❄️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.

Anna Karenina is a remarkable story about society, faith and love. Included is a large range of emotions with some character flaws such as infidelity, unethicalness and selfishness.

All the characters are intertwined with Anna in some form. Anna and the Count, Stephen and Dolly, Kitty and Levin the last being the most honest and likeable.

Anna's first sighting of Count Vronsky is a string pulling of the heart with the railway station as the backdrop of their meeting. The Count finds Anna's beauty captivating. The love affair between the Count and Anna leads her to act in a way that is not befitting her rank in society. She forgets herself and tells Karenin she loves the Count. A strict moral code leaves Anna socially ostracized by society rules, she is shamed and shunned. Her love is very sad, for her the outcome is truly tragic. Her desires and changes in her life did not really give her physical or mental happiness, mostly suffering.

Anna's story is paralleled by that of strong-minded Levin and charming Kitty, frivolous Stiva and loyal Dolly. Dolly finds Steven (charming yet non conforming in his life as a parent and not being responsible to fulfill his role as a husband and father) cheating on her. In yet she has the most ordinary of values in family. She finds great joy in the moments with her children her primary motivation in life giving her great meaning.

Princess Kitty and Levin are quite charming and by far my favorite. He is older, their beliefs are different and yet they complement each other quite well. Levin is rejected at first as Kitty is smitten by another and Levin retreats to his farm and has many peasant families working with him. His bouts makes him search for the meaning of life which makes him skeptical in his beliefs. He eventually finds peace with God. He has loved Kitty always. Kitty is sensitive and compassionate. They marry and life for them is good and their love is true.

The story is beautifully written, rich and complex in morals. The novel is a cautionary tale of what not to do. This is not Anna's story, it is Levin's and Tolstoy who are one in their moral and spiritual beliefs.

“There are as many different kinds of love as there are different hearts” Leo Tolstoy in his timeless novel.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Πώς αξίζει τελικά να ζήσεις τη ζωή σου;

Ένα δραματικό αριστούργημα.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

n  n

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

n  n

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

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

n  n

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

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

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

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

n

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

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

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

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

n

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

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

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

n

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

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

n  n

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tolstoy should've been a psychologist. I can't think of another novelist, past or present, who so ably describes human emotions, motivations and thought processes, especially with regards to human relationships. That facet of his writing, is spellbinding.
And while Tolstoy will, throughout 'Anna Karenina', widen the lens, and explore larger themes, such as the betterment of society through governmental and agricultural reform (mostly through the character of Levin- a stand-in for Tolstoy himself) at its core, the novel I think, is a study of more intimate themes: family, love and marriage, infedility, morality and faith.
The novel is basically a time- share between the two main characters (who only actually meet once in the novel) Konstantin Dmitrich Levin and Anna Karenina.
Anna is the breathtakingly beautiful aristocratic wife of Alexei Karenin, a rather boring, rational government official. When Anna meets the handsome, rich young military officer, Count Vronsky, she falls madly in love with him. What follows is the fascinating transformation of Anna's character in response to her own internal struggle with decisions she makes in her pursuit of emotional honesty and how Society disdainfully casts her aside.
The novel's co- protagonist, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin (Tolstoy) is an independent thinking landowner/farmer who extolls the virtues of country life and farming as the backbone of traditional national values while struggling to find compromise as Russia finds its way in the modern world. After he settled into married life and especially when he is away from the farm and has free time on his hands, Levin is a deep thinker. Like...'what is the meaning of life?' type thinker. This is made more interesting by the fact that it parallels the authors own struggle with the big questions: Life, Death, Good vs Evil, God, Faith.
Anna Karenina is a large novel with large ideas and at the same time, touchingly human. It has been described as the greatest novel of all time. It very well could be. It is definitely a masterpiece.

4.75⭐️ I suffer from 'the more I like a book, the more difficult is it for me to write an articulate review' syndrome

I'm not sure I can quite explain how much I loved this book. I certainly can't explain adequately how annoyed I was at various stages at how certain characters were treated.

It's definitely a book that warrants a re-read in the future. Tragic and beautiful in equal measures

A masterpiece

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...

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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