Anna Karenina comes in at just over a tremendous eight hundred pages. Having on a previous occasion read some four hundred of those pages I can now assert with confidence that all eight hundred are indispensable.
By some this is accounted Tolstoy’s masterpiece. I am not sure that I did not enjoy War and Peace more, but objectively (bearing in mind that it’s been a few years since I did the War and Peace thing) I believe that Anna Karenina has more to offer. In this peace-time novel Tolstoy brings out the really big guns. A tighter novel (despite its great length) the focus is turned minutely and unrelentingly on the characters, with remarkable results.
The famous and frequently quoted first line…
‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
…is one that I find quite sinister. So. A novel which is going to investigate the dysfunctional family. Giving rise to an unsettling and wider implication, are two families ever alike? Perhaps also a reflection of the political ideology of the time: the socialist interest in equality equating in some interpretations to a desirable lack of individuality. Unhappiness begins to look appealing.
But there are many, many sentences. Passons!
As the eponymous Anna Karenina and her male foil, Levin, progress through the novel the “Woman Question” is thrown into sharp relief. In a fiercely patriarchal society is happiness possible for a woman? The answer, it appears, is yes, but happiness is a commodity bestowed by men, the woman’s initial choice of husband is critical. A mistake at this juncture and it’s all over.
Anna’s adultery with Vronsky is contrasted with that of her brother Oblonsky and his procession of young ladies. His unhappy wife adapts and accommodates, envying Anna her choices.
The subtlety of Tolstoy is shown in his sympathetic treatment of Anna’s husband, Karenin. We see his protuberant ears and shrill voice through Anna’s eyes…
‘ “Great Heavens! What has happened to his ears?” she thought, gazing at his cold and commanding figure, and especially at the gristly ears which now so struck her, pressing as they did against the rim of his hat.’
‘Anna heard his high measured voice and did not miss a single word. Each word seemed to her false and grated painfully on her ear.’
…whilst questioning the true extent of his ears, so to speak. Nonetheless, Anna’s repugnance is tangible, the details are not justification but illustration.
Karenin is not intrinsically repellent. He too is a character who adapts, nobly, hindered by society and law, but prepared to martyr himself for Anna’s sake. There are several examples of happiness being offered to women, notably Kitty by Lenin, but for Anna this is not acceptable. To have value happiness must be attained and not bestowed.
My minor grumble with this book was the cutting from one story line to another. A cliff hanger structure and valid, but in this context annoying and disruptive. The novel is frequently concerned with thought process and the difficulty of putting together cohesive mental arguments, and perhaps the choppiness reflects that. Some of the most effective parts of the novel are those describing the thought processes of the characters. Circular thought processes accompanied by fretful circular perambulations work particularly well, and on a larger scale the characters flit from agrarian life to the formal society of Moscow to the less stifling environs of Petersburg.
It must be common knowledge that Anna Karenina ends tragically, a shadow which hangs over the book almost from the outset. The conclusion largely derives from the thought processes of Anna and Levin, which end very differently, but both represent an escape from the despair of uncertainty. Levin’s journey has been a spiritual one and it is faith which provides the temporary but life-saving relief from the relentness need to know.
Anna Karenina is a huge book. Tolstoy renders some of the most beautiful characters I have ever read. Beautiful but flawed. Human. Political and human themes, a deep love of Russia and her people. Not the ‘why’ of life but the ‘how.’
But it is this excerpt from a review of DFW’s The Pale King on GoodReads (with apologies to the author for my opportunistic paraphrasing) which best expresses what I found to be the most compelling theme:
…the implications of thinking too much, which is either to 1) kill yourself, 2) find some bullshit religion to believe in, 3) become criminally insane, 4) “self-medicate”, or 5) just stop thinking so much, which good luck with that…
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I loved this book too
It was some twenty-odd years ago when a very close friend first recommended this to me. I am very happy to find that she was right!
You made it! I enjoyed your review:)
Lisa
Thanks Lisa. Your earlier review is wonderful: now that I finally get to read it!
I haven’t read this book – it’s one of those that I look at from afar, and say, “I would really like to read it,” and quickly move on, before I pick it up, for if I did, it would sit on my bookshelf for a long time, just judging me, and I have enough books sitting there doing that. It is on my to-read list, and I will get to it – eventually. Your review does make it sound a little more accessible than I initially deemed it to be, though, which is a good thing.
As Kerry says, below, it is an acessible book. On balance, more so than War and Peace. Having said that, I have no idea how long it sat on my shelf unread, but it had been there a long, long time
With longer books, which can be off-putting, I like to read a hundred or so pages a week, and alternate with something shorter. It works for me, but the OH disapproves and calls it reading by numbers…
Anna Karenina was, for me, a very immersive experience and one of the best reading experiences I have ever had. I was young when I read it (very early 20s), so I am sure there is much more I could get from it now. But I remember being bowled over by the writing, the ideas, and the intensely personal dramas. As you’ve pointed out, though 800+ pages, this is not a bloated book. Your review excellently distills to an essential essence some of the great themes and aspects of this novel.
And I would say to anothercookie, I do think this is a very accessible work despite its length. This is not like Doestoevsky’s Crime and Punishment which, for all its awesomeness, can be quite a chore. Of course, I have been putting off War and Peace because, really, who has the time? And yet…..
I thought I had heard you mention it as favourite, Kerry. It deserves to be.
Lisa re-read it earlier this year, and feels that she may not have picked up everything first time round. (But she got an incredible amount this time!) You may have to read it again, right after War and Peace
My first attempt to read it must have been in my early twenties, too, but I didn’t get on with it. I wish I had because that would have been a very different reading experience.
“distills to an essential essence?” Really? Thank you! It is a book of such magnitude, and any attempt to summarise feels inadequate. (Especially when we have already ascertained that it requires multiple readings.)
Thanks for the words of encouragement – I do feel slightly less uneasy about reading it now. Of course, it could be a delayed April Fool’s prank, and then the joke’s on me….
I do want to read more Russian lit, so anything accessible (and deemed a classic) is a definite plus.
I love this post. I am reading Anna Karenina now and am on Part 6. I tend to get into the story as I’m reading and don’t take the time to reflect much on what’s really going on enough to see some of these dynamics. I appreciate your comments on this. I haven’t read War and Peace and I’m not sure I’ll want to tackle that one any time soon, but maybe I’ll add it to my “to read” list.
Hi Kelly. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
I’m not sure I get the threads while I’m reading. I try to gather my thoughts afterwards, but sometimes, when I go back and check, the novel I recall is quite different to the one I actually read! It is definitely easier with shorter books. I hope you enjoy the rest of Anna, I will be sure to check your blog to see what you think.
When I was a youngster War and Peace was my chosen holiday reading. With two siblings there wasn’t a lot of room for extras in the car, so I’d take that as it easily lasted a whole week. Consequently I have read it several times, and reckon it is easier than Anna Karenina… I don’t think you will regret it.