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Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

Start date: March 6, 2022

Finish date: June 11, 2022

Discussion: Leo Tolstoy Collection

Discussion leader: Gem

Why we're reading this: Group Read 03/06/22 - 06/11/22

[close] Group Read 03/06/22 - 06/11/22

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Leo Tolstoy Collection

Anna Karenina - Reading Schedule
By Gem , Moderator · 17 posts · 117 views

last updated Jul 25, 2022 06:33AM

Anna Karenina - Week 01 / Part 1, Chapters I - XIV
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last updated Jul 24, 2022 05:29AM

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What Members Thought

Dec 30, 2012 Susan rated it it was amazing

I'm marking this book with five stars, but if I could, I'd give it 4 1/2, merely for its capacity to utterly depress the reader. This will not be a formal review because I think my thoughts will not be sorted out for a long while from now. This is possibly the novel's greatest legacy-to engage with the reader to enable him.her to ponder. I am going to make a list of the ideas that I've obtained from reading this lengthy novel.
1. OK so let me get this straight---in Russian society of the late 19t I'm marking this book with five stars, but if I could, I'd give it 4 1/2, merely for its capacity to utterly depress the reader. This will not be a formal review because I think my thoughts will not be sorted out for a long while from now. This is possibly the novel's greatest legacy-to engage with the reader to enable him.her to ponder. I am going to make a list of the ideas that I've obtained from reading this lengthy novel.
1. OK so let me get this straight---in Russian society of the late 19th century it was completely acceptable, if not encouraged, to have extramarital affairs; the only rule being that you do not care for the person, just have meaningless sex with them. If you start to care for the person, you are ostracized. If you leave your miserable husband for them, you are thrown out of society completely, but only if you are a woman. If you are a man, everything goes on as before. You can even have a second family (if you don't leave your wife). So, to conclude this point, this is totally screwed up and is it any wonder Anna became an utter vessel of depression and isolation? And Vronsky personified to her as a cold unfeeling man who is only desirous of freedom beyond all else??
2. Ok so if we take the previous points into account, then what is Tolstoy trying to tell us? Is he pinpointing Russian society as corrupt? Or taking certain forms of love as invalid? I am having trouble trying to understand this point, since he puts Levin and Kitty's love on a pedestal. But what if the tables were turned, and Levin and Kitty had fallen in love in a different situation? Would they have been doomed from the start? Or was it something within Anna and Vronsky that was flawed? Not going to answer this question right now, because I just don't know.
3. Third point-Levin. Loved the character, and felt that he was whom Tolstoy most sympathized with. Love his search for life's meaning, his reactions to the things that happen to him (so honest). Tolstoy ends the novel with Levin realizing the pride of intellect and ultimately understanding that reason only takes one away from what is already known from the start, intuitively. He is such a genuine, soulful character who through most of the novel assumed that he did not have a soul. It is only in the last few pages that he realizes that he had one all along. So naive, yet so realistic and innate in all of us.
Finally I'd just like to jot down two quotes from the novel that I have been saving:
the first, from Anna....."In the evening she heard his carriage stop, heard his ring at the door, his footsteps, his conversation with the maid: he believed what he was told, did not want to find out more, and went to his room. So all was over. And death as the only way of restoring his love for her, in his heart, of punishing him, and of gaining the victory in the fight which an evil spirit was waging against him in her heart, presented itself clearly and vividly to her."
the second, from Levin...."I shall still argue and express my thoughts inopportunely; there will still be a wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife, and I shall still blame her or my own fears and regret it; I shall still be unable to understand with my reason why I am praying, and I shall continue to pray-but my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, every moment of it, is no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an incontestable meaning of goodness, with which I have the power to invest it."
I would like to leave this novel with this second quote (as Tolstoy has chosen to do) because, to me, there cannot be a truer quote in all of world literature. ...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Zuly rated it it was amazing

Five stars for the book, but not this film version. I've read the book several times; it just may be my all time favorite. ...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Shawn rated it liked it · review of another edition

I’m not really sure why this book was called Anna Karenina-- this book was only marginally about her and her self destructive behaviors. To me, the book was much more about the character Levin, who felt much more interesting.

It’s a long story, that doesn’t really go very far, inspecting the characters and their choices. It was good but not great and unfortunately ended in a religious fervor congruent with its time.

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