Anna Karenina (1877)

I never thought I would finish this book! Finally. It took me almost 2 weeks to finish it. The classics always take me longer. I was not impressed with this book. I felt like they spent more time talking about others such as Kitty and Levin, than they did talking about Anna and her whole situation. They spent page after page, chapter after chapter talking about things that had no bearing on Anna and her situation, such as Levin's farming and Levin's hunting and Levin's meetings. Though I realize these things explain the type of person Levin is, I believe they could have been summed up in less pages. I did find the ending of Anna's story rather surprising. I was not expecting that. Though I probably will not read this book again, it will remain on my bookshelf. It is a classic after all. ( )

Just because you can take 800 pages to say something about the human condition doesn't mean you should.

I'd rather be reading Chekhov. ( )

I really did enjoy this book. I freely admit that it would've taken me 5 years to read in print. Thank goodness I listened to this one instead. I really found the story captivating and the characters engaging. The only drawbacks were that I couldn't stay focused during some of the parts related to politics and theology. I think my substandard background knowledge about Russian history might have something to do with that. I had 2 different editions of the audiobook. I preferred the one performed by to the one performed David Horovitch to the one performed by Davina Porter. Question: Why not also translate the French in the book? What makes them think I need the Russian translated but not the French? Every time someone spoke French I heard, "We are well to-do Russians and we don't want the hoi polloi to understand us." Eh, that's pretty much what they were saying, I think. Now I have to consider my cousin's recommendation to start with Dostoevsky rather than Tolstoy... (I did follow this advice.) ( )

1073/1500 ( )

After several months of procrastinating and putting off listening to this book, I finally dived in, deciding that I would finish this before the end of the year. Surprisingly, I ended up finishing it in a little over a week! I enjoyed almost every bit of the book, and the Audible narrative by Maggie Gyllenhall is very good. She is about as far from being my favorite actress as she can get, but she read this classic admirably.

This book is known as the “single greatest novel ever written”, and it is very good. Tolstoy's narrative moves easily from stage to stage and scene to scene; the characters’ lives progress naturally through Russian society in the 1870s.

The story focuses on just a few main characters: Anna Arkadyevna Karenina and her husband Aleksey Alexandrovich Karenin; Count Aleksey Kirilich Vronksy, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin, and Kitty Scherbatskaya. These characters propel the story, and it is their lives and relationships that are followed most closely. Supporting characters include Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky, his wife Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya, and Levin's brothers, truly a small cast for such a grand Russian novel.

The novel’s theme centers on relationships, specifically, the relationships in 19th Century Russian aristocratic society of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Anna Karenina is an elite, beautiful woman married to a powerful government official, Aleksey Karenin, with whom she has a son, Seryozha. She has an extended affair with the rich, dapper Count Aleksey Vronksy, and has a child with him, a daughter. Their story follows her inability to divorce her husband, and her increasing unhappiness in the relationship with Vronsky, as she is bannished by society and resents the freedom he has as a man to move in his old circles. Her jealousy and insecurity grow throughout the course of the novel, rendering her nearly mad.

The other relationship, which serves as contrast Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, is that of Levin and Kitty Scherbatskaya. Levin is several years older than the young and beautiful Kitty, daughter of one of Moscow's many princes. He is an aristocratic farmer and meticulously cares for his family's vast agrarian holdings in the country. At the beginning of the novel, he was courting Kitty, but had returned to the country. When he returns to ask her to marry him, he sees that she is infatuated with Vronksy, whom he doesn't trust. Vronsky meets Anna Karenina at a ball and stops calling on Kitty, breaking her heart. After a long separation, Kitty and Levin meet again and she happily agrees to marry him. Their storyline follows their marriage and the birth of their son, Dimitry.

This novel is a slice out of life. The characters are incredibly realistic and complex, as is the pace and plot of the novel. The true artistry, however, lies in Tolstoy's effective setting of one relationship against another. The "good couple" Levin and Kitty have difficulties in adjusting to each other and in their relationship. Levin, like Anna, is jealous, but unlike Vronsky and Anna, he is motivated by love and generosity to overcome his angry feelings for the benefit of a harmonious home. Other aspects of the two different relationships greatly contrast one another. A very compelling character is made of Aleksey Alexandrovich Karenin, whom Anna despises, but who undergoes a convincing and sad degeneration of self as Anna leaves him and he maintains custody of the son that she loves. He gets caught up with a society woman who has converted to a fundamentalist, ecstatic Christianity and gives him advice, ultimately leading him to allow a French faux-mystic to decide the fate of his marriage to Anna.

The novel has a well-known climax, beautifully written, which allows the reader to come through the shock and pain to what Levin discovers beyond the love of the family life he craved. This is definitely a masterpiece, worth the time spent on every page. ( )