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Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: December 31, 2020

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Jan 07, 2023 Anubha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The book was a whirlwind of emotions that look long to process. Even after I ended the book I'm not sure if I had fully processed it.

Anna Karenina is not a story about Anna, it's a story about life. Through the 800 pages or so, you see all sorts of people making all sorts of good or bad decisions. Sometimes I felt like screaming and warning the poor buggers... no don't do that. But that I think is the lesson of reading this book. It's very easy to be a third observer and judge someone's life or The book was a whirlwind of emotions that look long to process. Even after I ended the book I'm not sure if I had fully processed it.

Anna Karenina is not a story about Anna, it's a story about life. Through the 800 pages or so, you see all sorts of people making all sorts of good or bad decisions. Sometimes I felt like screaming and warning the poor buggers... no don't do that. But that I think is the lesson of reading this book. It's very easy to be a third observer and judge someone's life or their decisions but living through it is always so different, nothing is clear, everything is grey, and above all you realize that it's not so easy to label things as right and wrong.

Anna's character is layered and complex. I had to keep reminding myself not to judge her too harshly and not to see her through the lens of a person living in modern times enjoying all those rights and privileges that Anna, being part of the nobility didn't have then.
I wanted to like Anna, but I couldn't; I did admire her though. I admired her courage to take action and do what for her time was inconceivable for a woman to do. Was she correct to do as she did, I realize I'm no one to judge that. She was consumed with love, longing, and a passion so strong that it burned her and everyone around her. And that was her downfall too. She just couldn't settle for an ordinary love. She wanted Vronsky and wanted all of him. She wanted all his love, his fire, his time, his attention on her at all times and that he couldn't give. We see glimpses where Vronsky feels suffocated by the same love that had driven him mad for Anna in the beginning.

And Levin.. I felt that Levin was Tolstoy himself. His spiritual struggle was Tolstoy's spiritual struggle. Levin was a contrast to Anna. She had pride, he had humility, she flouted moral rules and he abided by them to a fault. But I liked that even Levin was not without his faults. Tolstoy made his characters complex and believable by showing all their sides- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Levin was hard working, open, honest, highly sensitive and highly idealistic but also quick to judge and react, very possessive and jealous.

The novel has so many characters that at times it becomes difficult to keep up but they all serve a purpose because Tolstoy is tackling life itself here. He talks about his views on art, work, love, relations, philosophy, honesty, betrayal, motherhood, fatherhood, everything in between.

Some scenes from the books are stuck my mind and maybe they'll always be associated with Russia in my mind. The scene where Levin is working with the muzhiks cutting the meadow. The meditative state he's in while rhythmically swinging his scythe-- something that we call the "flow state" today.

The other scene where he's bringing out the honey from the apiary and thinking about the meaning of life and transiency of life and everyone he loves. I just loved that ending.

The scenes set in Levin's country house were my favorite to read. The simple beauty of meadows and farms, and linden trees in blossom, the making of jam, the descriptions of food; I loved all of it.

The only thing that I couldn't honestly reconcile myself with even while trying to be objective was Anna's neglect of her infant daughter. I can understand that maybe she didn't have a choice given the medical science of the time. I also understand that she was in a fragile mental state, but still, casually bringing a child in this world only to deprive them of love and attention seemed cruel to me.
Her death was sad and tragic. I kept hoping that maybe things will improve and I honestly think that given her depressed and fragile mental state, the loneliness, the scorn, the insecurity, her use of morphine had pushed her to the brink where everything seemed beyond help. I was wrong of course.

I felt Dolly in her own way was the most underrated character. She was sympathetic, at times simple, but vastly understanding. She genuinely loved Anna and wanted the best for her and also momentarily could understand why Anna did what she did. No other character even came close to that.

Even as I'm writing this, I know my thoughts are disjointed and not in a coherent order but the book was well worth the time I invested in it. Persevere with the book and you won't regret it. I think I'll read it again some day to understand it better. Things that I missed and things that I couldn't fully grasp. ...more

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