Timeless story of love and infidelity, the suffocation of familiarity and tragedy of the unattainable ( )

Tolstoy writing astonishingly accurately about a woman's inner life long before the advent of feminism or psychoanalysis.

Synopsis:

The tale of a society woman and her unconventional love affair contrasts with that of a landowner struggling with faith and duty.

Review:

Anna Karenina. The very words have struck me with fear and awe ever since a disastrous Russian History class in 12th grade, where I discovered my superpower’s limits for the first time. I elected to read Anna for my final paper because I wanted to read Anna, but I had four AP exams happening at the same time and should’ve chosen something much shorter. The whole thing blew up in my face and I ended up getting in trouble for not reading the entire book, which at my school was an honor offense. Since other girls in my class had out-and-out cheated, I ended up just having to take a C on the paper (which was very well-written on the 200 pages I actually read). I think that might have been what kept me out of my top-choice college but I ended up loving the school I went to so, as you see, things worked out for the best even though AP exams are my Kryptonite.

Here I am *cough* years later, and I find that Anna Karenina is an astonishingly fast read. I couldn’t be more riveted by all of the characters Tolstoy presents to me: passionate, foolish Anna; tormented, brooding Levin; flighty, honest Kitty; and “he’s just not that into you” Vronsky. Tolstoy masterfully shifts between (rare) third person omniscient, first person stream-of-consciousness, and many scenes where point-of-view shifts between several characters as they interact with each other.

As Anna and Vronsky’s relationship implodes, Tolstoy ratchets up the tension by leaving us inside Anna’s head as she has the mother of all panic attacks. Anyone who’s ever been unable to let well enough alone in a relationship will connect with Anna’s torment as she tries to force Vronsky to be loving towards her without seeing that her need and dependence is driving him away. She’s a black hole that can’t be filled, and Vronsky responds with the cold hammer of indifference. It’s horrifying, because it’s so true to life, and Tolstoy doesn’t miss a single shade of the horror.

Levin’s story was a welcome reprieve from Anna’s darkness. Though he’s suffering metaphysical pangs related to his inability to have faith, he never seems in danger the way Anna does, even though he contemplates suicide from time to time. I think it’s because his struggles are honest. He’s not lying to himself the way Anna is. Anna wants her infidelity to be something other than it is. She wants to call evil good. Levin, on the other hand, wants to know the nature of goodness, because, despite his atheism, he sees good in the world and wants to be as close to it as he can. His frustration comes when he sees how his own innate selfishness and pettiness keep him from his goal.

Some the best passages in Anna Karenina concern the nature of marriage, which Tolstoy examines from all angles. There are the bad marriages, of course, like Anna’s, and like that of Anna’s brother Oblonsky who is a compulsive philanderer. But there is also a marriage that’s just a normal marriage between two people trying to get used to one another. They have ups and downs, times of tenderness and times of warfare, and Tolstoy shows it all.

There are scenes in Anna Karenina that I’ll never forget: Levin in the fields mowing with the peasants, Kitty at the ball, Karenin forgiving his wife as she gives birth to another man’s son, Levin’s brother on his deathbed, Kitty’s giving birth to her first child, and many others–but most of all, I will never forget Anna, proud Anna with her dark hair and sad eyes. I want to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to see the truth about Vronsky, that their love is counterfeit, that she doesn’t have to put up with it from him or put up with Karenin’s mocking piety or society’s stupid rules. I’m so angry because I love her so very, very much.

(A note on the translation: I found the Joel Carmichael translation to be accessible, and the introduction said it has a lot to do with the naming conventions, which are English, not Russian (where you get all the patronyms and nicknames and different people calling the same person different things at different times. It must have worked, because I had no problem keeping the vast amount of characters and their relationships straight. I definitely recommend this translation.) ( )

Wow. Truly a book of epic proportions, that very much deserves its status as a classic. I think this books is generally revered for the breadth of humanity it portrays, and I think that that is generally the best sense in which to understand it. It is basically a social novel in the European style (think Jane Austen, et al.), but generally much much larger. It follows the interconnected lives of a handful of characters through their relatively normal lives. No larger-than-life heroes, just the large-ness of the mundane lives that everyone leads. Regular people making their decisions and living with them, coming to terms with the world around them.

Going into this book I knew nothing about it, except for the fate of the title character (I won't spoil it, but knowing the spoiler probably actually helped keep my interest in the slower sections). Retrospectively, I found Anna the least interesting of the characters. Everyone involved is well-developed and their interconnected stories successfully explore their characters and motivations. On the surface this sounds like a book (an 850 page book, at that) with no particular plot to speak of, that's just kind of "about people" in the most vague way possible, but it really is an insightful look at the human condition, and earns its length, in my opinion. Well worth the effort! ( )

A timeless novel that is more about human behavior than 19th century Russia, though the backdrop of 19th century beliefs and social order provides the backdrop. But what makes the book timeless is how people behave, react and fair because of the constraints put on them regardless if those constraints are caused by their time in history. A new era of constraints and you could write the outcome of this story exactly the same. ( )