i'm reading anna karenina . OMG.

its such a page turner!! i've NEVER BEFORE enjoyed reading a book before. i'm totally engrossed in it. i've never read any of tolstoy's books before, so i guess now i have to check it out. i wonder if this has to do with me being a russian speaker? OMG. i'm an instant fan.

Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books.

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I read a good portion of AK and got really into it. Then I was watching Jeopardy and one of the clues gave away the ending. Now I just can't get back into it. Talk about a spoiler!

I was really annoyed at that Jeopardy episode too. I knew the ending of Anna Karenina already, but I think there was a whole category of spoilers? Or maybe that was a different episode. Anyway, very irritating.

If you think AK is gripping, wait till you read War and Peace. The first few pages are a struggle, which is maybe why it has the reputation of being a 'difficult' book (lots of long Russian names to get to grips with) but past page 20 or so it's unputdownable.

W&P is one of my all-time favorites, and I am now reading it for the third time (the new translation).

Another TBR on my list, but at least I don't know the ending yet!

I don't know whether it is still available, but the old Cliffs Notes on War and Peace was very useful. The second or third time, maybe the most recent time, I read the novel I used Cliffs Notes to keep track of the characters, and I read the plot summary for each chapter, or whatever block, after I read the chapter itself to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I did not skip the battle scenes.

When I reread it, I expect I will read the second edition of the Norton Critical Edition.

Robert

I am reading the new Richard Pevear/Larissa Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace and aside from being compelling, it includes a list of characters in the front, extensive footnotes, an historical index, and chapter summaries.

I loved Anna Karenina too. If you haven't already read Madame Bovary, you might like that a lot too. The two books have a lot in common.

Well, only in the sense that they have the same general subject, i.e., adulterous wives.

>3 PensiveCat:

Do you read a book because of the plot, or because of the joy of reading it?

I think knowing what happens takes away some of the joy of reading a book for the first time.

I read this in my early 20's. I know what you mean about segments of this book really grip the reader, though the conclusion left me feeling slightly dispondent. I suspect it may have been caused by tolstoy opting for a pragmatic ending, as opposed to the happy ever after ending I had hoped for.

I read AK in my late teens, and then again in my late 40s. I had a VERY different take on the book once I was older. This led me to reread various classics I had first read as a teenager, and I found it fascinating to discover how my perceptions changed.

I read Anna Karenina decades ago, in translation. I didn't finish it because it's horrible. It reads like a cheap love romance like the onese you buy in the super market, three for a buck.
Same for War and Peace. I recommend reading Woody Allen's summary instead of the real thing.

You want to read a page turner, you read Dostoyewski.

#15, xtien, Well, it's all a matter of taste. I certainly don't feel that way about either AK (which to my way of thinking is much more about the different ways people adapt or fail to adapt to the strictures of a highly structured society than about romance) and W&P (which is impossible to categorize, but could be thought of, partly,as a look at how history works). On the other hand, I have never been a big Dostoyevsky fan, but I wouldn't call his work "horrible," just not to my taste.

As my mother would have said, "that's what makes horse racing."

Well, it's all a matter of taste.

Absolutely.

#5
That's good to know. The one reason War and Peace is in my TBR pile still is because it's so damn big.LOL. I'll get around to reading it at some point.

#16
Dostoevsky isn't better or worse, just different. I suppose his works are not considered a "sweeping epic" or a grand love story as say War and Peace or Anna Karenina, but his books are good in other ways. I read The Brothers Karamazov and it's a decent book in its own right, a tad dark but still a good read. Like rebeccanyc stated, it's all a matter of taste.