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.

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.

What turned out to be the most interesting to me as I devoured this lush book was Tolstoy's amazing ability to show how we change our minds, or how our minds just do change -- how enamored we become of a person, a place, a whole population, an idea, an ideal -- and then how that great love, which seemed so utterly meaningful and complete, sours or evaporates just days, hours, or even minutes later -- in short, how truly fickle we are. And at the same time, each of the characters was in some way stable -- they had their particular drives, their needs, their anxieties, which gave their changing passions some kind of coherence and thus gave themselves their "selves."

Tolstoy's ability to capture the tiny thoughts that the characters themselves were perhaps unaware of -- preconscious material consisting largely of rationalizations and fears, but also sometimes of genuine compassion -- and to present these thoughts with precision, subtle irony, and tenderness -- was a great delight. (He deals in this preconscious material rather than in unconscious material -- there is nothing symbolic or metaphorical in his writing -- he writes quite naturally of "things as they are." My partner and I enjoyed contrasting him with Kafka.)

I also am very glad that I read an unabridged version. Some of my favorite parts of the book didn't involve the title character -- I loved the mowing and hunting sections -- these were the parts where true joy (and meaning, as Levin finds) were found. And I think these are the parts not included in abridged versions.

Tolstoy's Infamous Melodrama

My wife says Anna Karenina is the worst novel she has ever read. I wouldn't go quite that far. Since I've joined Goodreads, I've reviewed one novel that's as bad as Anna Karenina and two that are worse. I've also read many novels that are as good or better and numerous novels that are far superior to Anna Karenina.

I believe a good editor could trim off about 500 pages and turn Anna Karenina into an adequate novel.

In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, three couples are compared. Tolstoy uses these couples to illustrate three possible outcomes of love and marriage. He seems to be suggesting it's better to be slow and steady than hot and bothered.

Themes: 1. One can not break social norms without paying a price. On the other hand, following social norms is also costly.
2. Inequality in marriage is due to the fact that the infidelities committed by husbands and the wives are punished unequally both by the law and public opinion. (See the first page of chapter 13 in Part Four.)
3. Think well of all people, and try to reconcile and soften their differences. (See the first page of chapter 13 in Part Four.)
4. Argument convinces no one. (See the second page of chapter 13 in Part Four.)
5. It's not good to jump to conclusions that might prove to be false.

Anna Karenina has convinced me that the golden age of literature isn't in some bygone era, it's in the here and now.

At the lunch table today in school, a colleague asks me:

"So what are you reading at the moment?"

"Nothing!"

This is obviously not my staple answer, being a voracious reader and also the diehard school librarian, so I feel I have to give some context:

"I am having a book hangover, or no, I am in mourning! Anna Karenina just died on me, for the second time! I read the last pages yesterday and still feel the physical pain in my body. I can't pick up anything else right now!"

How many books leave you aching? I discussed with my children yesterday, and there are not that many. This is one of them. And I will just leave the review the way it is below, an evolving account of my second reading of this unforgettable story. I have no doubt that if I attempt it a third time, some 25 years from now, I will mourn her again, as if she died yesterday. In my heart, she did.

Here's the journey:

Rereading the famous introductory sentence, I start!

I don't agree with it, actually, even though I used to quote it as one of those brilliant summaries of the human condition. However, with life experience, my perspective has changed. It's the happy families that are as diverse as the universe! Unhappiness is incredibly similar in all families, once you start to scratch the surface and speak to other people.

That is also why unhappy families recognise themselves in the great fiction describing their ordeals.

It is so much more interesting to see how people manage to break the spell of unhappiness in creative ways and form new communities that are put together using the shining shards of their broken past to shape new patterns. So now that I am rereading Anna Karenina for the first time in two decades, I want to find her creative happiness in her dull conventional unhappiness!

Let the journey begin...

I read about a quarter of the novel in a long, continuous go with interruptions that remind me of Vronsky's, Karenin's and Anna's repetitive everyday duties that are concealing the consuming passion (in my case for this book!) that dominates all thoughts and actions.

And I am as enraged as I tend to get only when reading very, very good books that challenge my equilibrium. I wonder if we will ever see a society that is free from the vice of regarding machine life as a virtue?

I read on, knowing all too well how Tolstoy solves the riddle of Anna...

Midway through the book I discover something new in myself as a reader. When I read Tolstoy as a young girl, I felt the oppressive weight of his long descriptions of Russian society and agriculture (and of war and strategy in War and Peace) and I was skimming through Levin's struggles with practical and theoretical issues of farming to get back to the Karenin-Anna-Vronsky triangle. Now I find it most stimulating to have a break from the emotional collapses to dive into harvesting and bad weather in the countryside!

Who would have guessed?

I read on...

Three quarters done I need a break from Levin. His personality is so brilliantly drawn that I feel physically anxious around him. If a reader walks on eggshells around a character, you know that he masters the skill of brooding and manipulative self-centredness! Detecting and punishing thoughtcrime did not enter the world with Orwell. It is a staple ingredient of patriarchy, and in people like Levin, notoriously unable to let go of their own self-importance or to see the world as something bigger than their fragile ego, it becomes a caricature - but a painful one that does not stimulate laughter.

Can we go back to Vronsky and Anna breaking down, please, Mr Tolstoy? The tragedy hurts less than this maniac torturing his pregnant wife with his head full of drama!

Reading on...

"In what is she to blame? She wishes to live."

The tragedy encapsulated in these thoughts! Dolly, the woman broken by conventional life, thinking about Anna, broken by breaking free...

When the Russian elite first read this idyll to their vanity, they must have fallen headlong into the reflecting pool right after Narcissus. For now, you see, not only are they rich and powerful, but according to Tolstoy they’re also supremely virtuous. The theme of this book does the trick.

Say a painter decides to do a Madonna and Child. Looking around, he frowns as he sees that this subject has already been painted thousands of times in every possible way over the ages. To stand out, he decides to paint the biggest, baddest Madonna and Child ever. Such is Tolstoy’s approach to the book’s theme, an admiring homage to God, family and class.

Though the author paints on a sprawling canvas, this theme handcuffs the plot, which gets so predictable that it can be seen hundreds of pages in advance more or less what will happen. This same sprawl handcuffs character development because the characters have to be all bad or all good in order to make the author’s point. So the book needs exemplary writing in order to work.

Here, however, Tolstoy never really trusts us to extract the message from his story. He tends to spell it out for us in case we didn’t get it the first time. After a few promising paragraphs, or pages, the prose gets eclipsed by remarks better suited to religious tracts, the kinds with cartoon crosses and all caps, and a penchant for showing up anonymously in public places. As a result, too much of the author can be seen and not enough of his story.

Further damaging the narrative is the laughable misogyny by which the Stepford-wife females make fools of themselves. At one point, for example, three upper class women victoriously demonstrate to a dazzled peasant cook that their recipe makes the tastiest jam. All through the book, the corset-yanking writer pulls out every cliché, right down to the hooker with a heart of gold who, mortified by her own scarlet shame, literally (with a shawl) effaces herself before a ruling-class woman of virtue and promptly exits the stage after a disgraceful cameo.

We’d have a veritable encyclopedia of sexism except that these caricatures must in turn compete with more subtle excoriations of liberals. The eponymous Anna, her eyes glittering, showcases the step-by-step descent into nihilism that liberalism causes, abetted by freethinkers and possibly even by atheists. Though more subtle, this condemnation is still much too obvious to the reader.

Choking on dogma, the story scrapes bottom awhile. But luckily, about page 700, the author drags the manuscript off the mortuary table and applies shock. Over the next 240 pages, he tones down the agitprop, and Levin’s generally well written epiphany in the last 60 pages shoves this Frankenstein past the finish line.

The author tries to mine the same vein as Dostoevsky, another religious conservative. But where Dostoevsky succeeds brilliantly, Tolstoy fizzles. The urge to moralize so impedes the narrative flow that it ruins the effect. What’s left is an archipelago of excellent prose floating on a pond of unctuous treacle.

I wanted to give this novel at least some credit for these stretches of good writing. But sadly, the distractions in the writing conspired with a predictable plot and monochromatic characters to turn this book into a train wreck.

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.

o kadar uzun zamandır bekliyordum ki goodreads'in durum güncelleme bölümünde "I'm finished!" linkine tıklamayı... okumaya başlayalı bir ay geçmiş. normalde bir kitap elimde kabaca şöyle bir üç haftadan uzun kaldığı zaman sinirlenmeye ve kitaptan soğumaya başlarım. gelin görün ki anna karenina bir ömür ruhumda benimle yaşayacak kitaplardan biri oldu. uzun uzun okumuş olmaktan asla mutsuz olmadım; bilakis, bilerek acele etmedim. evet, kitabı beklediğimden uzun sürede okuyor olmak beni bir miktar utandırdı, fakat kitapla yaşadığım macera açısından baktığımda her şey olması gerektiği gibi oldu diye düşünmeden edemiyorum. bir okur olarak benim kitabı değil, kitabın beni yönettiği bir okuma süreci oldu diyebilirim.

en sevdiğim yazarlardan Orhan Pamuk, şöyle demiş anna karenina ile ilgili:

“Okuduğum en mükemmel, en kusursuz, en derin ve en zengin roman. Tolstoy’un her şeyi gören, herkesin hakkını veren, hiçbir ışığı, hareketi, ruhsal dalgalanmayı, şüpheyi, gölgeyi kaçırmayan, inanılmayacak kadar dikkatli, açık, kesin ve zekice bakışı, bu romanın sayfalarını çevirdikçe okura, ‘evet, hayat böyle bir şey!’ dedirten kitap. Yarıştan önceki bir atın diriliğini, mutsuz bir bürokratın yavaş yavaş düştüğü yalnızlığı, bir kadın kahramanının üst dudağını, bir büyük ailedeki dalgalanmaları, hep birlikte yaşanan hayatlar içinde tek tek insanların inanılmaz ve hayattan da gerçek kişisel özelliklerini Tolstoy mucizeye varan bir edebi yetenek, hoşgörü ve sanatla önümüze seriverir. Roman sanatı konusunda eğitim için okunacak, defalarca okunacak ilk roman Anna Karenina’dır.”

çok iyi bir okur olduğumu, çok okuduğumu iddia edemem. ama şimdiye kadar okuduğum kitaplar, hatta daha da daraltayım; klasikler arasında anna karenina kadar kaliteli bir dizi gibi, tane tane, adım adım ilerleyen; her karaktere ayrı bir özen gösteren, bu karakterlerin gelişimiyle ayrı, başlarına gelenlerle ayrı ilgilenen kitap okumadım desem, abartmış olmam herhalde. dolayısıyla, kitabın başlarındaki sahne geçişleri bana -belki de çok saçma bir şekilde- Masumiyet Müzesi'ni çağrıştırıp kitabın ortalarına geldiğimde artık bu çağrışım bende kaşıntı yapıp dayanamayarak, acaba orhan pamuk'un anna karenina konusunda söylediği bir şeyler var mı diye araştırdığımda yukarıda yer verdiğim alıntıya denk gelip; bürokrattan ata, bir kadının üst dudağından bir aile tarihine geçişlerle ilgili kısmı okuduğumda yaşadığım heyecanı az buçuk tahmin edebilirsiniz.

çok heyecan verici, çok güzel bir haber almışım; doyasıya sevinmişim ve artık sadece dingin bir mutluluk yaşıyormuşum gibi dolu dolu bir hisle bıraktı bu kitap beni. ne kadar övsem az.

“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.
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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.
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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.

A panoramic view of the high society, obsessed with keeping up appearances, in a fast changing Russia. Full of reflections on love, faith, duty and (maybe less compelling for the modern reader) agriculture - 4 stars

Short chapters filled with multifaceted, very real characters and a lot of interesting contrasts is my characterisation of the reading experience of Anna Karenina. Commentary of society, with the opportunism and nepotism of the aristocracy is personified in Stepan "Stiva" Oblonski, who we meet at the start of book one, would be an other major component. Leo Tolstoy takes us to meet the extended family of the Oblonski's, including the titular Anna in a sweeping account of life's tribulations reminiscent to a good soap. Marriages form and break up, children are born, people fall from horses, there are touching death scenes and religious revelations.
I felt this was an engaging read, with quite some dry humour and a very keen eye of Tolstoi to the flaws in humans in general and the aristocracy in general. I would say that my expectations were maybe a tad too high and I don't feel this is the best novel ever, sometimes it meanders a bit too much and a plot driven story isn't really there. But I am still glad to have read this classic and being able to discuss this in the setting of a virtual bookclub with a lot of fellow readers.
Below I included some impressions from the eight distinct sections of the book, without giving away too much of the plot.

In Book I we have Stiva feeling sorry for himself that his charm and good looks don't mean his wife Dolly immediately forgives him for his affair with the French governess of his children. Ljovin, his good friend from the province is a direct opposite to him. Muscular and shy of office work, not smooth in his handling of ladies. He is sincerely interested in the Russian people in general, but disappointed in the politics within the Zemstvo governing districts.

Ljovin is very much in love with Kitty, sister of Dolly. And he is very much insecure and kind of a selfrighteous asshole at times in his purity.

Then we have Anna, and immediately we have on of the first of many contrasts, on how mens affairs are covered up (by their sister in the case of Stiva) while society will denounce her after she falls for Vronski, who she meets on the train station. This while her husband, Karenin, is still clearly doting over her at the start of this tale; his trust in his wife is quite touching considering how the story will progress.

The start of the book is just brimming with life and sharp observations. The ball is a good example, it shows Kitty going through a myriad of emotions I could all relate to. All characters have charming and less than perfect sides, making them very lifelike, although besides Ljovin and Karenin no one really seems to work or do something. Also interesting how even the cynical party people like Vronski fall in love head over heels in what we would now think of as a rather traditional manner.

Book II starts of with Kitty being literally lovesick and Anna and Vronski moving in ever tighter circles. Also an other major theme of the book, Ljovin’s love for the Russian countryside and nature pops up.

There are interesting tidbits to pick up, like Vronski already being on a low carb diet to stay on weight as jockey. He strikes me almost as a teenager, with his “let me take you away and forget about the consequences”. Also his drinking buddies give me the vibe of unserious student life, making his love declarations hard to believe for me while the demise of his beautiful horse might seem like a foreshadow of Anna her fate.

Karenin as a workaholic pushing his doubts about his wife aside by diving into work is an interesting contrast to this approach, very different.
The impact of lies on their family life, and especially Anna her son who senses that something is wrong with Vronski visiting so often, is excellently captured.

Book III takes the agricultural themes to new levels. A lot of the terms in the excellent translation of Hans Boland made me realise that I, like most of the characters in the book, am a thoroughly city person. Like the older brother of Ljovin I associate the countryside with holiday, something greatly frustating to his brother who rather works with the farmers than relax.
How endearing his fascination is with "normal people", Ljovin also has some interesting contrasting beliefs: he does not believe in healthcare for the peasants and the reason for not wanting to be involved in the Zemstvo turns out to be a rather reactionary that it does nothing for him.
He tops this of with a statement that no human endeavour in his view can be successful without being tied to self-interest, all Adam Smith like. But after this Goldman Sachs moment he works himself in the sweat in a mindless flow while harvesting.

Karenin in this section is all appearance and status focussed, with a hilarious section on his bureaucratic work with commissions and lots of legalities.
Vronski goes full on sect like towards Anna in his call for her to break with her past.

I kind of missed a big event like the ball or horse race in this third part, Levin and his other, sick brother at the end who can’t really communicate with each other was touching, but still.

Interesting how at the start of Book IV a foreign prince is so healthy he is compared by Tolstoi to a big shiny Dutch cucumber. Only slightly later Ljovin bulging biceps are compared to an Edam cheese so apparently I can assume Dutch produce at the time equalled rude health.

Ljovin’s and Kitty’s courtship through the first letters of words is very touching (if impractical), as is the bubbly lovey doveyness. You do wonder why Anna’s fascination with Vronski could not be described as engrossing by Tolstoi. To counter this we have a baffling scene of "read my diary so you know of my earlier sex with others"; a not-so-subtle move inspired apparently on Tolstoi's own life.

The reversion of Anna and Stiva their fates, with first the sister pleading for the brother and now Stiva pleading for Anna with Karenin, shows again the keen eye of the author of contrasts.

At the end of this section we suddenly have someone at the brink of death, a rather unfathomable change of heart because of that and an act of desperation, that all feels kind of out of character to me.

Book V starts with a wedding, including some stress about a shirt, based on Tolstoi his own wedding, and a trip to Italy. Painter Michailov, a small side character, capably illustrates how an artist is longing for validation and must be inspired in part by how Tolstoi himself sometimes felt.

The boredom and tribulations of married life, including rows and a sick brother who dies after a touching struggle, shows the value of the new bride.
Karenin’s breakdown is touching as well, his realisation he is without friends for instance but also his prideful nature are illustrated. How he tries to let his son belief Anna is dead is so cruel and over the top, as is the reunion scene on his birthday

And then the scathing opera scene where the vindicative power of the high society versus those that deviate is shown. I liked this section quite a lot, Book V is probably my favourite.

The reversion of faiths between Kitty and Anna is even touched upon by Dolly at the start of Book VI. Ljovin in this section struck me as quite modern with his ideal of always wanting to be a better person and being innately dissatisfied by himself. But to balance this he is then portrayed as childishly jealous. And he drinks swamp water during hunting.
In these scenes Oblonski’s profiteering from the peasants is rather nauseating and Veslovski as his friend is terrible as well; you can well imagine why a revolution will end the aristocracy in a couple of decades if you read about their behaviours in the depiction by Tolstoi.

Dolly reflecting on the sad fate of women being constantly pregnant and losing children felt modern as well, and she becomes in my view a much deeper character than I imagined. Also when she remarks that a man can always find better partners after someone reveals to her postponing pregnancies to keep a man interested in her, gives her a kind of solemn and realistic aura.

In Book VII the contrast struck me very clearly yet again:
Vronski: modern, decadent, rich, societally engaged, in an unconventional relationship.
Ljevin: traditional, hardworking, focussed on his own family, conventionally married.

Elections being sabotaged by student like pranks of nicking someones uniform or feeding people so drunk they can’t vote show that democracy was only nascent at best in the Russia Tolstoi knew.
And finally we start to see the obsessive side of Anna, being locked in her house and despised by society while her partner can indulge in elections and society.

The pureness of Ljovin is illustrated again at the start of this section, with him wanting to understand a music play while the rest of the attendees just want to talk with interesting people, and him being all star struck with a charming lady he meets for the first time.
Interesting how Ljovin in the city thinks of his afternoon as laborious while it is just meetings, concerts and family visits and then four bottles of champagne in a society club. This gave me some The Great Gatsby vibes.

Contrasts yet again, this time around life and death: the birth of the child of Ljovin and the death of a major character. There are some very well written scenes of the powerlessness and desperation of Ljovin when his wife goes into childbirth.

Oblonski going kind of broke, but being comforted that other members of high society are in even more debt. And even Ljovin spends too much money during his stay in Moscow, a symbol of the waning status and standing of the aristocracy versus the professional and merchant middle class.
Oblonski tries to use his standing to get a supervisory board spot in a railroad company, even having to "lowering" himself to “Jews”, who apparently exemplify capital.

Karenin going under in religious fervor and being influenced by a mystic French soothsayer, all Raspoetin like, while an other character goes into full morphine addiction. Book VII is really the most grim section of the book.

Anna’s jealousy and powerlessness (frankly she acts like a little child in my view, wanting to have it all and not facing up to the consequences of her choices, projecting on her partner her own unhappiness and trying to get him ever more in her grip to keep her mind of her predicament) leads to many struggles and a full out breakdown. The scenes of her riding through Moscow are reminiscent to Mrs. Dalloway, feverish and acutely aware of all the lives going on around her.

Finally Book VIII felt a bit like an after thought.
We have someone with a death wish, leaving as volunteer to the war with the Turks in the Balkan.
Ljovin’s existential doubt in this section is interesting and in my view a bit out of his pragmatic character, at least him contemplating suicide is something I could not imagine at all from all of the earlier books of the novel.

The contrast between Kitty her engagement with her child versus how Anna went about this in earlier sections is very clear.

And then we end with Ljovin his spiritual awakening and acceptance of his own human fallacy in living (even after the revelation that everything in life focusses on the goodness of God he still gets mad, discusses) does not impede his believe to do the right thing anymore.
It’s a bit vague to me as a modern day reader, I mean he is human and will go on making mistakes, that doesn't feel as the kind of deep truth a book of a thousand pages should end with.

Read the end of Anna Karenina and listen to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mUmdR...

It’ll break your heart.

When I first completed this book, I sat down at my computer and attempted to review it, and all I could come up with was,

“F*ck you, Tolstoy!!”

I know that sounds juvenile, but I still have that feeling. I’m so ANGRY with him for what he did to Anna. I’m so angry that we were barely given a chance to know her. (Yes, I'm aware that she's a fictional character who never actually existed. So? She was real to me!) We learn that she’s beautiful and at the same time very insecure. We learn that she is married, but not happily so. We learn that she is a devoted mother to her son, but not to her daughter. We never really get to learn about the depths of Anna. It’s always Anna in relation to a man. Anna and her husband. Anna and Vronsky. Anna and her son. I guess that speaks to the position of women in society during that time period. Women had no identity of their own.

What I enjoyed most about this book was Tolstoy's ability to allow the reader to get inside the heads of the characters. We learn so much about them through their thoughts -- their fears, their insecurities, their secrets. By enabling us to connect to the internal dialog of the characters, we are introduced to their humanity. As a reader on the outside looking in, I got so annoyed when a character would put so much emphasis on a look or the tone of voice or a gesture of another. But don't we all do that? Isn't that how we experience the world? Unfortunately, often our assumptions about what a look means or a tone of voice means is inaccurate at best. When we ascribe meaning to these little behavioral nuances (which we all do based on our own baggage, right?) we're saying very little about the other person and everything about ourselves. Tolstoy takes his message to the extreme, sure, but it certainly made me sit back and really think about what I assume about others verses the reality of that person.


This book also got me thinking long and hard about what one prioritizes in life. Is it enough to be comfortable and stable, if that comfort and stability mean you are also lonely and dissatisfied? Should we follow our desires and damned be the consequences, no matter what dark rabbit hole they might lead us down? I have to ask myself, am I an Anna or a Kitty? Comfort and contentment or drama and romance: neither of which leaves a person completely satisfied. I don't have any answers. Just many many more questions.


The days are short and the nights are cold and stretch out for an eternity. It's the perfect time to pick up this novel, snuggle in and enjoy the world Tolstoy created for you.


Five bright, gleaming stars...


*** A note about this edition: Luckily I was forewarned NOT to read the introduction before reading the book. The introduction will give away key elements of the plot and thus ruin any surprises the book may have in store for you if you are fortunate, as I was, to not have the ending spoiled for you already.

I seriously really enjoyed this it's one of those that stays with you and the philosophy of it x I'm thinking of it days later, the intelligence streams off it! However I felt it slightly long and there wasn't enough Anna