From the Bookshelf of The Reading Challenge Group…

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

Start date: April 1, 2015

Finish date: April 30, 2015

Discussion: Group Read Archive 2014-16

Why we're reading this: Classic Group Read - April 2015
[close] Classic Group Read - April 2015

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Group Read Archive 2014-16

Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016 - You Are Not So Smart
By Allison , Quest Hound · 11 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 28, 2016 04:05PM

Alternate Group Read (Classics) - December 2016 - Mansfield Park
By Allison , Quest Hound · 5 posts · 18 views

last updated Dec 04, 2016 09:34AM

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What Members Thought

Jan 21, 2017 Catie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics, romance, book-club, literature, fiction, buddy-reads, 19th-century, european-literature, cultural-russia

Buddy read w/ @bookishsteph1, @pagesandcup and @tanged - Jan/Feb 2017
@vintagebooks #readingtherussians Book Club - April/May 2017

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 14, 2009 rachel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Leo Tolstoy seems like such an earnest guy that I feel kind of bad for my first instinct reaction to this book being a snarky one. But wow: angst alert! There is more blushing and getting of vapors (from both men and women) in this classic novel written by a male author (again, take note) than there is in any of the much-maligned-for-angst YA I have read recently. A shared glance or a too friendly word to a handsome third party is enough to make the lovers in this book red-faced and suicidal, co Leo Tolstoy seems like such an earnest guy that I feel kind of bad for my first instinct reaction to this book being a snarky one. But wow: angst alert! There is more blushing and getting of vapors (from both men and women) in this classic novel written by a male author (again, take note) than there is in any of the much-maligned-for-angst YA I have read recently. A shared glance or a too friendly word to a handsome third party is enough to make the lovers in this book red-faced and suicidal, convinced that their entire relationships are shams and that their lover doesn't just not love them now, but in fact, never loved them at all, EVER.

The thing that separates a book like Anna from Stephenie Meyer (yes, I'm going with the easiest target) is that Anna as a whole feels convincingly like life. It has the weight of a real tragedy, in addition to all of the "does she like me? did he ever like me??" flouncing about. Other things happen at length too -- new friends are made, work is done, politics are discussed to the point of being tiresome -- and it sometimes seems extraneous in the moment, just like how being infatuated with someone you're not quite certain about can make grocery shopping or thinking about current events extraneous and annoying. But that's my point. By the end, it's the inclusion of all of these facets of life that has fleshed these characters out. Life, for many of us, is in a big way about the pursuit and keeping of love (and happiness in love), with some other concerns thrown in.

The parallel of Anna and Levin's lives is smartly done. Both characters are on this interminable quest to figure out what happiness really feels like, and how much it has to do with romantic love, to mixed results. Maybe this is what makes the story so universal. It seems like a good book to read when you're young and asking similar questions, and it was really the right book for me to read at this particular time in my life, in the wake of a relationship that made me mostly very unhappy. Where once I could have easily come out Anna, I think I've come out Levin, and it is actually the reading of the book that helped that along.

Also, I read the majority of it on trains. I mean, how perfect is that? ...more

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Dec 30, 2009 Carol rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, russian-lit, tolstoy-leo

It was a hard book for me to read since it reminded me of someone I loved dearly who died 7 months earlier to the same circumstances (suicide by lying on train tracks. She too was young and just gave birth to a baby girl one year earlier.) I had a hard time understanding Anna’s character, but I really enjoyed Tolstoy's writing regarding inner thoughts and his descriptive scenes such as the mowing fields, etc. I loved Levin’s character. I will definitely read it again in the future. ...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Nancy Brady rated it did not like it

Shelves: 1001-bymrbyd

1½ stars actually. En fin (finally), I finished this one. Long, rambling, and tedious story of love and life in Russia. The novel centered mainly on the illicit love affair of Anna Karenina and Vronsky (and how it ruined her life) and the life of Levin, a man who wants only to figure out how to be good and/or happy with or without religion, and his wife Kitty. Perhaps had I read it over a shorter period of time I would have found it more stimulating (on the other hand, had it been stimulating, I ...more

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Jan 16, 2021 Patricia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Finally got through this after trying unsuccessfully for years. I usually love long novels, but this one is daunting. I find the namesake character shallow, spoiled, selfish, vain, insecure and unlikeable. I liked the spiritual growth some of the characters go through and the final scenes made it almost worth it. Too long, too many characters, some underdeveloped in my opinion. I have enjoyed Dostoevsky and Flaubert, and find then more memorable.

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