Anna Karenina (Barnes & Noble Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Long but good
Review: Anna Karenina is only one of the characters in this revealing novel of 19th century Russia. There are several relationships studied -- that of Anna and Alexey Karenina (which fails because Anna leaves Alexey for Vronsky), Anna Karenina and Vronsky, Dolly and Stiva Oblonsky, and Kitty Shtcherbatskaya and Kostya Levin. Each relationship is different and the manner in which each couple works through the issues that might/do tear them apart is interesting. Also interesting is the manner in which Tolstoy turns this otherwise secular novel into a "Christian" novel.

Rating:
Summary: The best translation available for your reading pleasure!
Review: I could visualize every scene in the book because of this translation. I don't like Oprah's recommended translation (from Pelican books). I loved the cover painting, the font, the way the book opened, the layout, everything! I felt like I just went into the book every time I opened it. I didn't get that feeling with Oprah's version. If you're going to tackle Anna K (and you should, it's great reading!), please try this version.

Rating:
Summary: Anna Karenina: patience required
Review: If you're going to read this novel, don't do it because you have to (school homework, etc). It will be a torture.
The bad: this novel requires from the reader a great deal of PATIENCE. Tolstoi rambles y writes for pages and pages as if he were paid by the word. The book's title is "Anna Karenina", but it could well be " Anna Karenina, her husband, her son, her lover, her brother, her brother's family, the brother's friend and other Russian socialites, and what happens to them in a little over two years". Or "Konstantin Levin", for this character also appears throughout the novel... and he's even is the last to speak!
The good: In spite of being SO long, it is good. In its pages you'll find how we deal with jealousy, love, depression, recovering from depression, marriage, death and even addictions. (Yes, Tolstoi wrote in the XIXth. century about opium addicts). Every reader will find something or someone familiar in the story.
To me, the gist of the book is the question: How come someone who has everything (and I mean everything) going for him (or her), ends up unhappy? How do we close the door on happiness ? I invite you to read this novel and extract tout own conclusions.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful story
Review: Of course it's a classic...what more can be said about it? But what I personally learned from this story amazed me.

It covers so many topics...faith versus reason and intellect...the degeneracy of a selfish, self-involved ruling class...love of the land, of a nourishing mother earth...rejection of false values promoted by a decadent society.

Tolstoy intended this book to reflect the values of home and family, and the triumphs and tragedies of love (by comparison, he intended "War and Peace" to reflect nationhood), and truly it does, as here expressed principally through the Shcherbatsky girls---love dissipated between Dolly and Stepan...love deepened between Kitty and Levin...love constant between Natalie and Lvov. And although their stories weave in and around the (perhaps?) principal characters of Anna, her husband Karenin and lover Vronsky, they are powerful enough in their own right to stand entirely on their own---indeed, after all else has been said about these three, the final chapters of the book concern only Levin and Kitty.

By contrast, the experiences of Anna and Karenin are a betrayed love, and of Anna and Vronsky an illicit love. And as the others work through and resolve their own situations, so Anna finds release in death, Vronsky redemption in battle, and Karenin victory (of sorts) in survival.

But as enjoyable as the story was, there were some annoyances...while the rich dimensions of its characters need sufficient time to develop, the length of the book makes it a formidable read...unless you understand French, its use in several key passages may leave the reader wondering just what point was being made...and trying to follow the abundance of Russian names, many of which are mentioned only once or twice and some of which take on awkward variations, can be daunting.

Still, it was very hard at times to put the book down---I'd plan on reading 25 or so pages a night and before I realized it, I had done 75 or more.



Rating:
Summary: Its lifelike in size, reach and reading!
Review: This is a translated version, and since I cannot read Russian, I cannot tell how well it conveys what Tolstoy really wrote and meant. What I can say after reading this mammoth novel is that it is lifelike. In one book, Tolstoy presents the Russia of late 19th century, the urban Moscow and Petersburg hoi polloi, the rural noblemen and peasantry, politics, religion, horse racing, hunting, balls, love, adultery, heartbreaks, death, birth, marriage and everything else that needs to be put on this masterpiece canvass to create a complete recreation of life.

There are three essential characters. Anna Karenina who deserts her husband to live with her lover, Count Vronsky who is a dashing and colonel Anna falls for and Levin who some say is Tolstoy's autobiographical sketch in some ways.

This novel has several love stories, developed delightfully in beginning and then these give way to the ground realities of the world and society. In some sense, the novel is like those movies that show everything from birth to death, and hence the delightful childhood, or steamy romance of adulthood become just frames in passing imagery, where the whole is spectacular and full of everything.

Through Anna's and Vronsky's stories, set in Moscow and Petersburg, the life of Princes and Princesses comes live with associated gossip, glamor, balls, grand parties, dresses and fashion, and many characters appear and reappear to tell intertwined tales of several lifes. These lifes are of people with money or inheritances, they speak multiple languages, have servants and maids and valets to look after the mundane stuff, have enough time to dwell on questions of social justice, ethics and natural sciences through their eyes that judge from a distance. On the other hand, Levin is a rural nobleman, uncormfortable in the city. His life mixes with the toil of peasants who cut, mow, grow, reap, harvest, and thrash crops. He practically encounters the questions of faith in God, of social justice and enpowerment, of natural sciences but placed in the other world of his city relations and friends finds himself wanting with respect to articulating his views on anything and everything.

Anna is a complex character: a beautiful women split between multiple roles of mother, wife, sister, lover, social outcast and allows Tolstoy to present a multitude of beautifully created emotions through her. Levin fulfils the role of a thinker and doubter alike, of a "nice guys finish last" league gentleman, of a compelling person with principles that make him appear unmotivated or worldly inept to uninitiated. Vronsky is to begin with the "happy go lucky" charmers, and must in his lifetime discover how great love (to others wife) comes at great cost. Without disclosing the story too much, let me just say there are other important and completely developed characters, who have their pieces of life added to serve a grand buffet of possibilities.

As a novel that opens the window into life in Russia, this novel will remain an important masterpiece that can also be read for its splendid love stories, for discussions on ethics, politics, faith and morality and for patient reading spread over weeks. It is a classic, a meganovel, and needs time, respect, and patience; but reading a novel of this skill and magnitude is in my view, a delightful experience unmatched by reading dozens of easy read 100 page books we buy as bestsellers in bookstores everwhere. Commit to it, and experience the love, life, flora, fauna, streets, winds and tea in Russia in Tolstoy's masterly detail:)