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In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.
luzestrella: when I got to the middle of the book I was shocked. It seens like the climax of all the main conclicts were already there. Why didn't the author cut the novel right there with that happy ending?
Unnusual for a ficcion novel indeep. But for that particular reason, for me it has it's charm.
The other half of the novel goes on describing what happened with the characters after they got what they wanted.… (more)
andejons: Similar premises: married, upper class women fall in love with men of less than perfect moral standing. The outcomes are very different though.
pingdjip: Like Tolstoy, Faber goes under his characters' skin, ponders their social manoeuvering, and follows the pitfalls and triumphs of their lives. Difference: Faber is funny and sometimes provocative and teasing in a "postmodern" way.
(spoilers) Like all of Tolstoy's big books this has taken a chunk out of my life but many were the moments that I wanted to give-up on Anna Karenina because I found sections of it fairly tedious and plodding. Nevertheless, I ploughed on to the end, like one of the diligent peasants, and was rewarded by passages of great lyrical beauty, especially where the countryside entered the story. Although Anna's death ultimately has no meaning or significance and her 'tiny hands' and Vronsky's 'straight teeth' were a repetitious form of cultural (perhaps temporal) dissonance, I felt as though I'd only been given a tantalising glimpse of Anna. She seemed to have come from nowhere (unlike the other characters). Just as the power of her full womanhood came to assert itself, she began a descent onto a deranged path of delusional self-destruction. She could so easily have found happiness. But maybe that was the point: that happiness was a delusion. Certainly, Levin believes there is 'nothing for every man to look forward to except suffering, death, and everlasting oblivion'. However, right at the end of the book he manages to arrive at what could be a durable moment of realisation related to an unconditional and innate 'goodness'. Although accompanied by revelation and even lightning, he claims this comes quietly. He struggles a little to separate it from religion but manages to do so just as the novel enfolds its ending in a form of domestic bliss.
What I missed in this book written with Tolstoy's author omniscience was the way he was able to stand aside from the action and comment as he did in 'War and Peace'. Nevertheless, almost a similar effect is achieved (with wry comment) when many of the characters appear to respond to some will of their own, almost beyond the author's control. A character would intend to say or do one thing but instead say or do another. For example,
'Anna looked at Dolly's thin, careworn face with its wrinkles filled with dust and was about to tell her what she was thinking, namely, that Dolly looked thinner; but remembering that her own looks had improved and that Dolly's eyes had told her so, she signed and began talking about herself.'
Anna Karenina slowly meanders its way through the judgements of the patriarchal society revolving around the titular character, and very patiently unveils the double standards that lie underneath. However, it doesn't really give the reader anything to anticipate, and despite there being a buildup towards the end from the titular character's perspective, the climax feels somewhat abrupt, and certainly left this reviewer longing for more closure. ( )
What a journey for a super-slow reader like me. Yet reading the whole thing was heavy. Anna brought too much sadness and despair, while Levin made me questioning my own faith every hour. Tolstoy was also put details in telling the Russian politics & their social dilemma.
What is the cost of happiness? That was what I asked when I understand Anna's tragic faith. And when every women out there have some form of happiness, why Anna felt a pang of despairs? But the more her life was told, the more it shows how much mistake she made, for—as Levin said— the way of living and thinking. The more I read, the more I understand the first sentence of this story: All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. So, happiness is not on how much love you accept from someone, or how loyal they are to you. Happiness is as simple as finding a new hope, faith, and understand what you haven't understood previously. Anna failed to understood how simple happiness is, and continued pursuing in her glamorous lifestyle which actually meaningless.In the end, she left this world with so much despair for both Alexeis.
This book could happily have been ~300 pages long, so by the time Anna fell in front of the train I was rooting for it as a sign that the book was close to over. ( )
Vengeance is mine; I will repay. ~ Deuteronomy 32:35
Dedication
First words
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (C. Garnett, 1946) and (J. Carmichael, 1960)
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему. Всё смешалось в доме Облонских.
All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. (N. H. Dole, 1886)
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (Pevear, Volokhonsky, 2000)
Quotations
"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be." [Anna, p744 (2000)]
"He has long ceased loving me. And where love stops, hatred begins." [Anna, p763 (2000)]
Every minute of Alexei Alexandrovich's life was occupied and scheduled. And in order to have time to do what he had to do each day, he held to the strictest punctuality. 'Without haste and without rest' was his motto. [p109 (2000)]
Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is. [p302 (2000)]
Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires. [...] He soon felt arise in his soul a desire for desires, an anguish. [p465 (2000)]
He [Levin] was happy, but, having entered upon family life, he saw at every step that it was not what he had imagined. [p479 (2000)]
There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way. [p706 (2000)]
"If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it's true, as papa says, ---- that when we were brought up there was one extreme --- we were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now its just the other way --- the parent are in the wash-house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children." [Natalia; p618)
“Vronsky’s life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as invariable rules: that on must pay a card debt, but one need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may cheat a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one, and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up.”
But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?
It's a vicious circle. Women are deprived of rights because of their lack of education, and their lack of education comes from having no rights. We mustn't forget that the subjection of women is so great and so old that we often refuse to comprehend the abyss that separates them from us.
Last words
I'll go on not understanding with my reason why I pray, and go on praying--but from now on my life, my whole life, no matter what happens to me, every second of it, is not only not meaningless as it was before, but it has the incontestable meaning of the goodness I have the power to put into it! (J. Carmichael, 1960)
I shall continue to pray without being able to explain to myself why, but my inward life has conquered its liberty. It will no longer be at the mercy of circumstances ; and my whole life, every moment of my life, will be, not meaningless as before, but full of deep meaning, which I shall have the power to impress on every action. (N. H. Dole, 1886)
This is the work for the complete Anna Karenina. Please do not combine with any of the works representing the individual volumes (see combination rules regarding part/whole issues for details), or with abridged versions. Thank you.
Please keep the Norton Critical Edition un-combined with the rest of them – it is significantly different with thorough explanatory annotations, essays by other authors, and reviews by other authors. Thank you.
In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.
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Book description
Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, “Anna Karenina” is Tolstoy’s classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer. Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, and in doing so captures a breathtaking tapestry of late-nineteenth-century Russian society. As Matthew Arnold wrote in his celebrated essay on Tolstoy, “We are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art; we are to take it as a piece of life.”
Haiku summary
The moral of this: Adultery drives one mad. And watch out for trains. (hillaryrose7)
Peasants have it grand. A day labouring with them. Then three-course dinner. (alsoCass)
What I missed in this book written with Tolstoy's author omniscience was the way he was able to stand aside from the action and comment as he did in 'War and Peace'. Nevertheless, almost a similar effect is achieved (with wry comment) when many of the characters appear to respond to some will of their own, almost beyond the author's control. A character would intend to say or do one thing but instead say or do another. For example,
( )