In front of me a glittering pond of rough oceanic waters protesting in silence in apparent stillness. Only the gentle swaying of casual waves crackling with the briny droplets of condensed breeze preludes the forthcoming storm. For below the surface, swirling undercurrents swell like lungs breathing in air of confusion and exhale the sea-secrets of the human soul.
Things are not what they seem and Anna Karenina is not only the doomed love story of a woman trapped in her own mind whose life is enslaved by social chauvinism. The Tolstoyan whirlpools of labyrinthine connections defy boundaries of pure fiction and transcend genre, presenting a series of events so naturally told that the novel seems to unfold as plotlessly and accidentally as life itself.
If “War and Peace” was a chronicle about the power of individual free will and the effect of dormant forces brought about by people in the outcome of history, Anna Karenina arises in substance as a double edged tragedy nestled in family life where suffering and unhappiness are presented as intrinsic traits of mankind, which finds itself in continuous conflict with the moral equilibrium epitomized by the harmony of the natural world.

“They have no conception of what happiness is, and they do not know that without love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us, for there would be no life.” (p.181)

Tolstoy crowns the first chapter of the novel with the epigram “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, empathizing the fallibility of the human condition to make moral judgements and find the required spiritual stability to achieve the pinnacle of happiness. The quest is an arduous one and three unhappy families embody Tolstoy’s colliding thoughts on controversial issues such as the already decaying bourgeois class, the foundations of dogmatic religion or the political and historical events of the time, spicing it up with a long list of secondary characters that complements the vivid mosaic of the 19thC Russia.
Through brief dramatic chapters, which combine narrative, description and a nuanced internal monologue of the characters, Tolstoy makes of the reader a participant rather than a distanced observer of his story and introduces the keystone familiar units and love triangles that will serve as allegories to transmit his macro views on the world.

Anna’s universe turns around her beloved son Serezha until she crosses paths with Captain Vronsky and an ensuing obsessive and irrepressible passion blinds logic and reason, propelling her to elope with the man she loves with feverish abandon and to forsake her son and a respected position as wife of Alexei Karenin, a highly respected government minister. Anna’s remorse and Karenin’s magnanimity in forgiving the unforgivable with his generous benevolence crushes her mercilessly, provoking a moral breakdown and a spiritual duality that Anna disguises with addictive love for a man who fails to understand her needs and prioritizes his social status and career over her distorted devotion. “But there is another one in me as well, and I am afraid of her. She fell in love with the other one, and I wished to hate you but could not forget her who has before. ” (p.406)

Constantine Levin, an agnostic nobleman who struggles against his inner contradictions to find equality and efficiency in the farming business, is ensnared by the idea of marriage, which for him is “the chief thing in life, on which the whole happiness of life depends.” (p.93) . Levin projects his idealized aspirations of a dignified country life on Kitty, a virginal and naïve young girl with unfaltering faith who proves to be the guiding star of Levin’s firmament which titillates unevenly with his existential doubts, after a first unpromising encounter with Captain Vronsky that nearly ruins their only chance to secure happiness.

Anna’s brother Steve Oblonsky, appears as the perfect counterpoint to Levin’s solemnity and soberness. Full of social charm and of cheerful disposition, Oblonsky is a self-indulgent urbanite who relishes the pleasures of the restaurant, of the gambling tables and of the bedroom. Married to Dolly, Kitty’s older sister and a strong willed and highly perceptive woman, Oblonsky claims his manly independence by committing sustained and inconsequential infidelities and is liked by everybody yet respected by no one.

The reader is plunged not just into the actions of these characters, but into the almost mystical overlapping of their inner feelings and the dialectic of their hearts in which Anna and Levin, who encapsulate Tolstoy's almost androgynous alter ego in perfect depiction of both his male and female grounding, become the two leading voices singing in alternating moral chorus that continually resonates in each other’s sections, creating a rich canvas painted in meticulous brushstrokes and symbolic glaze.
Vronsky’s inability to control his faithful mare in a vertiginous racehorse echoes both Anna’s vulnerable position in an adulterous affair in the 19thC Russian society and Vronsky’s failed attempt to dominate such a delicate situation, triggering fatal events that will lead to inescapable tragedy.
Colors impregnate the text enhancing significance; purple and dark denote sensuality and temptation while white and fair are related to purity and righteousness. A kaleidoscopic exultation of shades and tinges come vibrantly to life in the descriptions of the natural world, where Tolstoy unleashes his most lyrical yet unflourishing writing style, which presents a powerful contrast to the double morale of the Russian society and the artificiality of the city life that Tolstoy so much despises.

“The moon had lost all her brilliancy and gleamed like a little cloud in the sky. Not a single star was any longer visible. The marsh grass that had glittered like silver in the dew was now golden. The rusty patches were like amber. The bluish grasses had turned yellowish green.” (p. 588)

Trains and iron railways, which are pregnant with Tolstoy’s negative connotations about economic progress, arise as bad omens linked to the expansion of the railroad and industry as opposed to his views on agricultural philosophy which elevate farming to the ultimate honest lifestyle to attain spiritual fulfillment and justice.
Trains also portrayed as metaphorical transportations in which Anna and Levin are carried away in a spiraling downfall, where life becomes a flurry of blurred images in the suffocating cabins of their minds until they reach the last station of death, which brings either hollow unease or disturbing calmness, depending on their spiritual strength to overcome the constant clashing between abstraction and reality.
Two characters, one soul.
A parallel journey, diverging fates.
Life and Death, a two way mirror.

The storm has disquieted the waters which roar in furious thunderdarkness and contort in high sloped waves crowned by foamy curls, but below the surface there is now a perdurable and serene happiness that beats with bold love and firm conviction.

Uzunluğuna rağmen tek bir cümlesinin bile fazla hissedilmediği Leo Tolstoy’un ölümsüz eseri "Anna Karenina", efsanevi yazarın toplumsal olayları ve birey duygularını olağanüstü tasvir yeteneğiyle anlatarak adeta şov yaptığı bir başyapıt niteliğinde. Ataerkil toplumların kadınları nasıl mağdur ettiğini tüm acımasızlığıyla okuyucuya sunan Tolstoy aslında bizlere tam anlamıyla bir trajedi sunuyor. Kadınlara eğitim bile verilmemesini savunan zamanının Rus aristokratlarının kadınları adeta bir figür olarak gördüğü kitapta Tolstoy, zamanının ötesinde bir karakterle tüm genellemeleri yıkarak sadece toplumu eleştirmekle kalmıyor aynı zamanda yenilikçi düşünceleriyle bir reforma imza atıyor. Toplumun empoze etmesiyle gerçekleştirilen aşksız evliliklerin zamanla nasıl çatırdağını gözler önüne seren kitapta erkeklerin itibarlarını zedelememek uğruna dine karşı gelmemek adı altında etik olmayan neredeyse her şeyi kabul ederek hem kendilerini hem de eşlerini nasıl mağdur ettiklerini okuma şansı buluyoruz. Hayatlarını yaşamayan karakterlerin nasıl yıkıcı tercihler yapabildiğini bizlere gösteren Tolstoy, okuyucuya sunduğu bir diğer aşk hikayesiyle evliliklerin aşkla olduğu takdirde bireylerin birbirlerine nasıl değer kattıklarının altını çiziyor. Levin ve Anna’nın madalyonun iki farklı yüzünü oluşturduğu kitabı okurken açıkçası Tolstoy’un karakter geçişlerine hayran kaldığımı belirtmeliyim. Filmlerde olduğu gibi aynı plan sekansı andıran geçişlerle hikayeyi bütün halinde götüren efsanevi yazarın neden gelmiş geçmiş en iyi yazara olarak kabul edildiğini bir kez daha gördüm. İlk defa bir romanda bilinç akışı anlatım yöntemini kullanarak karakterin kafasında neler geçtiğini tüm ayrıntılarıyla bize anlatan Tolstoy’un edebiyatı nasıl değiştirdiğine yedinci bölümde tanıklık ediyorsunuz. Tüm yanlışlarına rağmen aslında Anna Karenina’nın yaşadığı dram bir yandan içinizi acıtırken diğer yandan karakterin yaptığı yanlış tercihleriyle mağdur olmakta ısrar etmesine sinir oluyorsunuz. Öte yandan, Levin toplumun onun hakkında ne düşündüğünü umursamadan ideallerine bağlı kalması ve mağdur olmamayı tercih etmesi iki karakter arasındaki en önemli farkı oluşturuyor.

Aile, birey, kıskançlık, sadakat, sevgi, tutku, ölüm ve yaşam gibi kavramları derinlemesine anlatan kitabın kuşkusuz odak noktasına aldığı inanç teması ise yeni bir paragrafı hak ediyor. Din kavramının toplumların tüm kesimini nasıl avucunun içine aldığını tüm gerçekliğiyle anlatan "Anna Karenina"da Levin’in dinin amacını sorgulamaya başladığı son bölüm gerçekten takdire şayan. İyi birey olmanın dinle alakası olmadığını, tüm dinlerin bunun üzerine kurulu olduğu halde toplumlar tarafından nasıl dezenformasyona uğradığını anlatan Tolstoy’un finali iyi bir insan olmayı hayatın temeline yerleştirdiği finali oldukça etkileyici. Buna ek olarak Tolstoy’un iyilik barındırdığı söylenen kutsal kitapların içinde bulunan şiddet temalarını ortaya çıkarması da zamanının çok ötesinde.

"Anna Karenina" gerçekten bambaşka bir deneyim. Keşke hiç bitmeseydi dediğim kitaplardan biri ve bende artık bambaşka yere sahip. Uzunluğuna rağmen kaldığım yerden sayfayı açtığımda okuduklarımın hepsini hatırladığımı tek kitap. Edebiyatın zirve noktası varsa sanırım işte burası.

18.09.2017
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo...

One of a few classics that I loved reading. It's phenomenal.

As part of my reading challenge this year, I wanted to read at least one or two classics, and Anna Karenina was high on my list. It's considered by many to be one of the best novels ever written, and I've never read any Tolstoy. So even though it's a monster at more than 800 pages, I decided it's time I conquered it.

The story starts out so strong, with what seems to be an insightful treatise into the family and romantic life of several characters, including title character Anna. The domestic strife, misunderstandings, affairs, and life in general of the Russian elite, when boiled down to its essentials, are not so different from what occupy people's attentions today. I found the initial chapters to be interesting, and was drawn towards the circle of people who would make up the main cast of the book.

Then as the story progressed, things started to reach their natural conclusions, until about halfway through the book. At that point, I wish Tolstoy would have stopped because I found the second half to be more or less unnecessary. Everything had been resolved by then. But Tolstoy continued, and for me, the story just fell apart after that.

The main characters, in particular Anna, having gotten what they wished for, started acting loony, for lack of a better word. The more their wishes came true, the unhappier they became. A good portion of the second half was devoted to Anna lamenting how her partner does not love her. Every time he goes somewhere, she would pounce on him as soon as he comes home, saying crazy things about how he must be thinking of other women and no longer of her. He would reassure her constantly of his love and unending devotion. She wouldn't listen, so when he inevitably would get frustrated, she took that as confirmation that he doesn't love her. She would leave messages for him not to bother her, and when he doesn't, she would take that as a sign that she is right. This went on for like 200 pages. I wanted to stab myself every time Anna showed up in a scene. It's hard to tolerate a book when you dislike the main character that much.

I'm also a little uncomfortable that Tolstoy seems to portray women in his story as weak and mentally unstable, while the men are portrayed as high-thinking orators. The women would fly into tears and rages at the drop of a hat, stirring up domestic trouble while their men are out doing their jobs or hanging out with their buddies. The women also blushed uncontrollably when talking to any man who isn't their husband. Maybe this is just the way it was during Tolstoy's time and this book would have been seen as progressive, but as a modern woman reading it now, it makes me cringe so hard.

Tolstoy also seems to have treated this book as a vehicle to get out whatever he wanted to say on a variety of topics, including farming techniques, local governments and elections, the meaning of life, religion, snipe shooting, duty and rights of citizens, etc. This book is full of philosophical musings on these topics and more. I don't mind when authors want to present interesting and tangential thoughts, but Tolstoy did it constantly and without filter. His ramblings would go on for many chapters, and were so unedited that it's essentially a stream of consciousness. I'm sure there are some good points in there, but it's so buried under pages of unreadable and irrelevant prattle that I couldn't find them. While these technical and philosophical ruminations are all throughout the book, they were much worse in the second half, taking up a significant portion of it.

Reading this 800+ page tome has been an odyssey. I didn't find any of the characters to be particularly likable or charming. They were all rather silly, unstable, or full of themselves. To me, this is far from one of the best books I've ever read, though it's possible that back then, when there wasn't much to read or do for fun, this would have fulfilled that role. Now I can say I have read Anna Karenina, but that's about as much as I got out of it.

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When Tolstoy’s work comes to mind, I think not of books but of life. It’s hard to explain, but I don’t think I ever feel as alive as I do while enveloped in his work; it’s as if the very spirit of living has been written on the page, and I’ve caught it just by reading. No book I’ve read has ever captured the essence of humanity so perfectly as in his writing, and ‘Anna Karenina’ is no exception. In this vast yet intimate novel, we explore the delicate intricacies of human relationships and how love has the power to be both a poison and an antidote depending on whose heart it ails.

The social commentary and juxtaposition of everyone’s relationships to one another in this story is executed with a brilliance that is hard to find. I especially enjoyed seeing the differences between the adulteress Anna, and her adulterer brother Oblonsky. One being wholly shunned from society, while the other stays with his tortured wife and unhappy family to no disadvantage of his own. I’ll let you guess which is which. Even Vronsky (who is half the reason for the turmoil everyone experiences throughout the book, let’s not put this all on Anna) remains highly regarded by the general public, despite what everyone knows he has involved himself in. Yes, Anna displays quite despicable behavior, she is an anti-heroine after all, but does she really deserve the extent of her tarnished reputation when her equally guilty male counterparts remain unscathed?

One thing I will always commend Tolstoy for is his ability to test the limits of my empathy, especially when it comes to characters that are so easy to hate if you don’t look past the surface; but ‘Anna Karenina’ is a work of art painted in shades of gray, and in order to fully understand and appreciate the nuanced beauty of it, we mustn't try to find the black and white. I believe it is possible to feel greatly for Karenin, and also for Anna who caused him the devastation he feels as the novel progresses. Every character in this book is so vivid and fleshed out that I find it impossible to put them into boxes and wholly dislike any of them.

MAJOR SPOILERS ⬇️

I haven't felt so many emotions for a character in a long time, and my relationship with Anna is no doubt a complicated one. She is such a well-rounded and nuanced character that despite her abhorrent actions, I still experienced a near overwhelming sense of dread as the last pages of her life drew to a close. Anger, pity, and tentative understanding, mingled with grief for me as her story met its finale, the emotions so charged that there was a weight in my chest I couldn’t shake off for days.

Though its titular character’s life ended tragically, ‘Anna Karenina’ would not be the beloved story it still is today if not for Levin. His spiritual journey and character development brought this book to its true end which I ultimately believe is a happy one; though Anna broke my heart, I felt it mending piece by piece as Constantin found the meaning of his life. That last page will be a part of me for a long time, and my thoughts on it haven’t ceased since reading. Alas, it is now my time to invest some meaningful good into my own life; I am beyond grateful for the weeks I spent in this masterpiece and cannot wait to read it again and again… and again.

I am happy to have discovered this little marvel of deciphering nature and human passions, not in my 'Russian classics' around 20 years ago! At the time, I found significant serenity there, especially with Dostoievski. Today, regarding the question of maturity or only of work, I see something quite different: a magnificent painting of the human condition, both beautiful and tragic, with many ironies and even more finesse in the psychological analysis. In short, it is a masterpiece.
As the title suggests, we follow the story of Anna Karenina, the wife of a high Russian dignitary; she is beautiful, healthy, joyful, and radiant until she meets passion, its complications, and its compromises. But, as the title does not indicate, there is also a whole gallery of portraits: her lover Vronsky, sometimes enthusiastic seducer, a sometimes responsible and wise man; her husband Karenina, all confided in his respectability but touched by his sufferings and his dignity; Levine, accurate literary double of Tolstoi according to the notice, the tortured, the pragmatist and the lover; Kitty, the simple, sweet and good woman, after having been a little brainless; the good-natured but well-intentioned parasite Oblonski; and so many others which will take us to the mundane and somewhat idle salons of Saint Petersburg, the revolutionary circles, the district assemblies or deep into the Russian countryside.
What is extraordinary (or terrible, depending on which point of view you take) is that you find yourself in the characters and the situations. I am not a 19th-century Russian aristocrat engaged in a passionate affair. Yet I understand her, especially in her paradoxes, constant doubts, inability to stop the spiral of arguments, her interpretations distorted by anxiety, his exaltation, and his absolute love. So much more than the adulterous woman, it is the incarnation of the woman in love: if she had lived today, with the possibilities of divorce and professional activity for women, could she have loved Vronsky? And quietly? I'm not sure. And she will remain a tragic heroine with whom I especially would not like to identify!
Although I don't look like the heroine, I am thrilled by my reading, which explains why this review is probably confusing.

Summer of 1985. My very manly brother, who rarely read classics, holding and reading a very thick book entitled Anna Karenina. “What is that thick book? Why is he interested on that?” I thought to myself. On the wall by his bed, was a big close up photograph of Sophie Marceau. Around that time, most teenage males in the Philippines were fans of this ever-smiling young lady and her poster was in their bedrooms. Our house was not an exemption. This was before my brother joined the US Navy. A decade after, Marceau played the title role in the most recent movie adaptation of this book. "Did my brother have a prior knowledge about it?" I again asked myself.

A couple of months back, my other brother gave me the link to The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books. In its list of The Top Ten Books of All Time, Anna Karenina topped it over the other great works: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; Hamlet by William Shakespeare; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust; The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov; and Middlemarch by George Eliot.

In random order: Anna Karenina is Norman Mailer’s #1, Tom Wolfe’s #4, David Lodge’s #7, Chris Bohjalian’s #4, Peter Carey’s #6, Alexander McCall Smith’s #1, Francine Prose’s #1, Reynolds Price’s #1. Tom Perrotta’s #2, Susan Minot’s #1 and Claire Messud’s #5. As you can see, many of those are men. For me, this is an indication that this book, even if the title bears a woman’s name and with flowers on its cover (at least this wonderful edition of mine), is not really a woman’s book.

Did my brother’s unusual interest on this book intrigue me during that time? Yes. Did The Top Ten list make me finally pick this up? Yes. Considering its length and the one full week of reading (aside from working), was reading this a waste of time that I could have spent reading shorter easier-to-read 2-4 books? Definitely, not. This unputdownable book is worth every minute that I spent on it. So far, in that Top 10 list, I have only read 3 (Lolita, War and Peace and The Great Gatsby) but I can say that Anna Karenina has all the right reasons to be there. However, this book is not for those readers who have no patience in reading thick books. Although for me the vast scope of 19th century Russia is interesting not only for the lifestyle of the people (in the same reason why Austen fans love her books) but also for its historical significance. The book’s milieu (1882-1886) was Russia on its crossroad: few decades later the country became Soviet (Communist) Russia from being Imperial Russia.

On its superficial level, the story is about Anna Karenina, a young wife of a Russian government official, Count Alexie who is 15 years her senior. Probably due to their age difference and the fact that theirs was an arranged marriage, they are not happy. This despite the fact that they already have a son. Enter a young handsome military man, Vronsky, who fell in love at first sight with Anna when his mother and she came to St. Petersburg together in a train. Vronsky courts her and the two become lovers and Anna gets pregnant. However, Count Alexie does not want to divorce Anna and asks her to still live with him as a punishment.

At that time in Russia, the offending party has the option to grant the divorce and this party takes the possession of the child. Anna cannot part with her son even if she becomes pregnant and later has child with Vronsky. The Imperial Russia at that time has this extreme double standard on morality and the society condemns Anna for sleeping with another man. This reminded me of Diana, Princess of Wales who, when she died in 1997, generated an unbelievable outpouring of public sympathy despite having lovers while still married to Prince Charles. Of course, there were lots of differences between the two but I just wondered what if Princess Diana were in Russia in 1882-1886, would she have generated the same level of public sympathy, let’s say she herself threw her body in front of the speeding train?

Parallel to Anna’s life in the book, is Levin’s. Konstantin Dimitrich Levin is a socially awkward but generous-hearted landowner who was first ditched by the woman she loves, Kitty but later wins her heart back. He witnesses the death of his brother, Nicolai Levin and that scene, for me, is the most poignant of all. Well, except the train incident where Anna killed herself. Levin’s life in the book is said to be based on the life of the author, Leo Tolstoy, including the way Tolstoy proposed to his wife in real life. The denouement chapter of the book where Levin realizes that Christianity is the same as the other beliefs in terms of salvation is like having the author Tolstoy sharing his own thoughts about religion and faith. It is the most stirring being philosophical part of the book. Another interesting chapter is the second to the last part with Anna’s stream-of-consciousness prior to committing suicide. This part is said to have inspired the next generation of writers (Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and James Joyce who are all my favorites) in the use of this literary technique.

For me, the main theme of the book is: n  we cannot be happy at the expense of other peoplen. Happiness comes from within. We should not be happy because of other people’s unhappiness. In the story, Anna and Vronsky thought that they would be happy if they could live together. This did not make them thoroughly happy. Levin thought that having Kitty as his wife would make him happy. He was for awhile happy and yet later he still felt there was something still missing.

For the vast Russian panorama. For the strong interesting plot. For the way, Tolstoy developed his characters. For showing us the bits and details of Russian life in the 19th century. For the skillful handling of conflicts and providing stark contrasts. For timeless message on what life, happiness, marriage are all about, be it during his time or even now... I have no doubt that this novel deserves all those stars that Goodreads allows us readers to give.

I should have read this right away after my manly brother finished reading his copy a couple of decades ago.

As a daughter of a Russian literature teacher, it seems I have always known the story of Anna Karenina: the love, the affair, the train - the whole shebang. I must have ingested the knowledge with my mother's milk, as Russians would say.

n  n

My grandpa had an old print of a painting hanging in his garage. A young beautiful mysterious woman sitting in a carriage in wintry Moscow and looking at the viewer through her heavy-lidded eyes with a stare that combines allure and deep sadness. "Who's that?" I asked my grandpa when I was five, and without missing a beat he answered, "Anna Karenina". Actually, it was "A Stranger" by Ivan Kramskoy (1883) - but for me it has always remained the mysterious and beautiful Anna Karenina, the femme fatale of Russian literature. (Imagine my childish glee when I saw this portrait used for the cover of this book in the edition I chose!)

n  n

Yet, "Anna Karenina" is a misleading title for this hefty tome as Anna's story is just the tip of an iceberg, as half of the story is devoted to Konstantin Levin, Tolstoy's alter ego (Count Leo's Russian name was Lev. Lev --> Levin), preoccupied with Russian peasantry and its relationship to land, as well as torn over faith and his lack of it, Levin whose story continues for chapters after Anna meets her train.

But Anna gives the book its name, and her plight spoke more to me than the philosophical dealings of an insecure and soul-searching Russian landowner, and so her story comes first. Sorry, Leo Levin.

n  n

Anna's chapters tell a story of a beautiful married woman who had a passionate affair with an officer and then somehow, in her quest for love, began a downward spiral fueled by jealousy and guilt and societal prejudices and stifling attitudes.

"But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?"

On one hand, there's little new about the story of a forbidden, passionate, overwhelming affair resulting in societal scorn and the double standards towards a man and a woman involved in the same act. Few readers will be surprised that it is Anna who gets the blame for the affair, that it is Anna who is considered "fallen" and undesirable in the society, that it is Anna who is dependent on men in whichever relationship she is in because by societal norms of that time a woman was little else but a companion to her man. There is nothing new about the sad contrasts between the opportunities available to men and to women of that time - and the strong sense of superiority that men feel in this patriarchial world. No, there is nothing else in that, tragic as it may be.

"Anything, only not divorce!" answered Darya Alexandrovna.
"But what is anything?"
"No, it is awful! She will be no one's wife, she will be lost!"

n

No, where Lev Tolstoy excels is the portrayal of Anna's breakdown, Anna's downward spiral, the unraveling of her character under the ingrained guilt, crippling insecurity and the pressure the others - and she herself - place on her. Anna, a lovely, energetic, captivating woman, full of life and beauty, simply crumbles, sinks into despair, fueled by desperation and irrationality and misdirected passion.

"And he tried to think of her as she was when he met her the first time, at a railway station too, mysterious, exquisite, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly revengeful as he remembered her on that last moment."

A calm and poised lady slowly and terrifyingly descends into fickle moods and depression and almost maniacal liveliness in between, tormented by her feeling of (imagined) abandonment and little self-worth and false passions which are little else but futile attempts to fill the void, the never-ending emptiness... This is what Tolstoy is a master at describing, and this is what was grabbing my heart and squeezing the joy out of it in anticipation of inevitable tragedy to come.

"In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical temperament, was one thing—love for women, and that love, she felt, ought to be entirely concentrated on her alone. That love was less; consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to other women or to another woman—and she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another."

n

Yes, it's the little evils, the multitude of little faces of unhappiness that Count Tolstoy knows how to portray with such sense of reality that it's quite unsettling - be it the blind jealousy of Anna or Levin, be it the shameless cheating and spending of Stiva Oblonsky, be it the moral stuffiness and limits of Arkady Karenin, the parental neglects of both Karenins to their children, the lies, the little societal snipes, the disappointments, the failures, the pervasive selfishness... All of it is so unsettlingly well-captured on page that you do realize Tolstoy must have believed in the famous phrase that he penned for this book's opening line: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Tolstoy is excellent at showing that, despite what we tend to believe, getting what you wanted does not bring happiness.

"Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. "

n

And yet, just like in real life, there are no real villains, no real unsympathetic characters that cause obstacles for our heroes, the villains whom it feels good to hate. No, everyone, in addition to their pathetic little ugly traits also has redeeming qualities. Anna's husband, despite appearing as a monster to Anna after her passionate affair, still is initially willing to give her the freedom of the divorce that she needs. Stiva Oblonsky, repulsive in his carelessness and cheating, wins us over with his gregarious and genuinely friendly personality; Anna herself, despite her outbursts, is a devoted mother to her son (at least initially). Levin may appear to be monstrous in his jealousy, but the next moment he is so overwhelmingly in love that it's hard not to forgive him. And I love this greyness of each character, so lifelike and full.

And, of course, the politics - so easily forgettable by readers of this book that carries the name of the heroine of a passionate forbidden affair. The dreaded politics that bored me to tears when I was fifteen. And yet these are the politics and the questions that were so much on the mind of Count Tolstoy, famous to his compatriots for his love and devotion to peasants, that he devoted almost half of this thick tome to it, discussed through the thoughts of Konstantin Levin.

n  n

Levin, a landowner with a strong capacity for compassion, self-reflection and curiosity about Russian love for land, as well as a striking political apathy, is Tolstoy's avatar in trying to make sense of a puzzling Russian peasantry culture, which failed to be understood by many of his compatriots educated on the ideas and beliefs of industrialized Europe.

"He considered a revolution in economic conditions nonsense. But he always felt the injustice of his own abundance in comparison with the poverty of the peasants, and now he determined that so as to feel quite in the right, though he had worked hard and lived by no means luxuriously before, he would now work still harder, and would allow himself even less luxury."

I have to say - I understood his ideas more this time, but I could not really feel for the efforts of the devoted and kind landowner striving to understand the soul of Russian peasants. Maybe it's because I mentally kept fast-forwarding mere 50 years, to the Socialist Revolution of 1917 that would leave most definitely Levin and Kitty and their children dead, or less likely, in exile; the revolution which, as Tolstoy almost predicted, focused on the workers and despised the loved by Count Leo peasants, the revolution that despised the love for owning land and working it that Tolstoy felt was at the center of the Russian soul. But it is still incredibly interesting to think about and to analyze because even a century and a half later there's still enough truth and foresight in Tolstoy's musings, after all. Even if I disagree with so many of his views, they are still thought-provoking, no doubts about it.

"If he had been asked whether he liked or didn't like the peasants, Konstantin Levin would have been absolutely at a loss what to reply. He liked and did not like the peasants, just as he liked and did not like men in general. Of course, being a good-hearted man, he liked men rather than he disliked them, and so too with the peasants. But like or dislike "the people" as something apart he could not, not only because he lived with "the people," and all his interests were bound up with theirs, but also because he regarded himself as a part of "the people," did not see any special qualities or failings distinguishing himself and "the people," and could not contrast himself with them."

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It's a 3.5 star book for me. Why? Well, because of Tolstoy's prose, of course - because of its wordiness and repetitiveness.

Yes, Tolstoy is the undisputed king of creating page-long sentences (which I love, by the way - love that is owed in full to my literature-teacher mother admiring them and making me punctuate these never-ending sentences correctly for grammar exercises). But he is also a master of restating the obvious, repeating the same thought over and over and over again in the same sentence, in the same paragraph, until the reader is ready to cry for some respite. This, as well as Levin's at times obnoxious preachiness and the author's frequently very patriarchial views, was what made this book substantially less enjoyable than it could have been.

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By the way, there is an excellent 1967 Soviet film based on this book that captures the spirit of the book quite well (and, if you so like, has a handy function to turn on English subtitles): first part is here, and the second part is here. I highly recommend this film.

And even better version of this classic is the British TV adaptation (2000) with stunning Helen McCrory as perfect Anna and lovely Paloma Baeza as perfect Kitty.

This is a book that I was actually dreading reading for quite some time. It was on a list of books that I'd been working my way through and, after seeing the size of it and the fact that 'War And Peace' was voted #1 book to avoid reading, I was reluctant to ever get started. But am I glad that I did.
This is a surprisingly fast-moving, interesting and easy to read novel. The last of which I'd of never believed could be true before reading it, but you find yourself instantly engrossed in this kind of Russian soap opera, filled with weird and intriguing characters. The most notable theme is the way society overlooked mens' affairs but frowned on womens', this immediately created a bond between myself and Anna, who is an extremely likeable character.
I thought it had an amazing balance of important meaning and light-heartedness. Let's just say, it's given me some courage to maybe one day try out the dreaded 'War And Peace'.