Hitting that "I'm finished" button rarely feels so good. I hardly ever let myself take on challenging or long reads like this anymore; and I will admit that at some points during this book I thought, "Why am I doing this?!" But this book has been a hurdle for me for the last 5-6 years and I'm so glad to have finally completed it.

The audiobook, narrated by the fabulous Maggie Gyllenhaal, is definitely a big help. I listened to the whole thing, but also utilized the ebook at points to stay focused while listening to her reading it. That isn't something I do for a lot of books, but I found it helpful here.

Other than that, I really don't have much to say about the book itself, only because there's so much one could say about it. I knew the gist of the story, having seen adaptations of it on screen and read the first 1/4 or so a while back. But a lot of this book is plotless discussions or inner-monologues from characters about aristocracy, government/politics, religion, love, etc. So to sum it up in a review here seems a futile gesture.

I really grew to love Levin and Dolly the most of all characters, while Anna was particularly aggravating at times. It's more of a character-driven story, though, so having a balance amongst the characters was helpful to keep the story moving and giving you moments of joy alongside moments of despair.

Will I ever read this again? Unlikely. But I'm glad that I've finally read it and can check that off my bookish bucket list.

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 was assigned Anna Karenina in a Russian Lit class I took second semester of my senior year of college. I was finishing my senior thesis and didn't make it twenty pages in, and in subsequent years I lugged that Constance Garnett edition around with me from apartment to apartment, never making it past more than those first few chapters before I finally gave up several moves ago and left it in a box on the curb. And when I finally read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, at age thirty-six, I felt I'd dodged a bullet by not getting to this any sooner, because I don't think it would've made such an impression on me.

This is one of the best books I've read, and I'd go so far as to say it's one of the best books that's been written. I'm going to make this the moment I stop a practice begun in my feckless youth and long regretted, of almost never giving five-star reviews no matter how good a book is, and going forward will have an expanded scale. This doesn't mean I think Anna Karenina is a better novel than, say, War and Peace; it only means that I've evolved, with age, in my awarding of these stupid yellow Internet book report stars that I hate.

Reading a great book feels like being in love. The night I started Anna Karenina I went to bed buzzing, almost too happy to sleep and excited to wake up in the morning so that I could continue to read. And it's a relief to have access to such a thrilling sensation, now that I'm a married woman and must avoid the temptations of falling in love with a dashing count, which, I now know, could only end terribly for me and pretty much everyone else.

As we all know, Tolstoy starts this off with his famous observation that "all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The other day I was talking with my sister, who complained that while it sounds good, this isn't actually true. I agree that it doesn't really seem to be the case even in this book, but for me the opening alludes to that magically paradoxical hybrid of specificity and universality that's just what great literature is made of. The characters in Anna Karenina are aristocrats in Tsarist Russia in the 1870s, and live in a world where their messages are sent and their food is cooked and their clothes are washed and their estates are farmed and their butts are wiped by servants and peasants who are considered something less than totally human even when their souls are celebrated and rhapsodized over by their romantic overlords. The characters and their world are exactly placed in one highly specific historical moment, and each person is so exquisitely described and developed that we'd know them immediately if we ever sat next to one of them on the train. The characters in this book are more real than real people, and that's what makes this book simultaneously so specific -- there is no one just like Anna, just like Levin, just like any of these characters -- and yet so general -- there are so many people who are almost like them that we recognize in these characters aspects of people in our own lives, of ourselves. I'm glad I waited to read this book because by the time I did I'd been married, I'd had a child, I'd suffered through romantic relationships that had turned toxic and unsalvageable, so I could admire just how accurately and beautifully all these things were described. Of course, I still hadn't yet harvested wheat or (spoiler alert!) thrown myself under a train, but after reading this I know just how those doing those things must be. The suicide in this book is one of the most incredible passages I've ever read, and will stick with me for the rest of my life. I wouldn't be surprised if I think of it at the moment of my own death, though I guess (well, hope) it's a little premature to say.

Of course, this being Tolstoy, the magnificent death scene can't be the end of it, and is followed by a lengthy and arguably tedious informercial for religious faith and family life. I remember a similar sort of thing at the end of his other long novel and it reminds me a bit of going to see some reconfiguration of a classic punk band a few years ago and being subject to the lead singer's plug for Ron Paul: Tolstoy's got a captive audience and he will hold forth on his tiresome pet ideas, throughout the book in little asides and then with great force at the end. In a normal writer I'd call this a flaw but I suppose in Tolstoy it's an eccentricity he's more than entitled to. It's his prerogative because by the end I felt whatever nutty crap he wanted to pull was well worth it.

I think part of getting old and crotchety and out of touch has been, for me, getting more conservative and lame and stupidly swoony about "the canon" and what constitutes Deathless Literature. Anna Karenina is better than almost anything else I can think of because it lives and breathes, and there's so much in it, and no matter what I do to it -- read it as a resolutely feminist text, as I do, and pretty much ignore the Christian faith stuff that was clearly so central for its author -- it isn't, and can't be, remotely diminished. I can read all the footnotes; I can ignore the footnotes. I can go to commentaries and articles and Nabokov and Bakhtin on the subject of Anna Karenina and what it all must truly mean; I can go back to school for my PhD and devote the rest of my life to its study. Or, I can remain willfully ignorant, as I am, and just enjoy the story, which is all that I've done and all I feel up to, and for me right now that's fine. It makes my own life so much larger, both by illuminating my own lived experience and by expanding and enhancing it to include all these events I haven't lived through, places I haven't been, and people I haven't known. I've had so much more and richer of a life than I could've had without having read this novel. My soul will always remain crushed by what happened to Anna, and even, in spite of myself, strengthened by Levin's religious conversion and the birth of his son. I think another thing I didn't get when I was younger, with my stingy four stars, was how hard that is to do, to write a book that will effect something like that in readers... Or maybe it isn't so hard really, because a lot of books do that for a lot of people. Certainly a lot have done it for me and they for sure weren't all highly respectable Russian Classics.

But there is something especially timeless in here, though, that I don't think I'm imagining. It's so simultaneously of its time but of of our time too, maybe every time, and it's shocking how these old words on the page can be so vital and alive. Some of that I do think comes from the translation, and I sometimes wonder if hip new translations are cheating a bit...? Well, even if they do come with an asterisk, I'd say avoid poor fusty Constance as I highly recommend Pevear and Volokhonsky. Highly recommend this book. Whew. What a read. Gosh.

Marcel Proust scriveva che “ogni lettore, quando legge, legge se stesso”, e nessuna frase potrebbe descrivere meglio il mio rapporto con Anna Karenina.

Ma andiamo con ordine.

Quando lessi per la prima volta questo libro avevo diciassette anni e un caso avanzato di adolescenza problematica. I testi sacri su cui si basava la mia comprensione del mondo erano, nell’ordine: L’insostenibile leggerezza dell’essere, Cime tempestose e le canzoni degli Smiths. Twilight era stata per me un’opera formativa, e il mio amore per i poeti romantici aveva trasformato i muri della mia stanza in una galleria di citazioni di Keats. L’ambiente in cui ero cresciuta, insomma, aveva fatto del suo meglio per spingermi a sviluppare una visione delle relazioni sentimentali distorta e orientata al melodramma.
È a questo punto che entra in scena Anna Karenina. La mia reazione, ovviamente, è di amore immediato ed assoluto, non tanto per il romanzo in sé — quello è ben scritto, ma troppo dispersivo, troppo incentrato su quisquilie irrilevanti come la vita nei campi e le politiche economiche — quanto per Anna stessa, eroina tragica dal fascino irresistibile. Tutto in lei mi attira, mi conquista: dalla sua bellezza leggendaria, al suo cuore dominato da passioni violente, fino alla morte tragica (ma così poetica!) che la suggella ai miei occhi come la vittima innocente di una società moralista e ipocrita.
Vorrei essere Anna, o vorrei innamorarmi di Anna? Probabilmente entrambe le cose, ma in fondo non è importante: quel che conta è che ella assume all’istante un posto d’onore tra le mie icone letterarie. In lei rivedo il mio animo romantico, pronto a qualunque sacrificio in nome dell’amore (e pazienza se colui per cui mi sacrifico non farebbe mai lo stesso per me; che amore sarebbe se non facesse soffrire?). Quando Oblonskij dice della sorella che ”ella è, prima di tutto, una donna di cuore”, quella frase si imprime nella mia memoria come il simbolo di tutto ciò che vorrei mi rappresentasse. E nella mia memoria rimane, avvolta dal ricordo dorato dell’opera da cui è tratta, per oltre dieci anni.

Fino a quando, ormai adulta, non decido di riprendere in mano il romanzo, scoprendo con sgomento che dei miei ricordi romantici è rimasto poco o nulla.

Ai miei occhi di quasi trentenne, il capolavoro di Tolstoj appare come un’opera autocelebrativa e insopportabilmente moralista. Il protagonista è un palese alter ego dell’autore, che per fugare ogni dubbio gli affibbia pure il suo nome. La narrazione esalta continuamente le virtù di Lev(in), perfetta incarnazione dell’eroe tolstoiano che ama la campagna, detesta la vita mondana e finisce inspiegabilmente per sposare la fanciulla più ambita dall’alta società. I personaggi che lodano Levin sono positivi; quelli che lo disprezzano o che non sposano le sue idee sono stupidi, corrotti o destinati a una morte prematura.
L’autore si dilunga spesso in riflessioni su temi etici e politici, come la riforma agraria e la condizione della classe operaia; ma le sue riflessioni assumono, agli occhi del lettore moderno, un tono quasi grottesco. La prospettiva di chi le formula è sempre fredda, distaccata, palesemente estranea alla drammatica realtà che descrive: è il punto di vista di un nobile privilegiato che parla dei contadini, delle donne e delle minoranze etniche come si parlerebbe di animali in un giardino zoologico. Mentre i braccianti di Levin vivono nella miseria, lui passa il tempo a pontificare sulla bellezza del lavoro nei campi e sull’opportunità di concedere loro un’assistenza sanitaria di base. Se si pensa che questo libro venne dato alle stampe appena quarant’anni prima della rivoluzione russa, è facile immaginare quegli stessi contadini mentre prendono d’assalto la casa del padrone al grido di “Morte al nemico capitalista!”.

La delusione più cocente, però, è arrivata proprio da Anna. L’eroina della mia adolescenza si è rivelata essere una donna frivola e immatura, incapace di prendere decisioni sensate e assumersi qualsiasi responsabilità. Impulsiva, egoista, troppo impegnata a piangersi addosso per valutare con lucidità le conseguenze delle proprie azioni, la protagonista di Tolstoj mi ha spinta a chiedermi se al liceo avessi davvero letto lo stesso libro che troneggia ora sui miei scaffali. Non ho impiegato molto, però, per intuire la causa delle mie impressioni contrastanti: se anni fa mi identificavo così tanto con Anna è perché ella pensa e agisce esattamente come un’adolescente. Ma se è comprensibile che una ragazzina si comporti in maniera melodrammatica e irrazionale, lo stesso non si può dire di una donna matura.

Da questo punto di vista, rileggere Anna Karenina mi ha rivelato molte più cose su me stessa che sull’opera in sé. Mi ha spinto a riflettere su com’è cambiato nel tempo il mio approccio ai classici, e soprattutto mi ha confermato in via definitiva che lo sguardo di chi legge conta più del libro in sé.

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.

No book has produced as strong an emotional reaction from me as this one. I can’t recall any other book in which every character, and I mean every one, is so beautifully and realistically drawn. Like real life, there are no distinguishable villains, only human beings. It illustrates some of the most accurate depictions of humans in literature, all of which are scored on my heart forever. I can't think of anything but all the lives I've just lived—after a while, they no longer seem like printed words on a page, but like dear, dear friends.

I genuinely love every single character, even the ones that most readers dislike—Anna, who abandons her child and embroils everyone around her into a maelstrom of bitterness and jealousy: Karenin, who attempts to deny his unhappy wife her livelihood: Vronsky, who is at times both selfish and careless: even Oblonsky, the serial cheater and womanizer.

Anna and Vronsky’s sensual, destructive passion for one another is no more meaningful than the gentle, unwavering love of Levin and Kitty. It's the simple, the rough the non-grand things in life that are capable of bringing humans the most beauty. Anna is Moscow's diamond; she's magnetic, she's elusive, she's larger than life. Her love is the irrational, utterly enraptured kind that seems inescapable; yet it only leads to tragedy, never satisfaction. Anna's wandering, expressive soul and of course, deeply lonely heart makes for one of the most memorable, complex characters I've ever come across.

However, it's Konstantin Levin that captures the title of my favourite fictional character of all time; his spiritual awakening and romance with Kitty are written so beautifully and with so much heart that you wonder why we need any more love stories after this one. This is the book I hope every other book I pick up turns out to be.

Edit: I'm not even joking when I say that Anna Karenina changed my life. Prior to reading this, I had no idea that books could impact someone in this sense; the human expression in here is just so genuine, so sincere. Aside from Jane Eyre, this was the first "proper" classic I read; it made me fall head over heels in love with literature and I've never looked back. I genuinely don't think I would've read 95% of the books listed on my Goodreads if it wasn't for me buying Anna Karenina on a whim 3 years ago.

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.

I can say I really enjoyed this story. It was a captivating story about the parallel lives centered roughly on four people. The first is a down-to-earth, even naive, and relatively quite man (Konstantin Levin) who gets rejected by the young woman ('Kitty') he deeply loves.

Levin grows as a character, moves back out into the country, and eventually finds himself together with Kitty in the end. They are happy and content with how life has turned out.

The second is a beautiful woman (Anna Karenina) who has a rich and lavish lifestyle, has an affair with a "Mr. Wonderful" Count Vronsky, gets him, and then it all ends tragically.

It was wordy, lengthy, and full of human emotion and spirit yet I enjoyed this story from start to finish. My first Tolstoy attempt and I'm sure I'll read more. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a rich story. Thanks!

Team Levin

Anna Karenina is spectacularly well written, with short paragraphs and chapters, that it doesn’t remind me of stuffy writing from 1878.

This tome is my second foray into Leo Tolstoy’s work, my first being a short novel, The Death of Ivan Ilych.

“Honesty is only a negative qualification,” he said. – Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

At the center of this story is Anna Karenina who is a charming, married woman who falls in love with Count Vronsky (definitely not her husband). It also focuses on Dolly and Stepan Oblonsky as well as Kitty and Levin.

This book is written in such a style where you can “hear” the characters’ thoughts, and it highlighted the difference in how men and women are treated in society. And if it was just the romance and societal tension, I would have rated this book 5 stars.

However, there was a lot of commentary about peasants and religion. As I am not an expert in Russian history/politics of 1878, this part was a bit over my head. I felt like I needed a wise sage to guide me through these parts.

This book is interesting enough and worthy of a reread, but I would have to rope in a person a bit wiser than myself to help me along. Any volunteers?

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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’The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.’

It is with the same trepidation that I wandered into the first pages of reading Anna Karenina. In awe of this piece of literature that has stood the test of time, read for generations by so many seems, well, intimidating. And it was, at least to me, until I began reading it. And then I fell completely under the spell, which was rarely broken.

It shouldn’t surprise me, so many people that I know have loved this, but it did surprise me that I grew to care so much for the people in this story, in spite of how badly they behaved. It’s one thing to be told of the things they have done, but then Tolstoy allows us to know them, understand them, the things that drive them to such despicable lengths - and yet still feel compassion for them. Their behavior isn’t always reprehensible, if so there would be no love there to drive this love story forward, there are moments of love and appreciation of beauty in the ins and outs of their lives. Nature, the freedom and beauty of labouring under the sun and losing oneself in that labour, and in the beauty of nature, as well as the nature of love.

’...for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class--all the girls in the world except her.’

While this is a love story, it is so much more. An epic story for all, exploring many various aspects of life. Farming, faith, politics, hunting, despair, faith, and a sense of reverence for this life and the desire to leave behind something lasting, if only in the memories of those who knew us. It is filled with passion, a passion for this wild and precious life we have been given, and to honor it by living it fully with an appreciation for this gift.

’All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.’

Originally published in 1877, there is so much to this story that seems more relevant today than I could have imagined before reading this. It offers a view of society and human nature which seems relatively unchanged regardless of place, and time. While the story takes place in Imperial Russia in 1874, it is a timeless story of the goodness of people, and the division of people by their status. But underneath it all, it feels like Tolstoy is reminding us, beseeching us to take the time to truly observe not only the people in our lives, but the way we are living our lives, and our stewardship of this world.

n  If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.n

At long last I can put another notch in my literary belt. It has been a long time coming. For whatever reason the thought of reading Tolstoy has always intimidated me. Perhaps I was worried that I would not, well in truth, not so much like it really as understand it. Phftttt that was never really an issue and surprise, surprise I enjoyed this story even if I did find parts of it excruciatingly tedious.

At its core Anna Karenina is a love story. It centers about the lives of seven people and if you are thinking that is an odd number for a love story then it behooves me to remind you that odd numbers and love do drama make. And there is drama to be found here. I am not a historian or a polymath but for me the real genius in Tolstoy’s writing lay in his characterization. Like them or not, love them or hate them, Tolstoy certainly was successful in making me care about every one of these people. I believe he achieved this in no small part by allowing me access to their inner most thoughts and feelings. This is a story about so much more than love, it is also about friendship, betrayal and pride and anger and life’s tedious little rituals whose roots are oft tended by societies outrageous expectations. But it is also about farming, hunting, politics and faith. In other words, life, and I cannot help but believe that Leo Tolstoy loved and had a great passion for life.

A very strange thing happened to me as I read this. It was like an out of body experience that involved two passages in particular. One was about mowing or scything the fields. Levin took it upon himself to spend a day with his labourers achieving this task and he invited me along. Tolstoy described this process, and Levin’s as well as the workers passion and energy for the task, so well that I was completely transported and embodied Levin as he perfected his technique and muscles burning found his rhythm. Seriously mowing the grass! The second scene, even more alarming to me to admit was about hunting great snipe. Trust me when I tell you that I have zero interest in hunting or the loss of life for beast, fish or fowl associated with this activity. Clearly I neglected to tell Tolstoy because he took me there to those marshes as Levin set his dog to flush them out and rifle in hand, cast his eyes skyward. If anyone had ever suggested to me that either one of these activities would hold me spellbound for pages, no doubt I would have felt their face for the flush of a raging fever. Colour me humbled then by the skill of a great writer.

Based on the title of this book I was initially surprised how many words and pages were spent on Konstantin Levin but as I continued to read a pattern seemed to emerge. And as sad and tragic as it was and even though I could see the shadows on the wall, I could not tear my eyes away. I liked Anna as it happens and the course her life took resonated deeply within me. I wanted more for her and Vronsky as well. As the story opens Anna is a well respected and a much sought after member of society whereas Levin is socially awkward, stiff, difficult and lacking in self esteem. Each of these characters goes about their day to day lives and makes choices within their own realms of experience and in keeping with their own moral compass. I must stop myself from saying more as I have no wish to spoil this story for would be readers but…..  Anna’s trajectory is a downward spiral whereas Levin is lifted up to the gates of domestic bliss and contentedness and as a reader my views on each of them mirrored that reversal in trajectory.

This is a classic and a tome. It is wordy and parts of it can be tedious. These Russian writers are indeed loquacious. It is also worthy. Your time and effort will be richly rewarded.

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.