Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy | 1878 | Penguin Classics | Paperback $ 21
Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as flawless, Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel’s seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness.
Anna Karenina is widely considered one of the best novels out of Russia, if not one of the best novels regardless of national origin, of all time… so, of course it had to go on my list for Classics Club.
Despite the fairly straightforward primary plots — that of one person’s crumbling family life, and that of another person’s blossoming family life — the book is quite complex thanks to a large cast of characters with rather detailed point-of-view narratives. I really appreciated the focus on the intricate interweaving of their personal lives.
I was impressed by the author’s empathetic treatment of all characters, foibles and all. The intimate exploration of each of the main characters’ thoughts and the innermost motives behind their at-times otherwise incomprehensible actions is meant to inspire at least some compassion, if not actual commiseration in the reader.
That said, I found myself losing patience with absolutely everybody in the story by the end of the book. It is possible that this has to do with some events happening in my personal life and the lives of real people who are important to me; I may be an emotionally miserly person with a too-limited amount of sympathy to go around, and cannot waste it on fictional characters who are ultimately the architects of their own misery.
I know that’s not quite fair of me. I kept thinking about how different each character’s life might have been if they’d been alive in the 20th or 21st centuries instead, particularly in the case of Anna Karenina. A good relationship therapist, a good divorce lawyer, or a plain old condom could have made all the difference in her life.
I can see why this book is considered a capital-C Classic, and despite my minor frustrations with it, I’d still say it was worth reading. If you’re thinking of putting this one on your to-read list, I’d recommend having plenty of cozy couch time set aside for it; this is really the sort of book that is best enjoyed while curled up under a quilt for a few hours on a dreary winter weekend.
Links:
- Biography of Leo Tolstoy from ThoughtCo.
- Yasnaya Polyana Museum, estate of Leo Tolstoy [Russian, transl. English]
- Articles on Leo Tolstoy from the New York Times
Publication information: Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. London, UK: Penguin Classics, 2004. Print.
Source: Personal library.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
