Author: Leo Tolstoy
First Published: 1873
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
963 pages (paperback)
It took me just a few days over a month to finally finish reading this, though I did have large gaps in the month where I didn’t read it at all. Super long and detailed, I’m really glad I read this although there are parts I wish weren’t there. For those of you who don’t know, Anna Karenina is a pretty famous piece of literature, originally published in Russian over a hundred years ago (1873). It’s recently becoming a movie (again), starring Keira Knightley as the title character, which is actually what motivated me to finally take this book off my to be read pile.
Anna Karenina is a long story, but a short synopsis of it would be that Anna and her husband, Karenin, are living quite normally in Russia’s upper class society. The story begins with Anna’s brother, Stiva, having an affair outside of his marriage, and Anna travels to her sister-in-law’s house to convince her not to divorce her brother. Ironically, Anna meets Count Vronsky at this time and begins an affair with him, though she did make a small attempt in resisting him at first. Vronsky expresses his wish to marry Anna if she can divorce her husband, but Anna knows her position in society will never be the same as a divorced woman so she declines at first. The two move travel around Europe for a bit, while Karenin begins preparations to divorce Anna but later decides not to and just to leave things as they are. As society’s doors close one by one towards Anna, Anna becomes increasingly bitter about how Vronsky is still able to enjoy society and go out, essentially living a “bachelor’s life”, even though he assures her that he is in love with her only.
Parallel to this plot is also the story of Stiva’s wife’s sister, Kitty, and a man named Levin. Kitty was originally in love with Vronsky and pretty sure he was going to propose to her, so when Levin proposed to Kitty, she rejected him. Of course, Vronsky ended up leaving with Anna and Kitty becomes horribly embarrassed and upset with herself. The other plot is about how Levin and Kitty end up coming back together and their own forays into married life. My summary of this second plot is quite short, but its actually just as big a part of this book as Anna and Vronsky’s story.
Anna Karenina is not for everyone, I’ll just say that now. It’s not so much a story as it is a snapshot of Russian life during that time period. It’s realism at its most realistic, and very detailed. I found the actual plot of the story very wonderful and engrossing, I loved it; however, some of the chapters of the book were just so detailed with realistic Russian life that I admit I got bored at times, which is really why it took me so long to get through this. There would be long chapters devoted to explaining Russian agriculture, farming and the peasants; Russian government; Russian society and how things “worked” back then, and more. It was quite a lot to take in, and I can’t say I’m particularly interested in reading about the difference between English and Russian farming techniques. I admit, I kind of wish it was all condensed more, it would have helped with the length and focused on the story more, in my opinion.
With that said, I really, truly enjoyed the actual story. I liked reading about Anna and Vronsky much more than Kitty and Levin, although the latter was interesting to read too. It was fun drawing parallels between the two. Anna and Vronsky end up in a whirlwind romance that pretty much destroys Anna’s reputation, whereas Kitty and Levin took it a bit more slowly, a bit more unsure of themselves, and though they had some horrible fights, they ended up having a very lovely and loving family. Also, there was Anna’s brother, Stiva and his wife Dolly. Anna had an affair and everyone shunned her, while Stiva, when he had an affair, had essentially no consequences happen to him other than his wife being upset for a while. Also, Vronsky, as a participant in an affair, also did not have society shunned to him. The book displays this double standard quite blatantly, and it’s clear that Anna’s circumstances are also a result of her sex, and not just some bad decisions.
As for characters, I really liked Vronsky’s character the best. Before I entered the story, I was under the impression that Vronsky doesn’t really love Anna and he was just being a playboy, but as the book continued, I felt Vronsky really did love Anna — he just wasn’t about to give up his social life and everything for her too, which is what Anna wanted him to do because she became increasingly insecure with their relationship since they were not married. Somehow, I just felt the most sorry for Vronsky in the end, because I feel he truly was in love with Anna. I felt Anna was almost becoming a bit crazy by the end of the book, she was just so depressed and paranoid that her lover was out and about with girls. Clearly, being married was an important way of securing a relationship but it is rather unfortunate that Anna’s husband did not grant her a divorce.
I’m a bit torn with rating this book. I really loved the story but some parts of the book felt a bit like reading a textbook on 1800s Russia or something, and I didn’t like those parts at all. I thought about just giving it a middle of the road rating (a 3) but that didn’t feel quite right. I gave the book some time to sink in and decided to rate it based on my overall feelings for the book. Anyway, can’t wait to see the 2012 movie!
My Rating: 4/5
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