(Book 840 From 1001 Books) - Анна Каренина = Anna Karenina = Anna Karenin, Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger.

A complex novel in eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters, it is spread over more than 800 pages (depending on the translation and publisher), typically contained in two volumes.

It deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, desire, and rural vs. city life.

The plot centers on an extramarital affair between Anna and dashing cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky that scandalizes the social circles of Saint Petersburg and forces the young lovers to flee to Italy in a search for happiness. After they return to Russia, their lives further unravel.

Characters: Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Aleksandrovna Shcherbatskaya, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, Count Aleksei Kirillovich Vronsky, Konstantin "Kostya" Dmitrievitch Levin, Prince Stepan "Stiva" Arkadyevitch Oblonsky.

عنوا�� چاپ شده در ایران: «آنا کارنینا» نویسنده: لئو ن تولستوی (نیلوفر) ادبیات روسیه؛ انتشاراتیها: (ساحل، نیلوفر، کلبه سفید، سمیر، گوتنبرگ)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز بیست و چهارم ماه فوریه سال 1985میلادی

عنوان: آنا کارنینا؛ نویسنده: لئو ن تولستوی؛ مترجم: محمدعلی شیرازی؛ تهران، ساحل، 1348، در 346ص؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان روسیه - سده 19م

عنوان: آنا کارنینا؛ نویسنده: تولستوی؛ مترجم: سروش حبیبی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1378، در 1024ص، در 2جلد، شابک 9644481127؛

عنوان: آنا کارنینا؛ نویسنده: تولستوی؛ مترجم: فرناز آشتیانی؛ تهران، کلبه سفید، 1383، در 496ص، شابک 9649360166؛

عنوان: آنا کارنینا؛ نویسنده: تولستوی؛ مترجم: قازار سیمونیان؛ تهران، سمیر، گوتنبرگ، چاپ چهارم 1388، در 864ص، شابک 9789646552364؛

بیش از نیمی از داستان، درباره ی «آنا کارنینا»ست؛ باقی درباره ی فردی به نام «لوین» است، البته که این دو شخصیت، در داستان رابطه ی دورادوری با هم دارند؛ به‌ عبارتی، «آنا کارِنینا»، خواهرِ دوستِ «لوین» است؛ در طولِ داستان، این دو شخصیت، تنها یکبار، و آنهم در اواخرِ داستان، با هم رودررو می‌شوند؛ پس، رمان تنها به زندگی «آنا کارِنینا» اشاره ندارد، و در آن، به زندگی و افکار شخصیت‌های دیگرِ داستان نیز، توجه شده‌ است؛ «آنا»، نام این زن است، و «کارِنین»، نام همسرِ ایشانست، و او به‌ مناسبت نام شوهرش، «آنا کارِنینا (مؤنثِ «کارِنین»)» نامیده می‌شود؛ «تولستوی» در نگارش این داستان، کوشیده، برخی افکار خود را، در قالب دیالوگ‌های متن، به خوانشگر بباوراند، تا او را به اندیشیدن وادارد؛

در قسمت‌هایی از داستان، «تولستوی»، درباره ی شیوه‌ های بهبود کشاورزی، یا آموزش نیز، سخن گفته؛ که نشان‌ دهنده ی اطلاعات ژرف نویسنده، در این زمینه‌ نیز هست؛ البته بیان این اطلاعات و افکار، گاهی باعت شده، داستان از موضوع اصلی دور، و برای خوانشگر خسته‌ کننده شود؛ داستان از آنجا آغاز می‌شود که زن و شوهری به نام‌های: «استپان آرکادیچ»، و «داریا الکساندرونا»؛ با هم اختلافی خانوادگی دارند.؛ «آنا کارِنینا»، خواهر «استپان آرکادیچ» است، و از «سن‌ پترزبورگ» به خانه ی برادرش ــ که در «مسکو» است ــ می‌آید؛ و اختلاف زن و شوهر را به سامان می‌کند؛ حضور آنا در «مسکو»، باعث به وجود آمدن ماجراهای اصلیِ داستان می‌شود...؛

فضای اشرافیِ آن روزگار، بر داستان حاکم است؛ زمانیکه پرنس‌ها و کنت‌ها، دارای مقامی والا در جامعه بودند؛ در کل، این داستان، روندی نرم، و دلنشین دارد؛ و به باور دیگران، فضای خشک داستان «جنگ و صلح»، بر «آنا کارنینا» حاکم نیست؛ این داستان، که درون‌مایه‌ ای عاشقانه ـ اجتماعی دارد، شاید پس از «جنگ و صلح»، بزرگ‌ترین اثر «تولستوی» بزرگ، به شمار است، تولستوی خود این اثر خویش را برتر میشمارند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 02/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 06/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

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.

***Spoiler alert. If you have read this book, please proceed. If you are never going to read this novel (be honest with yourself), then please proceed. If you may read this novel, but it may be decades in the future, then please proceed. Trust me, you are not going to remember, no matter how compelling a review I have written. If you need Tolstoy talking points for your next cocktail party or soiree with those literary, black wearing, pseudo intellectual friends of yours, then this review will come in handy. If they pin you to the board like a bug over some major plot twist, that will be because I have not shared any of those. If this happens, do not despair; refer them to my review. I’ll take the heat for you. If they don’t know who I am, then they are, frankly, not worth knowing. Exchange them for other more enlightened intellectual friends.***

“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”

Anna Arkadyevna married Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a man twenty years her senior. She dutifully produced a son for him and settled into a life of social events and extravagant clothes and enjoyed a freedom from financial worries. Maybe this life would have continued for her if she had never met Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, but more than likely, her midlife crisis, her awareness of the passage of time, would have compelled her to seek something more.

”They say he’s a religious, moral, honest, intelligent man; but they don’t see what I’ve seen. They don’t know how he has been stifling my life for eight years, stifling everything that was alive in me, but he never once even thought that I was a living woman who needed love. They don’t know how he insulted me at every step and remained pleased with himself. Didn’t I try as hard as I could to find a justification for my life? Didn’t I try to love him… But the time has come, I’ve realized that I can no longer deceive myself, that I am alive, that I am not to blame if God has made me so that I must love and live. And what now? If he killed me, if he killed him, I could bear it all, I could forgive it all, but no, he….”

Her husband was enamored with her, but then so was everyone who met her, male or female. Maybe he was too contented with their life together and, therefore, took their relationship for granted. He was two decades older, so the passions of romance didn’t burn with as hot a flame. She wanted passion from him even if it was to murder her lover and herself. Even if it was something tragic, she wanted something to happen, something that would make her feel... something.

I couldn’t help thinking early on that the problem wasn’t with her husband, certainly nothing that a new lover could fix for very long. The same face was always going to greet her in the mirror. The same thoughts were always going to swim their way back to the surface. We can not mask the problems within ourselves by changing lovers. The mask will eventually slip, and all will be revealed.

Ugly can be very pretty.

Is there such a thing as being too beautiful? Can being so beautiful make someone cold, disdainful, and unable to really feel empathy or even connected to those around them? Her type of beauty is a shield that insulates her even as her insecurities swing the sword that stabs the hearts of those who despise her and those who love her.

”She was enchanting in her simple black dress, enchanting were her full arms with the bracelets on them, enchanting her firm neck with its string of pearls, enchanting her curly hair in disarray, enchanting the graceful, light movements of her small feet and hands, enchanting that beautiful face in its animation; but there was something terrible and cruel in her enchantment.”

My favorite character in this epic was Konstantin (Kostya) Dmitrich Levin. He was a well meaning, wealthy landowner who, unusually for the times, went out and worked the land himself. He got his hands dirty enough that one could actually call him a farmer. He was led to believe by his friends and even the Shcherbatsky family that their youngest daughter, Kitty, would be an affable match for him. Kitty’s older sister Dolly was married to Stepan (Stiva) Arkadyich Oblonsky, who was the brother to Anna Karenina.

Stiva was recently caught and forgiven for having a dalliance with a household staff, but no sooner was he out of that boiling water of that affair before he was having liaisons with a ballerina. This did lead me to believe that life would never be satisfying for either Stiva or his sister Anna because there was always going to be pretty butterflies to chase as the attractiveness of the one they had began to fade.

Before Vronsky became gobsmacked by Anna, he was leisurely chasing after Kitty and leading her on just long enough for Kitty to turn Levin’s marriage proposal down flat. That was like catching a molotok (hammer) right between the eyes as a serp (sickle) swept Kostya off his feet. Interestingly enough, later in the book Levin met Anna Karenina, after he has married Kitty (you’ll have to read the book to discover how this comes about), and he was captivated by Anna.

It was almost enough for me start chain smoking Turkish cigarettes or biting my nails down to the quick while I waited for the outcome. Substitute Anna for Jolene, and you’ll know what I was humming.

”She had unconsciously done everything she could to arouse a feeling of love for her in Levin, and though she knew that she had succeeded in it, as far as one could with regard to an honest, married man in one evening, and though she liked him very much, as soon as he left the room, she stopped thinking about him.”

If she was irritated with Vronsky, one day maybe she would just seduce Levin for entertainment... because she could.

I must say that I didn’t think much of Vronsky at the beginning of the novel, but as the plot progressed I started to sympathize with him. Tolstoy was brilliant at rounding out characters so our preconceived notions or the projections of ourselves that we place upon them are forced to be modified as we discover more about them.

Levin had his own problems. He had been reading the great philosophers, looking for answers. He found more questions than answers in religion. He abandoned every lifeboat he climbed into and swam for the next one. ”Without knowing what I am and why I’m here, it is impossible for me to live. And I cannot know that, therefore I cannot live.”

The problem that every reasonably intelligent person wrestles with is that no matter how successful we are, no matter how wonderful a life we build, or how well we take care of ourselves, we are going to die. It is irrefutable. Cemeteries don’t lie. Well, there is a lot of eternal lying down going on, but no duplicity. None of us are going to escape the reaper. No one is ascending on a cloud or going to the crossroads to make a deal with the Devil. We all have to come face to face with death, and we can’t take any of our bobbles, accolades, or power with us. So the question that Levin ended up asking himself, the Biggest question even beyond, why am I here? is:

Why do anything?

Without immortality, everything we attempt to do can seem futile. Some would make the case that we live on in our kids and grandkids. I say bugger to that. I want more time!

Well, there are ways to be immortal, and one of them is to write a masterpiece like Anna Karenina that will live forever.

By the end, I am ready to throttle Anna until her pretty eyes bug out of her head and her cheeks turn a vibrant pink, but at the same time, she seemed to be suffering from a host of mental disorders. She was so cut off from everyone and so disdainful of everyone. ”It was impossible not to hate such pathetically ugly people.” The “friends” she had had been ostracized from her by her own actions. I had to believe her loathing of people was a projection of how she felt about herself. She needed some time on Carl Jung’s couch, but he was a wee tot when this book was published. She needed to find some satisfaction in the ordinary and quit believing that a change in geography or in lovers was ever going to fix what was wrong with herself.

She had such a destructive personality. One man tried to kill himself from her actions and another contemplated the act. She was maliciously vengeful when someone didn’t do something she wanted them to do; and yet, I couldn’t quite condemn her completely. Her feelings of being stifled were perfectly natural. We all feel that way at points in our lives. We feel trapped by the circumstances of our life. Her attempt to break free in the 1870s in Russian society was brave/foolish. She sacrificed everything to chase a dream.

The dream ate her.

This book is a masterpiece, not just a Russian masterpiece but a true gift to the world of literature.

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I društvo je tako uređeno: što više radnici budu radili, sve će se više bogatiti trgovci i spahije, a oni će ostajati tegleća marva.

Ana Karenjina je mučenje i zlo. Osjećaj dosade i razdražljivosti koji kolaju tokom romana su bili skoro nepodnošljivi. U toku pisanja ovog romana Tolstoj se posvetio pedagoškom radu, a pored toga i pisanjem nekih sižea. U jednom pismu kada se obraća Strahovu 1875. godine, Tolstoj piše sljedeće: ,,Sad se laćam dosadne i trivijalne Ane Karenjine i samo molim boga da mi da snage da je se što prije riješim, kako bih upraznio mjesto - slobodno vrijeme mi je vrlo potrebno - ne za pedagoške, već za druge poslove, koji me više okupiraju. Ja volim i pedagoški rad, ali hoću da prisilim sebe da se više njime ne bavim.” Od samog početka znao sam da ovaj roman neće ići u tom pravcu da mi se svidi. Jednostavno svaka stranica je bila isprazna, i ako bih mogao da opišem roman u jednoj riječi onda bi to bila ispraznost. Ni u jednom od likova nisam vidio ništa što bi me potaklo da se udubim u razmišljanje (osim kasnije Ljevina koji je inače piščev alter ego). Svaki od njih je bio gord, besmisleno odsutan, a kada Tolstoj počne kroz njih da filozofira, jednostavno sam morao da sklapam oči, smirim se, a onda nastavim čitanje. Njihova prenemaganja, dijalozi na ivici histerije, apsurdni poduhvati koje čine, sve mi je to samo otežavalo čitanje. Tačno je da Tolstoj piše rečenice koje se prosto brzo čitaju, ali one samo u nekoj mjeri olakšavaju stvar.

Mislio sam da će se roman završiti sa smrću dotične, i da bi onda to bilo to. Međutim, malo sam se prevario. I to mučenje je trajalo do smrti Ane Karenjine. A onda potpuno nešto novo. Ne znam da li je tu vladala ona narodna: ,,Dok jednom ne smrkne, drugom ne svane,” ali zaista je sve od tada krenulo uzlaznom putanjom. Iskreno ne zato što sam ja priželjkivao njenu smrt, ali eto ona se desila, i sve kreće u drugačijem smjeru. Kao da je ona bila čvor tog zla koji je jurcao na sve strane i kada se on otpustio i zlo je sa njim nestalo. Tolstoj izdiže Ljevinovog brata, Sergija Aleksandroviča i kroz njegov pogled strukturalno jasno sagledava društveno-politička zbivanja. Ljevina polako utapa u neku čamotinju i s njim vodi borbu. Sve postaje elegantno, polemički i polako pisac pušta smislene tonove. Odjednom mi svi likovi postaju dragi, čak ih u jednu ruku i žalim. Đavo je prisutan svuda i neki jednostavno nisu mogli da se istrgnu iz njegovih kandži. Tolstoj filozof odjednom dobija nekog elana, počinje da bude odmjeren, tako fino sažet da sam uživao u svakoj rečenici, pa za divno čudo nakon završetka knjige sam poželio da još malo nešto kaže. A, ono što je posebno okupiralo moju pažnju jeste njegov osvrt na rat i oslobođenje jednovjeraca prije svega Crnogoraca i Srba od Turaka. Evo šta Tolstoj ima da kaže o ratu: ,,Rat je, s jedne strane, tako životinjska, surova i užasna stvar, da nijedan čovjek, već da i ne kažem hrišćanin, ne može lično primiti na svoju odgovornost početak rata, to može samo vlada, koja ima za to potrebu, i koja dolazi u položaj da vodi rat. S druge strane, i na osnovu nauke i na osnovu zdravog razuma, u državnim poslovima, osobito u poslovima rata, građani se odriču svoje lične volje.” Eto, da sam knjigu ostavio prije njenog konačnog svršetka, zaista bih propustio divne posljednje stranice ove knjige.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina:"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Tolstoy draws us into the tragedy by looking down in disdain at boring, happy families (the Brady family always comes to my mind) and sells his book by deciding that unhappy families provide more variety and thus entertainment, however tragic. From the start, we know that things will end badly, so later when we are introduced to Anna and Vronsky, we are more fascinated by the details on how things will unravel than being surprised at the outcome. The phrase itself is perfectly balanced and stands alone in a separate paragraph - as if he was giving us the moral from the outset. A perfect start to one of the most technically perfect novels of all time - as a matter of fact, Tolstoy considered this to be his true first novel (he considered War and Peace (also an extraordinary read) to be more than just a novel).

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.

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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Amazing!

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.

One of the best novels I've ever read and expect to read. Levin's farming dilemmas were as interesting – if not more so – than the central romantic tragedy. I hope to return to it again and again. The grand variety of life – from the sublime to the ridiculous – is in these pages. I bow down to Tolstoy, the master, who sees and knows all.

Everyone has their crazy reasons for reading a book. I was never really planning to read "Anna Karenina" in my lifetime at all. Alas, I saw a trailer of the 2012 film recently and it was breathtaking! Something about Keira Knightley is art. Something I cannot pinpoint as a mere mortal, but she always has the knack to make me believe that characters could live and breathe beyond the books. So why didn't I watch the full movie? For the stupid reason that I can't sit still just being a passive audience for more than 30 minutes nowadays, but I can spend scandalous amounts of time engaged in a book. And for the unexplainable reason that Keira Knightley made me read it!

This took me a while to finish. For one, the tome is as thick as a door-stop. Second, the plot is like a Russian nesting doll but in reverse, every layer of "Anna Karenina" reveals a bigger story than the last. Although the movie posters might make it look like some kind of Harlequin-style bodice-busting romp, don't be fooled. This ain't a feel-good rom-com. This isn't even a brooding psychosexual melodrama with a happy ending. This is a novel that tackles the romantic and the political. It addresses the philosophies that govern nations and families. It's an unhappy novel with an unhappy ending.

So if you are a sensible reader (or a lazy one) more prudent with your selections, why should you pick up this book? Well it would actually be easier for me to dissuade you to read "Anna Karenina". Why shouldn't you read Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece? You shouldn't read this if you're looking for a novel to make you feel passionately about a fictional love affair and then set down the novel and sigh "Ah! The Beatles were right, all you need is love!" Because if you're looking for that, please pick up something else. This novel will break your heart. It will make you question every adage about the warm and fuzzy power of love.  Love brings to Anna, pitch-black despair, social ostracization, the loss of dignity and sense of self, and, ultimately the desire to throw herself under a dang train!  If all you want is 24/7 kisses and sighs, go find something with Fabio on the cover. Because while the novel delivers what is one of the greatest love stories, in my opinion, ever written, it also delivers a bunch of other equally masterful plot lines about politics, society, labor issues and religion. This isn't a novel that's just about two people's heartbreak. It's about the turmoil and frustrations that plague an entire nation.

If you are still interested after all that, I guarantee you will treasure this read. Why should you read "Anna Karenina"? Well, read this novel if you want to know what kind of scope and power a novel can have. It is abound with people with varying struggles and convictions, and with presence as strong as the primary characters. This novel is as massive as the country of Russia. Its depiction of society and politics is as intricate as St. Basil's Cathedral, and its insight into human nature is as piercing as a winter in Siberia. This is something a movie just can't encompass. Happy reading!

Might come back to do a review later but don't feel in the right headspace right now.

Going to try to add my thoughts onto this. I really enjoy Tolstoy's way of writing and building up so many characters in his story that are all linked with each other in one way or another. It felt like a very old fashioned period drama and I think it would do great as a tv series. I didn't realize that the reason both Anna and Levin's life's was featured so heavily was that the point of the book wasn't just about Anna. But that both her and Levin was struggling with their life and place but they choose completely different paths. Got that as I read the last pages explaining to point of the book as a whole.
I loved reading about Levin and Kitty's Relationship at first but then felt like she lost her feel of a full character after some time. Didn't like the end with Anna but I guess to make his point clear it was a must and the ending part was a lot of heavily philosophy talk about Levin and I just did not enjoy that.