Originally serialised between 1875-77 in ‘The Russian
Messenger’
My edition: I switched between the hefty
Penguin Clothbound Classics hardback and the Maggie Gyllenhaal audiobook
WHEN
I Discovered This Classic
I don’t remember not knowing
about ‘Anna Karenina’, but I didn’t really know what it was actually about
until I watched several booktubers talk about the novel earlier in the year.
WHY
I Chose to Read It
I'd been considering it since I’d
seen booktubers I respect talking about how much they loved it and I was eager
to watch the 2012 adaptation, but after hearing not-great things about it decided
I wanted to read it first. Then Audible released an audiobook read by Maggie
Gyllenhaal and the sample sounded wonderful so I took the plunge.
WHAT
Makes It a Classic
The scope, the character growth
and development, the intensity of the relationships, the exploration and
criticism of Russian society – everything.
WHAT
I Thought of This Classic
I went into ‘Anna Karenina’ with
hesitancy and no real expectations of whether or not I'd finish it, let alone
enjoy it, but I completely loved it.
Anna is a beautiful young woman
married to a cold, unfeeling government official. When she travels to Moscow to
visit her sister-in-law to convince her to forgive her husband’s affairs she
meets Count Vronsky and the pair begin an affair that will change the rest of
their lives.
As expected, I was a little
confused by the long, complicated Russian names, but listening to the audiobook
really helped with that and it didn’t take me long to get a handle on who’s
who. I found it fascinating that the name someone was called was based on their
position and the intimacy level of your relationship with them. Lots of the
central male characters were referred to by three different incarnations of
their name and the women took on a female version of their husband’s surname.
For example, Anna’s brother was called Stepan Arkadievich (by everyone else),
Stiva (by his family) and Oblonsky (his surname, by his friends) and his wife
Dolly’s surname was Oblonskya. So interesting!
Once familiar with who everyone
was and how they're connected, I found it effortless to become entrenched in
the drama of these characters. It’s a vast cast but everyone has so much depth;
agency, fears, desires, a distinctive voice and opinions – it’s all there. The journey
these characters go on during the novel is phenomenal and it was really
interesting to see how my opinion of them changed as we went through, and how
they changed too. Anna went from charmingly impulsive to bitter, selfish and
manipulative; Levin from boring and uppity to philosophical and fiercely
romantic (though still uppity); and Anna’s husband Karenin went from cold, hard
and unfeeling to someone I felt deeply sorry for. Tolstoy was a master at
character and I could wax lyrical about them all for hours, but I really don’t
want to spoil you.
‘Anna Karenina’ explored themes of
divorce, mental health, addiction and much more in ways I'd never encountered
in classics before. There was no judgement from Tolstoy, no sense of right or
wrong on a personal level, but merely as a criticism of Russian high society. Once
Anna’s affair with Vronsky is openly known, the way she is received changes so dramatically
I was genuinely shocked. She’s a princess by birth, but suddenly she was
shunned by family, friends and acquaintances. People couldn’t even call on her
without fear of being rejected from high society in response and it slowly
started to destroy Anna, and by extension Vronsky.
I’m going to talk about the
ending here, so if you don’t know what happens at the end of ‘Anna Karenina’,
here’s a giant SPOILER WARNING for
you. I'd known that this novel is a tragic one and Anna’s downfall is
reasonably obvious from early on in the story, but I honestly didn’t expect her
to commit suicide. The pressures from society and the consequences of being a
fallen women destroyed all the happiness she’d gained by loving Vronsky. She
was denied her firstborn and lost the things that she had loved in her old life
– and none of it was attainable again without giving up what happiness she had
gained and renouncing her decisions completely. I’d expected her to die as a complication
from childbirth, but chucking herself under a train? Way unexpected. Though in retrospect,
it was totally foreshadowed in the very beginning of the novel…
My only complaint about the whole
story is how Anna’s death was portrayed. It felt a little brushed over and I didn’t
think that anything after that was really necessary. Anna’s suicide would have
been an incredibly powerful way for ‘Anna Karenina’ to end and instead it went
out with a little bit of a whimper as we moved to check in with the other
characters instead. If anything, I wanted to know about Vronsky and how he
reacted but all we got was a snippet of second hand information from his
mother. SPOILER OVER.
Even with the weaker ending, ‘Anna
Karenina’ has kickstarted a fascination with Russian literature and I already
have a wishlist as long as my arm of novels that I'd love to try. I've also
bought myself a copy of Tolstoy’s other behemoth masterpiece ‘War and Peace’
which I'm planning to read in the New Year. I am so excited.
I loved ‘Anna Karenina’ and even though
it's over 800 pages long and I only finished it a few weeks ago, I want to read
it all over again. I gave the film a watch to try and soothe the want, but it
was nothing like the book and only made me want to re-read it even more.
WILL
It Stay a Classic
Completely. ‘Anna Karenina’ is considered
one of the finest works of literature ever written, and Tolstoy one of the
greatest writers of all time. I can’t see that changing any time soon!
WHO
I’d Recommend it To
- Fans of stories of epic, doomed
love and complicated characters.
- Those taking their first foray
into Russian classics. Despite its length, this is a great place to start.
- Everyone.
Sophie
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