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In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.
luzestrella: when I got to the middle of the book I was shocked. It seens like the climax of all the main conclicts were already there. Why didn't the author cut the novel right there with that happy ending?
Unnusual for a ficcion novel indeep. But for that particular reason, for me it has it's charm.
The other half of the novel goes on describing what happened with the characters after they got what they wanted.… (more)
andejons: Similar premises: married, upper class women fall in love with men of less than perfect moral standing. The outcomes are very different though.
pingdjip: Like Tolstoy, Faber goes under his characters' skin, ponders their social manoeuvering, and follows the pitfalls and triumphs of their lives. Difference: Faber is funny and sometimes provocative and teasing in a "postmodern" way.
Podia haber sido 5 estrellas, como todo el mundo dice, Tolstoy es un maestro de entrar en la cabeza de cada una de las personas y explicar todos sus pensamientos de forma realista. Lo mejor para mi es el pendulo emocional de Anna hacia el final de la novela.
Tambien o como consecuencia de lo anterior, cada uno de los personajes tiene una motivacion compleja y logica. No hay nadie simplemente malvado, quiza hay gente que se equivoca pero incluso eso es muy comprensible. Una vez que estas en la cabeza de la gente todo es mucho mas comprensible!
No le doy 5 estrellas porque no me podia importar menos sus comentarios sobre la vida en el campo y otros aspectos de la sociedad rusa de la epoca. Me interesaba saber que pasaba en los conflictos principales de la novela, lo que unos personajes secundarios se dijeran entre ellos en una fiesta me importaba bastante poco. ( )
Me, upon finishing nearly a thousand pages (239 chapters, since my son asked) of GRN (great Russian novel):
If Tolstoy was writing today, his editor would have made him cut a lot of the unnecessary dialogue, descriptions, etc. That said, the overall story and the way he interwove the lives of these various personalities together is pretty impressive.
Maybe I'll write more later, but for now I'm relieved to have finished and to be reading something that's not AK. ( )
This book was completely all-encompassing. If you think it’s just a period romance, you're missing out. There were sections where the discussions on agriculture and local politics dragged a bit (I had to look up a lot of footnotes), but overall, this book is a work of art. It explores every possible way someone can love, be loved, get hurt, and grieve, detailing the parts of love, pain, and personal growth. There’s everything from courtship and enduring marriage to motherhood, family bonds, betrayal, jealousy, and death. The characters’ inner struggles with mental health and spirituality make the story even more powerful. It’s not just about personal relationships – the book also tackles big themes like existentialism, socialism, democracy, paternalistic government, education reform, and wealth inequality. Reading this wasn’t easy, it demanded full engagement. There were times I wanted to keep reading, but my eyes couldn't keep up, the effort was worth it. This book makes you feel every emotion and really pulls you in. It's a classic for a reason, and I understand why it has such a revered place in literary history. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for THAT book. ( )
Awful. This book took hours of my time that I will never get back. And I'm sorry for that. I thought this book was at least 400 pages too long, if not 600!!! I didn't care about Levin or his need to fix the farming techniques or even his book. I thought his relationship with Kitty was interesting, only in as much as she was struggling with making the decision of who (which guy) and whether she was making the right one. In the end, I though Anna and Kitty (and many of the other female characters) seemed just as oddly emotional (can't be left home during the day because 1) they are bored? 2) they are jealous of their husbands having a life away from them) and overly dramatic. I'm sure these emotions seems odd to me reading so much after this book was written and they may have been very appropriate for the time they were written ~ but I have a tough time believing every woman was weak and small minded. And I always have a tough time feeling sympathy for a woman that cheats, gets pregnant, and then can't live with herself.... I mean really, why should I feel bad for her bad decisions? I think the saying goes, "you've made your bed...." well, yeah, she kind of did, didn't she. ( )
Vengeance is mine; I will repay. ~ Deuteronomy 32:35
Dedication
First words
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (C. Garnett, 1946) and (J. Carmichael, 1960)
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему. Всё смешалось в доме Облонских.
All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. (N. H. Dole, 1886)
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (Pevear, Volokhonsky, 2000)
Quotations
"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be." [Anna, p744 (2000)]
"He has long ceased loving me. And where love stops, hatred begins." [Anna, p763 (2000)]
Every minute of Alexei Alexandrovich's life was occupied and scheduled. And in order to have time to do what he had to do each day, he held to the strictest punctuality. 'Without haste and without rest' was his motto. [p109 (2000)]
Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is. [p302 (2000)]
Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires. [...] He soon felt arise in his soul a desire for desires, an anguish. [p465 (2000)]
He [Levin] was happy, but, having entered upon family life, he saw at every step that it was not what he had imagined. [p479 (2000)]
There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way. [p706 (2000)]
"If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it's true, as papa says, ---- that when we were brought up there was one extreme --- we were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now its just the other way --- the parent are in the wash-house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children." [Natalia; p618)
“Vronsky’s life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as invariable rules: that on must pay a card debt, but one need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may cheat a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one, and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up.”
But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?
It's a vicious circle. Women are deprived of rights because of their lack of education, and their lack of education comes from having no rights. We mustn't forget that the subjection of women is so great and so old that we often refuse to comprehend the abyss that separates them from us.
Last words
I'll go on not understanding with my reason why I pray, and go on praying--but from now on my life, my whole life, no matter what happens to me, every second of it, is not only not meaningless as it was before, but it has the incontestable meaning of the goodness I have the power to put into it! (J. Carmichael, 1960)
I shall continue to pray without being able to explain to myself why, but my inward life has conquered its liberty. It will no longer be at the mercy of circumstances ; and my whole life, every moment of my life, will be, not meaningless as before, but full of deep meaning, which I shall have the power to impress on every action. (N. H. Dole, 1886)
This is the work for the complete Anna Karenina. Please do not combine with any of the works representing the individual volumes (see combination rules regarding part/whole issues for details), or with abridged versions. Thank you.
Please keep the Norton Critical Edition un-combined with the rest of them – it is significantly different with thorough explanatory annotations, essays by other authors, and reviews by other authors. Thank you.
In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.
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Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, “Anna Karenina” is Tolstoy’s classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer. Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, and in doing so captures a breathtaking tapestry of late-nineteenth-century Russian society. As Matthew Arnold wrote in his celebrated essay on Tolstoy, “We are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art; we are to take it as a piece of life.”
Haiku summary
The moral of this: Adultery drives one mad. And watch out for trains. (hillaryrose7)
Peasants have it grand. A day labouring with them. Then three-course dinner. (alsoCass)
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Anna Karenina Group Read 2013
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Lo mejor para mi es el pendulo emocional de Anna hacia el final de la novela.
Tambien o como consecuencia de lo anterior, cada uno de los personajes tiene una motivacion compleja y logica. No hay nadie simplemente malvado, quiza hay gente que se equivoca pero incluso eso es muy comprensible. Una vez que estas en la cabeza de la gente todo es mucho mas comprensible!
No le doy 5 estrellas porque no me podia importar menos sus comentarios sobre la vida en el campo y otros aspectos de la sociedad rusa de la epoca. Me interesaba saber que pasaba en los conflictos principales de la novela, lo que unos personajes secundarios se dijeran entre ellos en una fiesta me importaba bastante poco. (