Tolstoy draws a portrait of three marriages or relationships that could not be more different. Anna Karenina is rightly called a masterpiece. Moreover Tolstoy does not spare on social socialism and describes the beginnings of communism, deals with such existential themes as birth and death and the meaning of life.
Tolstoy’s narrative art and his narrative charm are at the highest level. He also seems like a close observer of human passions, feelings and emotions.
All in all I was touched by his book because it was one of the most impressive books I have ever read.

"Kendi yüceliğinin yüksekliğinden bana bakmasına bayılıyorum". Sayf 55

"Belki de sahip Olduğum şeylere sevindiğim, sahip olmadıklarıma da üzülmediğim için mutluyum."

Sayf 167

"Kadın dediğin öyle bir yaratık ki istediğin kadar incele, gene de hiç bilmediğin yanlarıyla karşılaşıyorsun..."
Sayf 168

"Insana akıl, onu huzursuz eden şeylerden kurtulması için verilmiştir."

Sayf. 758

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

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

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

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

بوکفسکی: عشق مضحک است چون سرانجامی ندارد

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

I finished this last night, but didn't write a review then because I needed some time to think over the entire book and decide exactly what I wanted to say about it.

I'm going to start with a quick plot summary, because before I read this I didn't really know what Anna Karenina was actually about. So, in brief: Oblonsky has cheated on his wife Dolly but he convinces his sister Anna to talk to her and they don't get divorced; meanwhile Oblonsky's friend Levin is in love with Dolly's sister Kitty but she wants to marry Vronsky who is in love with Anna who is already married to Karenin but goes ahead and has an affair with Vronsky anyway so he rejects Kitty but it's okay because she marries Levin anyway and Levin has these two brothers and one is a drug addict and the other is a stuffy author and they don't do much but they're around a lot and then Anna leaves her husband but he won't give her a divorce and won't let her keep their son so she's very depressed about that and Dolly is the only one who will talk to her even though Oblonsky also works hard to convince Karenin to divorce Anna.

Everyone got that? It really could not be simpler.

Okay, on to the review part: I'm giving this book three stars because it seemed like the fairest rating, considering that some parts of this book deserved a five-star rating and some parts deserved one star. Everything with Anna and Vronsky was really interesting and amazing - I loved Anna so much, and I really wanted to be friends with her. She was lovely. Unfortunately, she and her lovah had to compete with Kitty and Levin, the other important couple of the story. And good god are they boring. Levin owns a farm, which means we get chapters upon chapters of nothing but him babbling on about farming techniques and how nobody does the job right and what he wants to do to improve his farm.
Also, the book should have ended right after Anna killed herself, or at least ended by talking about how Vronsky was dealing with it. But that doesn't happen. In the last thirty-some pages of the book, Anna throws herself under a train, and for the rest of the book we get a little mention of how Vronsky has volunteered to fight in some war, but the rest of it is all about Levin and his farm and local politics and his spiritual crisis and OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE. Once I had read two chapters about Levin after Anna's death, I flipped through the rest of the book, saw that he was the sole focus of the rest of the story, and almost stopped reading. I could have, too, and I wouldn't have missed anything important.

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'.

I first read Anna Karenina in my youth, and at that time, it didn’t make a significant impact on me. However, rereading it now, I’ve come to appreciate the immense scale of Tolstoy's prose, the depth of his ideas, and the way he mirrors and reflects his characters against one another. What once seemed like a simple tragic love story has transformed into a profound exploration of human nature, society, and morality.

I now see the novel less as Anna’s story and more as a reflection of Tolstoy himself, particularly through the character of Levin. While Anna remains a central figure, she feels like a secondary character in the broader narrative. Levin, on the other hand, serves as Tolstoy’s voice, through whom he explores his deepest philosophical and spiritual concerns.

A few months ago I read Anna in the Tropics, a Pulitzer winning drama by Nilo Cruz. Set in 1920s Florida, a lector arrives at a cigar factory to read daily installments of Anna Karenina to the workers there. Although the play takes place in summer, the characters enjoyed their journey to Russia as they were captivated by the story. Even though it is approaching summer where I live as well, I decided to embark on my own journey through Leo Tolstoy's classic nineteenth century classic novel. Although titled Anna Karenina after one of the novel's principle characters, this long classic is considered Tolstoy's first 'real' novel and his take on a modernizing country and on people's lives within it.

The novel begins as Anna Karenina arrives in Moscow from Petersburg to help her brother and sister-in-law settle a domestic dispute. Members of Russia's privileged class, Darya "Dolly" Alexandrovna discovers that her husband Stepan Arkadyich "Stiva" Oblonsky has engaged in an affair with one of their maids. Affairs being a long unspoken of part of upper class life, Dolly desires to leave her husband along with their five children. Anna pleads with Dolly to reconcile, and the couple live a long, if not tenuous, marriage, overlooking each other's glaring faults. While settling her brother's marriage, Anna is reminded of her own unhappy marriage, setting the stage for a drama that lasts the duration of the novel.

Tolstoy sets the novel in eight parts and short chapters with three main story lines, allowing for his readers to move quickly through the plot. In addition to Stiva and Dolly, Tolstoy introduces in part one Dolly's sister Kitty Shcherbatsky, a young woman of marriageable age who is forced to choose between Count Vronsky and Konstantin Dmitrich Levin. At a ball in Kitty's honor, Vronsky is smitten with Anna, temporarily breaking Kitty's heart. Even though Levin loves Kitty with his whole heart, Kitty refuses his offer in favor of Vronsky, and falls into a deep depression. Levin, seeing the one love of his life reject him, vows to never marry.

Anna becomes a fallen woman and rejects her husband in favor of Vronsky, fathering his child, leaving behind the son she loves. Even those closest to her, including family members, are appalled. A G-D fearing woman in a religious society is supposed to view marriage as sacred. Yet, Anna does not value her loved ones' advice and chooses to live with Vronsky. Despite a comfortable, upper class life, Anna is in constant internal turmoil. Spurned by a society that clings to its institutions as marriage and the church, Anna chooses love yet isolation from all but Vronsky and their daughter. Her ex-husband is viewed as a strict adherent to the law, cold, and unsympathetic, and will not grant a divorce. Even though Anna is clearly in the wrong, Tolstoy has his readers sympathizing with her situation, rooting for a positive outcome. He brings to light the plight of lack of women's rights, especially in regard to divorce, and has one hoping that Russia changes her ways as she modernizes.

If Anna's situation sheds light on the worst of Russian society and Dolly's reveals its stagnation, then Kitty, who later marries Levin, shows how the country begins to modernize. Kostya and Kitty marry for love, rather than gains in society. Believed by many to be Tolstoy's alter ego, Levin is an estate farmer who is well aware of the rights of his tenant farmers called muzhiks. Along with his brother Sergei Ivanovich, Levin works toward agrarian reform. Both men, Sergei Ivanovich especially, is swept up in the communist ideals that are beginning to form, in rejection of the tsarist governing of the country. Tolstoy diverges pages at a time to farming reforms and one can see in these pages his own beliefs for the future of Russia in the late 19th century.

Through the three principle couples: Stiva and Dolly, Vronsky and Anna, and Levin and Kitty, Tolstoy presents the old, changing, and new Russia. Having Levin introduce farming mechanisms from the west and Vronsky participate in a Slavic war, Tolstoy presents a Russia that is no longer completely isolated. He reveals how communism begins to shape up as farmers are no longer happy as tenants and many privileged classes adhere to newer values. Meanwhile, through Dolly, Anna, and Kitty, Tolstoy also presents how a woman's role in this society changes, including schooling and her place in a marriage. As the twentieth century nears, Russian life is no longer set in antiquated ways.

Had I not read a drama set in the tropics, I most likely would not have journeyed to 19th century Russia. I enjoyed learning about Leo Tolstoy's views on life there and how he saw late 19th century Russia as a changing society. I found the plight his title character depressing while reading about Levin and Kitty to be uplifting as Russia moves toward the future. Tolstoy's words are accessible in spite of the novel's length, a testament to the stellar translation done by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. A true classic, I enjoyed my time with the characters in Anna Karenina, and rate Tolstoy's premier novel 5 shining stars.

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.

❄️THIS IS MY UPDATED REVIEW FOR ANNA KARENINA❄️

I think most readers are aware of the penultimate ending of the novel, not necessarily because they've read it or even seen a film version, like the one in which Kiera Knightley plays the lead role, but they've "heard about it somewhere." I say penultimate because the novel goes on well past Anna's death and, so far as l'm concerned, to no good effect. I found it dragged whereas the rest of the novel moved along well enough for me.

The actual ending basically consists of a religious tract, disguised as Levin's struggle over embracing the Russian Orthodox faith, like everyone else he knows, and then a tract on the politics of war, again centering around Levin's feelings and the concept of pacifism. In fact, Levin takes up the rest of the novel after Anna's death, interesting because the novel begins with him being rejected by the woman he loves. We come full circle with him, as it were, where he is somewhat at peace and somewhat not, at the conclusion. I would say he is my favorite character, a man close to the land and close to the (mostly) humble people who work it. Do we see Tolstoy in this man?

War and Peace came first (1867), Anna Karenina second
(1878), and I feel like Tolstoy is restless at the end of Karenina and wants to do other things than write a novel - such as bring more theology and philosophy into his writings and life. Indeed, "Tolstoy came to reject most modern Western culture, including his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as elitist "counterfeit art" with different aims from the Christian art of universal brotherly love he sought to express." [Wiki]

Anna Karenina was highly readable and enjoyable, and its length did not matter to me one bit. The writing was exceptional. I only found Anna's personality disorder more and more difficult to deal with. The poor soul. She was so tormented. The only thing that gave her any consistent relief was draughts of morphine.

Madeline Anthony, editor of an Audible blog on the novel informs us that "the plot of Anna Karenina was inspired by the story of a real woman—the mistress of one of Tolstoy’s friends who, after learning that her lover had been neglecting her for another woman, threw herself in front a freight train.

"The character of Anna was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's daughter, Maria Hartung. Meeting the young woman at a ball, Tolstoy was struck by her beauty and, after engaging in a conversation, also by her bold opinions on literature and art."

It is at once a romance, a tragedy, and a novel of life upon life upon life - it seems like everything that matters to us on this earth is embodied in one of the characters, one of the love affairs, in one of the many lengthy conversations, or one of the subplots or the main plot itself - that is, Vronsky's relationship with Anna, and Levin's relationship with Kitty or Ekaterina - and I prefer her full name it’s so lovely.

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.

This is by far one of my absolute favorites of all time and secured the fact that I was head over heels in love with Tolstoy. I went on to read War and Peace which I also enjoyed, but this book is my first love. I am certainly one of those people that falls into the camp that this is one of the greatest novels of fiction ever written. Yet, it isn't because of the title character. Nope, I really didn't like Anna Karenina when I first encountered her. Oh yeah, I was judgy. I was similar to the society that ends rejecting and turning its back on her. " Girl, are you really going to separate yourself from your son and everyone around you for this young fella?" Vronsky was a cad and as Anna succumbed to him, I was relieved that darling Kitty was saved from him.

Tolstoy was able to understand men and women and show them to be more than just " good" or "bad" From the worn-out Dolly to the idealistic Levin, this book just completely captured my heart.

OMG

From the Introduction:

n  

'I am writing a novel,' Tolstoy informed his friend the critic Nikolai Strakhov on 11 May 1873, referring to the book that was to become Anna Karenina. 'I've been at it for more than a month now and the main lines are traced out. This novel is truly a novel, the first in my life...'

nEarlier this year, I came across a quote so attractive, that I thought whatever book it was from was automatically good. In other words, I had to read it.

"I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, as they are, and not as you'd like them to be."

I was shocked when I found out it was this book. To be fair, I knew next to nothing about it. I had heard about it briefly in The Elegance of the Hedgehog (and its poor adaptation, The Hedgehog) and also from my dad, who's a movie buff. He deemed it as immoral and in other words a "cheating book", despite having seen only the film, and said I wouldn't like it. Being human, I looked more and more forward to reading it. Thanks to a friend, I got a very good translation, which made a huge difference. There's nothing quite like disobeying just for the fun of it.



I expected an unbearable and dull writing style, but was pleasantly surprised. The only times this book bored me was when it would ramble on too much about trivial details. I'm not conflicted about its length. I don't mind large books, but it can go both ways. Upon finishing a huge book, I can either feel as if it was the perfect length, or as if it could have easily been shortened. With this book, I felt both. The length, though much of it unnecessary, made it all the more beautiful. Despite my ever-persistent impatience, there's a certain charm to it that I've never seen in another book. This undefinable pace that if I could put into words, would be phrased as, "the pace of life". I don't even know how to describe something so abstract, but there's something so idyllic about it.

The book is noticeably filled to the brim with inner monologues and dialogues. The characters are all very realistic. Some are mean and some are stupid, and if you're lucky, you get both. There were a couple here and there that I liked, but most I didn't. I usually have a problem with this, but here I felt like it didn't matter too much.



I'm not keen on romance in the least, but this novel, as Tolstoy put it, is truly a novel. At times it was too philosophical for my liking, but in the end, all loose ends were tied off. It concluded in a surprisingly hopeful and satisfying note. A good way to end the year.