Anna Karenina

First, a brief and woefully inadequate plot summary: Anna Karenina is the story of a fashionable married woman who seems to have it all – beauty, wealth, a sensible (read insipid) husband, an adored son – until she meets Count Vronsky. Her reaction to Vronsky is immediate, passionate, visceral. So Anna leaves her husband to go and shack up with Vronsky, losing her son and her social position. The story follows her life with Vronsky to its inevitable conclusion: Anna throws herself under the wheels of a train. (Sorry for the spoiler, but this is one of the most famous suicides in literary history, so I really think the cat's out of the etc.) It is to Tolstoy's credit that Anna is not an entirely selfish person, nor motivated by entirely evil (or obvious) impulses. In fact she is a fairly enigmatic character – her motives and her history go largely unexplained, leaving readers to judge for themselves.

There is another storyline, about Levin. (The book may as well be called Anna and Levin – he gets just as much air time as she does.) Levin is a passionate, restless, shy aristocratic landowner who lives on a rural estate which he manages in a very hands-on fashion. He is in love with Anna's brother's sister-in-law, and after a lot of awkwardness they get married, settle down and have a family. Levin is considered to be almost a self-portrait of Tolstoy, representing his views particularly regarding familial happiness as the highest human ideal. Levin also goes through a religious crisis that mirrors Tolstoy's own spiritual struggle: even though he is happy in his family life, he comes very close to suicide because he feels he'll never know the meaning and purpose of his life. He does not, however, end up under a train.

If I had to state one theme or message of the book – though there are many – I would say it is that "we err in imagining that happiness is the realization of our desires." To wit: Anna throws her life away to follow her passion, and ends in ruin. Also, Levin gets the life and love he has so long wished for, but still only finds inner peace and purpose in the Higher Good which is in his power to bring to his corner of the world.

So as not to kowtow too deeply to Tolstoy and this book, I will state a grievance or... three:
1. In order to demonstrate the joy and peace found in honest hard work and decent family relations, Tolstoy paints the peasant class as a cheerful, healthy, rosy-cheeked lot who chatter merrily and sing rollicking songs as they work. Any resentment of the wealthy, land-owning class is "drowned in a sea of common cheerful labor," as if the labor is its own reward and the fact that they don't enjoy its fruits is irrelevant. This struck me as unrealistic and improbable.

2. I felt Tolstoy treated some women's issues too lightly (e.g. the question of women's education is literally laughed off). I did, however, appreciate the both implied and explicit acknowledgement that infidelity is punished unequally for men and women by both society and the law. The double standard is shown as grossly unfair, as Anna is ruined while her philandering brother is promoted at work as well as in society.

3. There are some very long and seemingly extraneous sections (e.g. Levin's hunting trip, the provincial elections, philosophical debates on education, farming, and the development of Russian society and economy). These may be interesting from a historical perspective, but they do little to advance themes or propel the plot forward.

But geesh, let's face it, who am I to judge Leo Tolstoy? This is one of the great novels of all time. It's a beautiful, tragic, timeless story and a rich, expansive evocation of 19th-century Russia. I was surprised to find Anna Karenina so approachable, and though it did take me a long time to wade through its 800+ pages, I did not for a moment regret the time spent. It's the kind of book that reminds me why I was an English major.