Anna Karenina (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

This is a novel with depth and layers. Layers of meaning and stories within stories. Tolstoy demonstrates uncommon talent in his character development. Even minor characters are developed clearly and concisely, yet without unnecessary embellishment. The main characters have a grittiness about them. Real people, real struggle, real joy, real suffering. No unreal heroes.

While there are a lot of stories developed in this novel, I was most captivated by those of Levin and, of course, Anna. Similar stories, yet so completely different too. Two people, unhappy, unfulfilled. One finding a long path to peace and understanding, another a path to misery and death.
I found a lot of passages that I had to go back and read over and over, for the beauty of them. Tolstoy’s ability to paint a scene with minimal description is masterful. Painting images and emotions well beyond what he writes.
Both Levin’s angst and the utter hopelessness of Anna toward the end were magnificently written. The details he was able to convey through his narration of their thoughts... Levin’s as he struggled with faith and meaning and then the epiphany of discovery and joy. Anna’s slow emotional suffocation as her morbid depression starts to cloud her judgment and skew her perceptions of reality, turning everything within and without her into an ugly darkness. Tolstoy was uncommonly in touch with broad human conditions and inner experiences.

Anna Karenina is widely accepted as one of the finest examples of literary achievement. I endorse to any who wish to read an exceptional novel, written to the highest standards.

Firstly this review is for the Dover thrift edition, for value Dover are very hard to beat. I note some other reviewers compare and complain about the different translations but this is the only version I've read and it seemed fine to me.
Before you buy this book you should be prepared to commit yourself to reading it, this is not casual reading this is a huge epic with considerable depth and themes that are thought provoking. If you're unsure wether or not you can finish this book I recommend trying some of Tolstoy's short fiction first. There are many good collections of his short stories out there which would suit the casual reader better.
This novel centres around two main characters Anna who commits adultery and Levin the would be social reformer. Through these two Tolstoy examines emotions, religion, morality and politics in a way that few other writers have ever managed. I found this book heavy going at times but I don't think anyone can deny its artistic merit or its status as a classic.

We probably can't appreciate all the literary innovations in this novel since later writers have used them so often and it is a translation from the Russian. I thank this edition for the list of characters with descriptions which greatly helped in the reading.

I'm rereading this book, which is one of the greatest novels of all time .I must say the translation is a little clunky. Constance Garnett is the gold standard.

This is a classic story of adultery when adultery was adultery, when it had earthly consequences, told by a classic storyteller. It is a classic tragedy of marriage turned sour and clandestine romance set in late nineteenth century Russia, principally in St Petersburg and Moscow, and including the rustic countryside.
The tale features two beautiful women intertwined with three resourceful gentlemen. Anna Karenina is a heroine caught in a nondescript union with Karenin who finds himself increasingly disenchanted with his wife who seeks the charms of a vibrant suitor, the Count Vronsky, with whom she absconds, leaving her adored son behind. It is only a matter of time before this tryst develops a bitter taste.
Kitty, heroine as well, finds herself jilted in her courtship with Vronsky before he buckles under the charms of Anna. Kitty settles for the love of Levin who suffered an earlier rebuff from her, she then hoping for the hand of the Count.
Tolstoy loves to detail frivolous city life with many interesting, and sometimes delightful, secondary characters, many as relatives, juxtaposed with the meaningful country life of hard working peasants, who display a more meaningful relationship with life.
Tolstoy delves into the mind and soul of Levin at length, transforming him into the true hero of this true classic.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

- Leo Tolstoy from Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is a beautifully written novel about three families: the Oblonskys, the Levins, and the Karenins. The first line (one of the most famous in literature) hints at Tolstoy's own views about happy and unhappy marriages having these same three families also represent three very different societal and physical locations in Russia in addition to distinctly different views on love, loyalty, fidelity, happiness and marital bliss.

Tolstoy seems to stress that `trusting companionships" are more durable and filled with happiness versus "romantic passion" that bursts with flames and then slowly; leaves ashes rather than a firm, solid foundation to build upon.

It is like reading a soap opera with all of its twists and turns where the observer is allowed to enter into the homes, the minds and the spirits of its main characters. The moral compass in the book belongs to Levin whose life and courtship of Kitty mirrors much of Leo Tolstoy's own courtship of his wife Sophia. Levin's personality and spiritual quest is Tolstoy's veiled attempt at bringing to life his own spiritual peaks and valleys and the self doubts that plagued him his entire life despite his happy family life and the fact that he too found love in his life and a committed durable marriage. At the other end of the spectrum is Anna, who also because of her individual choices and circumstances, falls into despair.

It is clear that Tolstoy wants the reader to come away with many messages about the sanctity of marriage, love and family life. He also wants us to be mindful of the choices that we make in life and the affect that these choices have upon ourselves, our station and path in life as well as the affect upon those that we profess to love. Tolstoy also wants us to examine what makes our lives happy or not; and what is at the root of either end result. Levin and Kitty are the happiest married couple; yet Levin faces his own double bind when struggling against domestic bliss and his need for independence on the other hand and how to achieve both (if that is possible) without relinquishing that which made him who he was born to be.

Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin are the primary protagonists in the novel and both are rich and fine characters in their own right. Both of them focus on self; one however finds the self to be a nurturer which puts value into life very much as a farmer; while the other views self with despair and as a punisher or destroyer. Both views, diametrically opposed, force the characters on very different paths and lives for themselves. Then there is the dilemma of forgiveness versus vengeance. The very epigram for the novel from Romans states: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." Yet vengeance upon oneself or others is not up to individuals but God; and yet the characters are haunted about what forgiveness is or isn't and by the hollowness of words versus heartfelt and soulfully reflective actions. The themes of social change in Russia, family life's blessings and virtues and farming (even if it is simply the goodness one puts into life and how one cultivates it and others) dominate the novel's landscape. Trains also play a symbolic importance in the novel and it is odd that Tolstoy himself years after writing Anna Karenina dies himself in a train station after setting off from his home in an emotional cloud.

Sometimes the names of the characters themselves can be confusing: so a hint to the reader might be to think of each Russian character's name as having three parts: the first name (examples here are for Levin and Kitty) like Konstantin or Ekaterina, a patronymic which is the father's first name accompanied by a suffix which means son of or daughter of like Dmitrich (son of Dmitri) or Alexandrovna (daughter of Alexander) and then the surname like Levin or Shcherbatskaya. Thus the explanations for the Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (nicknamed Kitty) and Konstantin Dmitrich Levin (Levin).

I loved the book and its details and the richness of the characterizations as well as the storytelling technique of the great Tolstoy and I have to agree with Tolstoy when he stated, "I am very proud of its architecture-its vaults are joined so that one cannot even notice where the keystone is. " The vaults: "Anna and Levin" are joined with the very first line of the novel and with their focus on themselves.

Rating: A

Bentley/2007

[[ASIN:0486437965 Anna Karenina (Thrift Edition)]]

outstanding

book in excellent condition

Great classic
So glad I finally had the time to read it.