This book made me want to also throw myself in front of a train.

I've read my fair share of classics and sometimes they just don't work for me. I could deal with the horses, the farming and the hunting but I draw the line I not caring one bit about anyone.

After learning more about his wife, I wonder how much of this book was inspired by their lives. I'm more interested in reading more about her.

Η Άννα Καρένινα είναι το βιβλίο με τη μεγαλύτερη αναγνωστική βιωματική διαδρομή που έχω διανύσει μέχρι στιγμής. Αισθάνομαι την ικανοποίηση της ολοκλήρωσης ενός πνευματικού μαραθωνίου! Διαβάζοντάς το, αποταμίευσα ώρες απόλαυσης, ώρες με ενδόμυχα τετ-α-τετ με τον εαυτό μου, στιγμές που κάποιος άνοιξε ένα πορτάκι στο μέσα μου και σκάλιζε και σκάλιζε..

Το σύμπαν του Τολστόι είναι μεγαλοπρεπές, είναι επικό και ταυτόχρονα πολύ ανθρώπινο, γήινο αλλά και βαθιά τραγικό· η γραφή του απλή, οι στοχασμοί του εμβριθείς. Ο έρωτας στο βιβλίο είναι σφοδρός, θανατηφόρος, περίπλοκος, ένας έρωτας περήφανος που καταλήγει αλυσιτελής, μιασμένος από την ίδια του την περηφάνια και δεν μπορεί να έχει λόγο ύπαρξης όταν εκποιείται και στέκεται κατώτερος των αρχικών περιστάσεων κάτω από τις οποίες ευδοκίμησε.

Ο Τολστόι παίρνει τον διάλογο μεταξύ ενός άνδρα και μιας γυναίκας «Τι έχεις;» «Τίποτα.» και τον κάνει χίλια κομματάκια. Τον ερμηνεύει με μια διείσδυση στη γυναικεία ιδιοσυγκρασία άνευ προηγουμένου, τον ξετυλίγει και τον αποδομεί σε τέτοιο βαθμό που το αιώνιο μυστηριώδες αίνιγμα βρίσκει τη λύση του εκεί όπου πάλλεται η ερωτευμένη γυναικεία καρδιά.

Όμως δεν είναι μόνο η Άννα Καρένινα στην Άννα Καρένινα. Είναι και ο μέσα κόσμος του Κόστια Λιέβιν, του ανθρώπου που διαβάζει τη σκέψη του ανήσυχου και περίεργου αναγνώστη, του ανθρώπου που θέτει τα πιο εσωτερικά και για πολλούς δια βίου ερωτήματα που τον βασανίζουν, που ψάχνει να βρει το νόημα της ζωής του, το νόημα της ζωής στην οικουμενικότητά του.

Η Άννα Καρένινα είναι ένα μεγάλο έργο τέχνης που, με φόντο μια ολόκληρη εποχή της τσαρικής Ρωσίας του 19ου αιώνα, εγγράφονται πάνω του με τρόπο μοναδικό στοχασμοί πάνω στον έρωτα, στο τι είναι θεμιτό και τι όχι στη σύντομη ζωή μας πάνω στη γη, στις κοινωνικές συμβάσεις, στον θάνατο, την πίστη στο θεό και κυρίως, την πίστη στον ίδιο τον άνθρωπο.

Άννα Καρένινα και Κονσταντίν Λιέβιν καταχωρίζονται δικαίως ως δυο περσόνες της παγκόσμιας λογοτεχνίας· η μεν πρώτη ενσαρκώνει την αιώνια Γυναίκα με όλα τα τρωτά συναισθηματικά της αδιέξοδα, που επωμίζεται στις πλάτες της το βάρος της κοινωνικής κατακραυγής λόγω των επιλογών της, ο δε δεύτερος τον άνθρωπο που καταγίνεται με την πνευματικότητα και επιλέγει την ησυχία μιας υγιούς και καθ’ όλα γήινης οικογενειακής ζωής.

Πώς αξίζει τελικά να ζήσεις τη ζωή σου;

Ένα δραματικό αριστούργημα.

*Η έκδοση του Γκοβόστη και η μετάφραση της Κοραλίας Μακρή είναι άψογα.

În locul unei recenzii inutile, aș menționa în nota de față cartea lui J. Peder Zane (pare un pseudonim) intitulată The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books (Norton, 2007). Dintr-un motiv simplu.

Autorul a întrebat (mai bine de) 125 de scriitori despre cărțile lor preferate (o ierarhie de 10 titluri), a primit răspunsuri (unii le-au evitat), și a alcătuit un top ten. Pe primul loc s-a situat Anna Karenina. Sigur, nici o listă de acest fel nu e definitivă. Și nici infailibilă. Dacă ancheta s-ar face în 2021, lista ar arăta probabil diferit.

Cu toate acestea, dincolo de oscilațiile gustului și judecăților noastre, dincolo de hachițele unei epoci, cîteva cărți ar fi nominalizate din nou și din nou. Dintre ele, presupun că n-ar lipsi Anna Karenina. Nu pentru c�� Tolstoi a lucrat 5 ani la roman (1872 - 1877), ci fiindcă Anna Karenina ridică o problemă capitală (și cît se poate de actuală): ce se întîmplă cînd societatea exclude un individ / o femeie din rîndurile ei, din pricina faptelor și credințelor celui / celei repudiat(e)? În romanul lui Tolstoi, răspunsul e inevitabil: individul e zdrobit. Nimeni (nici bărbat, nici femeie) nu are puterea să înfrunte blamul (morala, legile) societății. Te supui sau pieri.

A trecut aproape un secol și jumătate de la publicarea cărții lui Lev Nikolaevici Tolstoi. Și e firesc să ne întrebăm dacă s-a schimbat ceva în tot acest timp. Trăim oare într-o societate mai tolerantă? Ar supraviețui astăzi Anna Karenina? Nu m-aș grăbi să dau un răspuns pozitiv...

P. S. Am uitat să pun top ten-ul lui J. Peder Zane. Iată:

1. Lev Tolstoi, Anna Karenina
2. Gustave Flaubert, Doamna Bovary
3. Lev Tolstoi, Război și pace
4. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
5. Mark Twain, Aventurile lui Huckleberry Finn
6. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
7. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marele Gatsby
8. Marcel Proust, În căutarea timpului pierdut
9. Anton Chekhov, Povestiri
10. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Team Levin

Anna Karenina is spectacularly well written, with short paragraphs and chapters, that it doesn’t remind me of stuffy writing from 1878.

This tome is my second foray into Leo Tolstoy’s work, my first being a short novel, The Death of Ivan Ilych.

“Honesty is only a negative qualification,” he said. – Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

At the center of this story is Anna Karenina who is a charming, married woman who falls in love with Count Vronsky (definitely not her husband). It also focuses on Dolly and Stepan Oblonsky as well as Kitty and Levin.

This book is written in such a style where you can “hear” the characters’ thoughts, and it highlighted the difference in how men and women are treated in society. And if it was just the romance and societal tension, I would have rated this book 5 stars.

However, there was a lot of commentary about peasants and religion. As I am not an expert in Russian history/politics of 1878, this part was a bit over my head. I felt like I needed a wise sage to guide me through these parts.

This book is interesting enough and worthy of a reread, but I would have to rope in a person a bit wiser than myself to help me along. Any volunteers?

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta My Bookstore at Pango

“Anna Karenina,” my friend told me, “is one of the few books that have influenced how I live my life from day to day.”
tt
This statement touches on a question I often wonder about: Can reading great fiction make you a better person? I don’t mean to ask whether it can improve your mental agility or your knowledge of the world, for it undoubtedly does. But can these books make you kinder, wiser, more moral, more content? The answer to this question is far from self-evident. And maybe we should be doubtful, when we consider how many disagreeable Shakespeare fans have probably existed. Nevertheless, I suspect that most of us are inclined to say yes, these books do improve us. But how?
tt
Here are my answers. First, many great works of fiction tackle the moral question directly: What does it mean to be good? How do you live a good life? What is the point of it all? Dostoyevsky is the exemplary author in this respect, who was intensely, almost morbidly, preoccupied with these questions. Second, great fiction often involves a social critique; many well-known authors have been penetrating guides into the hypocrisies, immoralities, and stupidities of their societies. Dickens, for example, is famous for spreading awareness of the plights of the poor; and Jane Austen performed a similar task in her novels, though much more quietly, by satirizing the narrow, pinched social rules the landed gentry had to abide by.
tt
Finally, we come to great literature’s ability to help us empathize. By imagining the actions, thoughts, feelings, desires, and hopes of another person—a person perhaps from a different time, with different values—we learn to see the world from multiple points of view. This not only helps us to understand others, but also helps us to understand ourselves. And this is important, since a big part of wise living (in my experience at least) involves the ability to see ourselves from a distance, as only one person among many, and to treat ourselves with the same good-natured respect as we treat our good friends. And the master of empathy is undoubtedly Leo Tolstoy.
tt
Leo Tolstoy was a contradictory man. He idolized the peasants and their simple life, and he preached a renunciation of worldly riches; and yet he maintained his aristocratic privileges till the end of his life. He considered marriage to be of enormous importance in living a moral life, and yet his relationship with his wife was bitterly unhappy and he ended up fleeing his house to escape. And as Isaiah Berlin pointed out in his essay on Tolstoy’s view of history, he yearned for unity and yet saw only multiplicity in the world. I can’t help attributing this contradictoriness to his nearly supernatural ability to sympathize with other points of view, which caused him to constantly be pulled in different directions.
tt
This is on full display in Anna Karenina, but I can’t discuss this or anything else about the book without copious spoilers. So if you are among the handful of people who don’t know the plot already, here is your warning.
tt
Like so many authors, Tolstoy here writes about a “fallen” woman who ends up in a bad situation. But unlike anyone else, Tolstoy presents this story without taking any clear moral stance on Anna, her society, her betrayed husband, or her lover. It is, for example, close to impossible to read this simply as a parable of the immoral woman getting her just desserts. What was Anna supposed to do? She would have condemned herself to a life of unhappiness had she stayed with Karenin. And it can hardly be said that she was responsible for her unhappy marriage, since marriages in those days were contracted when women were very young, for reasons of power and wealth, not love. Tolstoy makes this very clear, and as a result this book can be read, in part, as a feminist critique of a society that severely limits the freedom of women and condemns them to live at the mercy of their fathers and husbands.
tt
But this is not the whole story. If it is impossible to read this book as a parable of an immoral wife, it is equally impossible to read it as the heroic struggle of a wronged women against an immoral society. Anna is neither wholly right nor wrong in her decision. For in choosing to abandon her husband, she also chooses to abandon her son. Admittedly, it was only the social rules that forced her to make this choice, but the fact remains that she knowingly chose it. What’s more, unlike in Madame Bovary, where the deceived husband is not a sympathetic character, Tolstoy brings Karenin to life, showing us an imperfect and limited man, but a real man nonetheless, a man who was deeply hurt by Anna’s actions.
tt
A similar ambiguity can be seen in the relationship between Anna and Vronsky. Tolstoy never makes us doubt that they do truly love one another. This is not the story of vanity or lust, but of tender, affectionate love—a love that was denied Anna for her whole life before her affair. For his part, Vronsky is also neither wholly bad nor good. He wrongs Karenin without any moral scruples; but his love for Anna is so deep—at least at first—that he gives up his respectability, his position in the military, and even his good relationship with his family to be with her. I cannot admire Vronsky, but it is impossible for me to condemn him, just like it is impossible for me to condemn Anna or Karenin, for they were all making the choices that seemed best to them.
tt
The final effect of these conflicts is not a critique of society nor a parable of vice, but a portrayal of the tragedy of life, of the unhappiness that inevitably arises when desires are not in harmony with values and when personalities are not in harmony with societies.
tt
The other thread of this book—that of Levin and Kitty—is where Tolstoy tells us how to be happy. For Tolstoy, this involves a return to tradition; specifically, this means a return to rural Russian tradition and a concomitant shunning of urban European influence. Levin and Kitty’s happy life in the countryside is repeatedly contrasted with Vronsky and Anna’s unhappy life in the city. Levin is connected with the earth; he knows the peasants and he works with them, while Vronsky only associates with aristocrats. Levin is earnest, provincial, and clumsy, while Vronsky is urbane, cosmopolitan, and suave. Kitty is simple, unreflecting, and pure-hearted, while Anna is well-read, sophisticated, and passionate.
tt
The most obvious symbol of Europeanization is the fateful railway. Anna and Vronsky meet in a train station; Vronsky confesses his love to Anna in another train station; and it is of course a train that ends Anna’s life. Levin, by contrast, catches sight of Kitty as he sits in the grass in his farm, while Kitty goes by in a horse-drawn carriage. Anna and Vronsky travel to Italy to see the sights, while for Levin even Moscow is painfully confusing and shallow.

This contrast of urban Europe with rural Russia is mirrored in the contrast of atheism with belief. Like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy attributed the growing disbelief in Christianity to the nefarious influence of the freethinking West. In Tolstoy’s view—and in this respect he’s remarkably close to Dostoyevsky—Russians were mistaken to gleefully import European technologies and modes of thought without paying attention to how appropriate these new arrivals were to Russia. Both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wanted Russia to develop its own path into the future, a path that relied on an embrace of the Christian ethic, not an attempt to fill the vacuum left by religion with socialism and science.
tt
The final scene of this novel—where Levin renounces his old free-thinking ways and embraces Christianity—is the ultimate triumph of Russia over Europe in Levin’s soul. But this is where the book rings the most hollow for me. For here Tolstoy is attempting to put up one mode of life as ideal, while his prodigious ability to see the world from so many points of view makes us doubt whether there is such a thing as an ideal life or one right way of viewing the world. At least for me, Tolstoy's magnificent empathy is the real moral lesson I have taken away from this book. His insights into the minds and personalities of different people is staggering, and I can only hope to emulate this, in my own small way, as I fight the lifelong battle with my own ego.

تولستوی و داستایوسکی
نویسنده ای، جایی گفته بود که "داستایوسکی، نویسنده ی دوران جوانیه و تولستوی، نویسنده ی دوران بزرگسالی."
این جمله خیلی برای من خوشایند بود. هر چی دنیای داستایوسکی، پر از شور و جنون دوره ی جوانیه، دنیای تولستوی، سرشار از وقار و ملایمت دوره ی بزرگسالیه.
اولی، مثل طوفان تابستونیه: ویران کننده و سهمناک.
دومی، مثل بعد از ظهر بهاریه: خنک و رخوت انگیز.

هم توی این رمان و هم توی جنگ و صلح، یه شخصیت مهم هست که سرگشته است و به دنبال جواب میگرده (اینجا، کنستانتین لوین و توی جنگ و صلح، کنت بزوخوف) اما شخصیت سرگشته ای که تولستوی تصویر میکنه هم آروم و ملایمه. به خاطر همین تفاوت بزرگ، تصور من از تولستوی، تا مدت ها، یه پیرمرد جاافتاده بود، به خلاف داستایوسکی که تصورم ازش، یه جوان دانشجو بود و فکر میکردم که تولستوی مقدم بر داستایوسکی بوده. بعدها فهمیدم که داستایوسکی سنش خیلی بیشتر از تولستوی بوده و زودتر مرده.

این رمان
شاید خیلی ها این رمان رو تحت عنوان "عاشقانه" طبقه بندی کنن. از یه جهت درسته. عنوان کتاب، زنیه که ماجراش حول عشق میگرده. اما جدای از این، به نظرم این رمان خیلی هم عاشقانه نیست.

اول از همه، عشق آنا کاملاً از بین میره و زندگیش به طرز بی رحمانه ای نابود میشه.
ثانیاً، این نابود شدن عشق، در راه بیان یه حکم اخلاقیه. زندگی کنستانتین لوین و کیتی نابود نمیشه، به خاطر این که این مشکل اخلاقی در عشق اون ها نبوده. پس به رغم رمان های عاشقانه، عشق مطلقاً یه امر مثبت تلقی نمیشه، بلکه اصول مهم تری هستن که اونا مشخص میکنن چی مثبته و چی منفیه.
به نظر میرسه تولستوی میخواد به عشق آنا برچسب "هوس" بزنه و اونو از "عشقی" که نجات بخش زندگی انسان ها و یگانه پیام مسیح میدونه متمایز میکنه. اگه این نظرم درست باشه، پس آنا در حقیقت نقش منفی داستانه و کنستانتین لوین نقش مثبته. این که عاشق اصلی داستان نقش منفی باشه، دلیل دیگه ایه بر اینکه داستان خیلی هم عاشقانه نیست.

تقدیم به روح آناکارنینا؛ که اگر بوکفسکی می‌خواند عمرا به فکر خودکشی می‌افتاد

فمینیست‌ها از زوربا بدشون میاد از بوکفسکی هم....چرا؟...چون لختن و بی پروا...چون اینا دروغ نمیگن...اونقدا مراعات ندارن که اول زن رو فریب بدن...تا مقام فرشته بالا ببرن...بعد ببرن تو رختخواب...تا زن وسط سکس، احساس جندگی نکنه...حرفام زشته...نمیدونم...بیخیال...میتونی حذفم کنی و خلاص
بریم سر اصل مطلب...بوکفسکی از این حقه‌های کثیفی که مردا برای دام انداختنِ زن به کار می‌برن حالش بد میشه...به قول حضرت: من مذهبی نیستم...ابدا...اما درگیرِ اخلاق لعنتی نیکوکار بودن هستم...منم حالم بد میشه...وقتی مردا رو می‌بینم که از فریب دادن زنها به خودشون می‌بالن...گور باباشون...باید واقعیت رو به زن‌ها گفت...حتی اگه بدشون بیاد و مردها هم ما رو خائن بدونن

بوکوفسکی: در شروع همه‌ی ما دل‌رباییم. یاد یکی از فیلم‌های وودی آلن می‌افتم. زن می‌گفت: «ما شبیه‌ی روزهای اول‌مون نیستیم، اون‌وقتا تو خیلی جذاب بودی!» مرد جواب ��اد: می‌دونی، اون وقتا فقط داشتم امور جفت شدنو به‌جا می آوردم، همه‌ی انرژی‌مو به‌کار می‌گرفتم. اگر می‌خواستم به این کار ادامه بدم، دیوونه می‌شدم

کل راز دلبری مردا تو این خط آخر نهفته اس...میخای باور کن...میخای باور نکن...خیلی از مردا همون لحظه که بهت پیشنهاد عشق میدن...همون لحظه هم دارن به دو چیز دیگه هم فکر میکنن...یک: فراهم آوردن بساط سکس...دو: چطوری از شرت خلاص شن وقتی دیگه جذابیتی براشون نداری...البته زن هم مقصره...اینو باید با مقدمه بگم
در واقع مردا برای رفاقت و دوستی‌‌ بیشتر از عشق ارزش قائلن...چون توی دوستی صداقت بیشتری دارن...مجبور نیستن دائما به دوستشون دروغ بگن...و هر روز صبح بخیر و شب بخیر بگن...چه کار خسته کننده ای...خود اعمال شاقه‌اس...شاید تقصیر زن هم هست...که مرد مجبوره فریبش بده...به قول حضرت بوکفسکی...انسان‌ها برای این ساخته شده‌اند که نیمه‌وقت تنها باشند و نیمه‌وقت باهم...اما زنانی هستند که می‌خواهند تمام ثانیه‌هایت را از آن خودشان کنند...آنجاست که بیزاری شروع می‌شود...و فرار از زن

بوکفسکی: عشق مضحک است چون سرانجامی ندارد

این همه داستان برای عشق‌های ابدی ساخته شده...باور کن همش دروغ است...بذارین آزادانه خودمان باشیم...ما را از خودمان شرمنده نکنید...اینگونه شاید مردان از پستی و دروغ نجات پیدا کنند...و زنی دیگر خودکشی نکند

n  2020 updaten
never mind. i had to reread it two more times and write three more essays on this. when will the nightmare end. i'll never read this in my free time because it keeps getting shoved down my throat annually.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

anna karenina is daunting as much as it is spellbinding.

spanning 800 pages, tolstoy tells a cinematic tale that has remained beloved for centuries. at its core of the novel is the theme of love and its variants: all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

despite its many political and existential themes and vast amount of characters, at the heart of the book are two vastly different characters: anna and levin. anna begins a torrid love affair with vronsky, a charismatic and handsome officer, bound to crash and burn. levin timidly chases after kitty, his friend’s sister in law, who he is in love with. both arcs explore the dichotomy between love and lust, idealism in relationships, and the superficiality of infatuation and lust.

i have read this book five times (four times for class)(but technically three and a half because i skipped over levin’s farming scenes three times). and still, i feel inadequate to review this book. but more importantly, each time, i find something new to love and appreciate about this book. this book is dramatic and tragic and heartwarming and devastating all at once.

this is timeless classic for good reason and there are no words to describe how much i adore this book. a must read for winter!

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

n  2018 reviewn
Honestly, I thought this was going to be a boring classic (since I was required to read this for school and you know, schools make you read boring books). But I was wrong. Anna Karenina is alive. Unlike other 'classics', Anna is filled with complex remarks about society and class and relationships, in a world that only Tolstoy can write. I was expecting it to have a dull drone, but this book definitely ran on a different frequency.
One thing I loved and admired about Tolstoy was that he never just stopped at a catastrophic event like other writers. He always made sure to show the aftermath, maybe as a cautionary tale to show that actions have consequences. He explores the consequences of being in love versus being in love with the ideal of someone. It was a wild ride and I wouldn't have had it be any other way.

I loved this book with all my heart and one day, I'll reread it without having to write 2000 word essays and analyze every element.

’The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.’

It is with the same trepidation that I wandered into the first pages of reading Anna Karenina. In awe of this piece of literature that has stood the test of time, read for generations by so many seems, well, intimidating. And it was, at least to me, until I began reading it. And then I fell completely under the spell, which was rarely broken.

It shouldn’t surprise me, so many people that I know have loved this, but it did surprise me that I grew to care so much for the people in this story, in spite of how badly they behaved. It’s one thing to be told of the things they have done, but then Tolstoy allows us to know them, understand them, the things that drive them to such despicable lengths - and yet still feel compassion for them. Their behavior isn’t always reprehensible, if so there would be no love there to drive this love story forward, there are moments of love and appreciation of beauty in the ins and outs of their lives. Nature, the freedom and beauty of labouring under the sun and losing oneself in that labour, and in the beauty of nature, as well as the nature of love.

’...for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class--all the girls in the world except her.’

While this is a love story, it is so much more. An epic story for all, exploring many various aspects of life. Farming, faith, politics, hunting, despair, faith, and a sense of reverence for this life and the desire to leave behind something lasting, if only in the memories of those who knew us. It is filled with passion, a passion for this wild and precious life we have been given, and to honor it by living it fully with an appreciation for this gift.

’All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.’

Originally published in 1877, there is so much to this story that seems more relevant today than I could have imagined before reading this. It offers a view of society and human nature which seems relatively unchanged regardless of place, and time. While the story takes place in Imperial Russia in 1874, it is a timeless story of the goodness of people, and the division of people by their status. But underneath it all, it feels like Tolstoy is reminding us, beseeching us to take the time to truly observe not only the people in our lives, but the way we are living our lives, and our stewardship of this world.

At the end of Gogol's Dead Souls a Troika gallops off leaving the author to ask with a flourish where it is speeding off to. Gogol on his death bed was struck by a severe case of religion and had the rest of the novel put on the fire (some pages were rescued), but symbolically, as a question about Russia and which direction the country should be travelling towards the image hangs over the literature and politics of nineteenth century Russia, above all perhaps in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.


The Ideological Novel
Tolstoy claimed that he had constructed great arches into this novel. No one has ever managed to find them, but what is clear is the clear choice the author lays out before us in this highly ideological novel. One the right hand is the good couple, Kitty and Levin, whose lives (entirely coincidentally of course) are modelled on Tolstoy's own marriage (at least those bits of it which were fit to print). They live in the countryside. They are close to the core of 'true Russianness', they farm in a Russian style, and Levin at least is aware of the beauty of the natural world. While on the left hand is the road to perdition, the moral corruption of western Europe, adulterous women, Saint Petersburg life, drugs, and steam trains. This road, we are shown through the life of Anna Karenina, ends in suicide, and by extension is leading the nation towards self-destruction.

But as a novel it more or less works, largely because Anna herself is a sympathetic character. Since her husband is not portrayed as anything other than a withered, joyless individual, her longing for life and happiness is entirely convincing. The writing, in scenes like Levin mowing (one man, two man, three men and their dog...) or duck hunting, the horse race or Anna's time in Italy, is beautiful and in the case of Anna works against the ideological drive of the novel (apparently, but then if evil were not attractive..!). But ultimately for Tolstoy an upper class woman outside of marriage, having a child and therefore a sexual relationship with a man, is a problem and one that can only be resolved through her death. The resolution of that woman problem through her death is hardly unique to Tolstoy, it is the fall back answer for Dickens in Bleak House too. Some simple, natural occurrences were apparently far too scandalous to be even contemplated in print.


The Agricultural Novel
The story of the 'Russian' couple, Kitty and Levin is in contrast to the 'western' relationship of Anna and Vronsky. On the one hand destruction running on fixed rails and powered by steam, runs over lives even as it runs over the landscape. Mechanical, alien and above all foreign the correct direction or answer is meant to lie in the countryside. Early in the novel Oblomov the titular hero has a dream of timeless unchanging life in the countryside. Oblomov (ie Mr Cloud if we loosely rendered him into English) refuses to change, the wisdom of not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater becomes the folly of not even wanting to part with the bathwater. This is what Tolstoy advances in Anna Karenina as a seriously considered idyll.

What we get in Anna Karenina is a fetishisation of communal agriculture and working with hand tools, most vividly realised as Levin symbolically and literally finds his rhythm as he learns how to swing his scythe and mow. As a literary set piece it is fantastic. As an idealisation of a form of life deeply Romantic, it has had, and continues to have, a deep appeal for the extreme left and far right in Russian politics. As practical agriculture it was already deeply misleading even in its day. Levin is a stand in for Tolstoy (Tolstoy was a firm believer in 'write what you know'), but in real life Tolstoy's agriculture was subsided by his literary output (actively managed by his wife who did her best to retain control over printing rights) and after Tolstoy's death the family house had to be sold to service the families debts, the large wooden structure was disassembled like flat pack furniture and carted off.

For both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky the shock of Russia's awkward transitioning from confident gendarme of Europe, to desperately industrialising and becoming more like western Europe with new fangled representative institutions and jury trials was appallingly vivid. A idealised partly spiritual, entirely nationalistic, identity was the answer, yet as a result Tolstoy's peasants are less realistic than Turgenev's in Sketches from a Hunter's Album. Then on the eve of the emancipation of the serfs, the condition of the peasants was the great problem holding back Russia, however two decades later the problem has become the solution. The irony of the peasants induced by the promise of a barrel of vodka to build a school in Chekhov's My Life is unimaginable in Tolstoy. For him the glass of vodka for the mowers is part of the natural order of the countryside over which no shadow of alcoholism ever seems to fall. The successful estate management of the Yusupovs or the successful non-communal small farms of southern Russia and the Ukraine was not what Tolstoy was interested in. Instead he sought to cleave to the romance of the inefficient (in the sense of not being market orientated) form of communal agriculture in which Master and man worked together as a unit. Here was something safe and in his view more worth while than everything symbolised by the steady puffing locomotive.


The Horse Race
The first time I read  I imagined Vronsky as a pretty man and therefore contemptible like a foppish star of the silver screen (it is true that I am prejudiced, but at least occasionally I am honest about it). The second time with surprise I noticed the description of his red neck and hairiness. This was somebody with a real physical presence and a tangible virality. Somebody suddenly like me, red and hairy. Karenina choosing between his brisk redness and her husband's washed out greyness has an immediacy and a naturalness about it. The sensuality of the novel, whether mowing the meadow, hunting ducks or washing before the horse race is one of it's strengths.

The horse race is one of the high lights of this aspect of the novel. Visceral, immediate but also crudely symbolising the relationship between Anna Karenina and her lover, the Guards Officer Vronsky. Anna watches the race from a socially acceptable distance - she is on account of her adultery not someone who can be received in polite society. Vronsky rides the filly, trained by another man, only to feel her back break at an awkward jump as they are within sight of the finish line. He survives, she doesn't. The suffering of another is a public spectacle. The metaphor is crude, the whole set piece sharp and vivid.

Within the widely separated covers of Anna Karenina, one of Henry James' "loose baggy monsters" if ever there was, there are slimmer novellas about relationships, the state of agriculture, the physicality of life and love that are crying to be let out. Are the parts more than the sum of the whole? Or does the physical mass add to the reading experience?

Alright, I'm going to do my best not to put any spoilers out here, but it will be kind of tough with this book. I should probably start by saying that this book was possibly the best thing I have ever read.

It was my first Tolstoy to read, and the defining thing that separated what he wrote from anything else that I've read is his characters. His characters are unbelievably complex. The edition of this book that I read was over 900 pages, so he has some time to do it. His characters aren't static, but neither are they in some kind of transition from A to B throughout the book. They are each inconsistent in strikingly real ways. They think things and then change their minds. They believe something and then lose faith in it. Their opinions of each other are always swirling. They attempt to act in ways that align with something they want, but they must revert back to who they are. But who a character is is a function of many things, some innate and some external and some whimsical and moody.

So all the characters seem too complex to be characters in a book. It's as if no one could write a character that could be so contradictory and incoherent and still make them believable, so no one would try to write a character like Anna Karenina. But people are that complex, and they are incoherent and that's what makes Tolstoy's characters so real. Their understandings of each other and themselves are as incoherent as mine of those around me and myself.

One of the ways that Tolstoy achieves this is through incredible detail to non-verbal communication. He is always describing the characters movements, expressions, or postures in such a way that you subtly learn their thoughts.

He does an amazing job in the internal monologues the characters experience. You frequently hear a character reason with himself and reveal his thoughts or who he is to you in some way, and all the while you feel like you already knew that they felt that or were that. Even as the characters are inconsistent. There are times when he can describe actions that have major implications on the plot with blunt and simple words and it still felt rich because the characters are so full.

The book takes on love, marriage, adultery, faith, selfishness, death, desire/attraction, happiness. It also speaks interestingly on social classes or classism. He also addresses the clash between the pursuit of individual desires and social obligations/restraints. There is just so much to wrestle with here.

And you go through a myriad set of emotions and impressions of the characters as you read. At times you can love or hate or adore a character. You can be ashamed of or ashamed for or reviled by or anxious with or surprised by a character. And you feel this way about each of them at points. But it isn't at all a roller coaster ride of emotion. It's fluid and natural and makes sense.

One of the many points that the book seemed to reach to me was the strength and power of love. Tolstoy displays it in all its power and all its inability. In the end love is not sufficient enough to sustain. He writes tremendous triumphs for it, and then he writes the months after when the reality of human failings set in. But love is good, and there is hope. Life can be better with love in it. Should I have kids one day I think I'll make reading this book a precondition for them to start dating (that and turning 25).

I was also surprised by a section towards the end of the book where Tolstoy through Levin, my favorite character and the one that I identified with the most, makes a case for Christianity that was so simple but at the same time really impacted me. I guess I'll leave that alone here.

Basically, I don't have high enough praise for this book. I hope everyone reads it. It is very long, and I found the third quarter or so slow. But I could definitely read it again. Not soon but it could become a must read every 15 years or so for me. Between he nature of the content and the quality of the words, I would say that this is the greatest masterpiece in words that I've ever found.

«Άννα Καρένινα» ή «Κονσταντίν Λιέβιν» (ο βασικότερος πρωταγωνιστής).

“Δεν υπάρχουν συνθήκες, που ο άνθρωπος να μην μπορέσει να συνηθίσει σ’ αυτές, προπάντων, όταν βλέπει ότι όλοι γύρω του ζουν το ίδιο.»

«Με τη λογική, τάχα, έφτασα στο ότι πρέπει ν’ αγαπώ τον πλησίον μου και να μην τον πνίγω; Αυτό μου το ‘παν σαν ήμουν παιδί, κι εγώ με χαρά το πίστεψα, γιατί μου είπαν κείνο που βρισκόταν μέσα στην ψυχή μου. Και ποιος τ’ ανακάλυψε αυτό; Όχι το μυαλό. Το μυαλό ανακάλυψε τον αγώνα για την ύπαρξη και το νόμο, που απαιτεί να πνίξω όλους κείνους, που με παρεμποδίζουν στο να ικανοποιήσω τις επιθυμίες μου. Αυτό είναι το συμπέρασμα του μυαλού. Μα το ν’ αγαπώ τον άλλον, αυτό δεν μπορούσε να τ’ ανακαλύψει το μυαλό, γιατί αυτό δεν είναι λογικό.»

Αυτό είναι το αριστούργημα του Tolstoy, το ανώτερο από τα έργα του. Ένα έπος, αντάξιο των Αδερφών Καραμάζοφ – αντίστοιχο των ομηρικών. Ένα ποικιλόμορφο έργο, πολύ περισσότερο από ένα ρομάντσο, βαθιά φιλοσοφικό, δραματικό, από αυτά που θέτουν ερωτήματα στο πως αντιμετωπίζεις την ζωή, όταν την προκαλείς, όταν ρισκάρεις τη σταθερότητά της, όταν τυφλώνεσαι από το άγνωστο και όταν τελικά δεν μετανιώνεις, γιατί κατάφερες να «ζήσεις» πραγματικά. Δεν προσφέρεται για περαιτέρω σχολιασμό, παρά μόνο για ανάγνωση.