural" and "spiritual" problems mentioned earlier). Maybe Tolstoy had the ultimate honesty of baring even his own self-deceptions. If only they could be as compelling as those of Anna, Vronsky, Karenin and Oblonsky. But then, who is to say that these four are not, at some deeper level, also stand-ins for Count Lev Tolstoy. Maybe we are witnessing nothing short of a full public airing of all the dirty linen of one very complex man.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Intoxicating Novel
Review: I began reading Tolstoy with the novel War and Peace. Not only was the book amazing but while reading it you feel as if you were actually in the story. It occurred to me that Tolstoy was truly an amazing author. After reading War and Peace I continued with The Death of Ivan Ilych. This writing amazed me and I knew I had to continue with another of his novels. I decided on Anna Karenina, which was a very good decision.
The story of Anna is a complex story and would only be appreciated by readers who can delve into a long novel and grasp the details that are imperative in understanding the novel. When reading any Tolstoy novel you have to be able to understand the complexity of the details he includes and then apply them to the overall story. If this is done the story of Anna is revealed in its true beauty. Anna is a wonderful novel full of every emotion possible. The story also is fraught with human truths that you know exist, but never really grasp. Tolstoy is amazing at revealing these human truths. It will keep your attention by relating to human experience. This novel grabs you and makes you feel as though you are Anna yourself and the characters are your acquaintances or friends. When you begin the book you may feel overwhelmed by the usage of words, the small print, and the number of pages. Get passed that sensation and take in the words. If you take some time to let the word usage in the beginning settle in your mind, then the rest of the book will just flow to you and the small print and number of pages will dissipate as a challenge. Anna Karenina is a must read, and once read your life and your outlook on life will change.
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