JG's comments

JG's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Note: JG is no longer a member of this group.

I think Molly's right. Both Vronsky and Anna saw the little guy in dreams and interpreted him as death. Anna saw him at the end of her pregnancy, but I don't remember the other times he showed up. And my copy's back at the library too.

For me, the climax of the story was when Anna threw herself under the train. But I think for Tolstoy the climax came when Levin finally had his "spiritual breakthrough." He really started wrestling with faith at his brother's death, so maybe that section had a title to say, "Hey, this is important. Remember it later."

Rationally, I did see that. Emotionally, I just couldn't get past my dislike of her. And, as someone on here said--Steve?--women are always hardest on other women. I hate to say it, but I can be guilty of that. A part of me was thinking, "You knew what would happen. Why are you so surprised by this? You made your choice, now live with it." I know I'm being too hard on her, but I truly was having these arguments with myself every time she appeared in the story.

I haven't dropped by this group lately, but I've been looking forward to discussing Anna with you. I've been busy at work and it feels like I've missed a lot! I've really enjoyed reading everyone's comments. You always have such "meaty" discussions.

The biggest thing I reacted to in the book was the role of women in society. I couldn't quite put my finger on how Tolstoy felt about us. On the one hand, Anna is an intelligent, well-read woman. She's using some form of birth control, which had to be almost unheard of at the time. Tolstoy seems to frequently refer to how trapped, dependent and helpless women are. (But maybe that's my modern take on something he said?) On the other hand, the female characters were almost uniformly insanely jealous and unreasonable. I never knew how to take that.

I was always reacting to Anna in a very visceral way. I started off liking her, but the farther I read, the more intensely I disliked her. I would find myself thinking, "Oh! You ungrateful, selfish woman! Everything just has to be your way, doesn't it?" And then the more rational part of me would think something like, "Well, if it weren't for women like Anna pushing the boundaries of 'acceptable behavior,' I certainly wouldn't enjoy the freedoms I do today." But I would almost immediately swing back into an intense dislike of her.

Quite honestly, Levin's extended meditations on agriculture, politics, and faith mostly bored me. But I have to give huge credit to an author who can stir me up the way Tolstoy did almost 150 years after publication.

I personally own an L.M. Montgomery book, Kilmeny of the Orchard, from about the 1930's (I'm not at home and I can't remember exactly). But I'm visiting my aunt who's been cleaning out an atticful of stuff she inherited from her mother-in-law. She has several books from the 1800's, but the oldest was a Bible from 1809. That felt positively ancient to these American women!

Ginormous. A girl I worked with for only a short time (thankfully) said this all the time and it drove me up the wall. My husband started picking it up recently, but I think I've nipped that one in the bud.

A serious word that I hate--indefatigable. If I read that or hear it, it gets stuck in my head like a little snippet of a song. I repeat it endlessly to myself for hours, if not days, at a time. Don't ask me why.

Yulia, considering that I work night shift and I mostly see doctors in the Emergency Room, they probably do, whether they intend to or not. :-)

Did anyone else notice in the run-up to this election that Obama-bashers would complain about how he had to stop and think before he said anything? My mother-in-law and a group of physicians I work with were all upset about this. I never argued with anyone who said that (I don't choose to argue politics), but I would just be sitting there thinking, "OMG! A President who THINKS! What can this world be coming to?"

I didn't care for the dress. I thought it looked like she was wearing an apron! :-)

Thanks for sharing the link to the headlines. I enjoyed seeing them. I'm going to email my aunt right now. I saw a British one while I was watching the election results that I can't remember, but it was pretty clever. Something like "Yanks a Lot" or some pun like that. Did anyone else see it? I was trying to remember so I could tell my husband. He hates puns. I'm so bad. :-)

That's why I'm on here. Trying to share the love! :-)

I slept all day for my shift tonight, so I missed all the jitters. But now that he's won I'm so excited I could jump out of my skin! I work alone in this office at night so I have no one to share with! I'm not an outwardly emotional person, but I have to admit that a few tears have escaped as I've watched some of the reactions on tv and during Obama's acceptance speech.

Don't write all us Southerners off though. I'm about as native as you can get (well, without being Native anyway) and my family's always pretty evenly divided in politics. We (the region) are getting there. I'm in NC and we're too close to call still, but Obama's ahead by a few thousand votes. Just give us all some time...

Sorry, I hate to be that person, but I am...Shouldn't the title of this thread be "Schedule for January-June 2009?"

But I do really appreciate you guys taking the time to do all of this.

I personally haven't used it, but I hear a lot of good things about it.

I agree Jane. My husband loves action movies and unfortunately we don't watch them very often because I get sick as dog with all that choppy filming. Don't they realize how many of us they're losing when they do that?

Beej, in answer to your "Is there no place set up for GR questions?", there is. We have the GR Feedback group. After you first click on the groups tab at the top of any GR page, it's listed on the right hand side of the page. It's a hugely useful group and we generally get answers very quickly.

I finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and moved on to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. So far her normally-sly little observations and critiques of society are more obvious and barbed than in her other books I've read. Not that I'm complaining, it's just a difference I've noticed.

That's a beautiful description of music, Jim. Thanks for posting it.

Loved it.

Our local community theater just put on a play called I Hate Hamlet about a struggling actor taking on the role of Hamlet and getting advice from the ghost of John Barrymore. It was supposed to be funny, but we all just sort of sat there. I think I even started falling asleep. But at least there wasn't a song called "Raped in the face" in it. Sounds terrible!

Denise, it's been a while since I read The Piano Tuner, but I do remember loving the language.

I'm starting The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle today.