I Thought I Liked This Book. Turns Out I Don't.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 817 pages

Two months ago I had been reading a lot of fantasy and decided that I wanted something different. A classic. I remembered that I liked Anna Karenina when I read it years ago but I could only remember the very basic storyline and so decided to read it again. As I started, I had this blog post in the back of my mind. The big question was how to condense an 800+ page book, full of various themes, and written by the famous Leo Tolstoy into one post. I went into it armed with sticky notes to mark passages I wanted to remember for later. I was mentally picking out themes as I went.

A month later, I was done. Not done reading, but done enjoying the whole experience. It would take another month for me to actually finish. So here we go. (Feel free to skip to the end if you want a one paragraph summary of my thoughts.) I feel like I can’t say anything bad about Tolstoy. If I don’t like something it’s obviously because I don’t “get it”. It’s like trying to criticize Shakespeare; you may not like reading it, but he’s a genius and therefore whatever he writes is perfect. So I’m going to throw this thought out there and you can decide for yourself if Tolstoy was less than perfect, or if I just don’t understand him.

The book is titled “Anna Karenina.” I believe titles are important and should reflect the main theme of a book. This one leads me to believe that the focus will be on Anna and how her choices affect her and those around her. My question then is this: Why is so much time spent on Levin and his love of farming? I really don’t want to read endless pages about theories of land development. And while some character development is appreciated, this book is not about him, it’s about Anna. It’s enough for him to mention his love of the country to people and show that he spends a lot of time in the country. Maybe Tolstoy wanted to make a social statement about peasants and landowners. Maybe he wanted to do something similar to Gone With the Wind or The Good Earth and talk about how much the land means to Russians. Either way, he should have just written a whole other book about that theme. Placed in this one, it just dragged out an already long book. The same is true when later, Levin gets involved in politics. Tolstoy should have kept Levin’s interactions with Vronsky which are much more central to the plot, and left out all the details of what each political party believes and how they’ll try to achieve their goals.

Levin’s relationship with Kitty is much more interesting and directly affected by Anna. In the beginning, due to Kitty’s crush on Vronsky, Anna and Vronsky are seen as awkward acquaintances who make Kitty and Levin feel uncomfortable. They are reminders of the past and Kitty and Levin avoid them in order to move on with their lives. As the book goes on though, Kitty and Levin’s marriage grows and strengthens while Anna and Vronsky’s relationship deteriorates. This creates a very interesting contrast to read about.  

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This habit of the author’s to forget the title character culminates in the last 75ish pages. At this point the book does become exciting for a while as it portrays Anna’s descent into mental instability which eventually leads to her suicide. The chapter ends with her death and you’d assume that the last 50 pages would be about how the rest of the characters are affected by it. But you’d be wrong. Instead we read about a minor character who eventually interacts with Vronsky. Ok, so that was the character’s purpose: to provide an outside view of how Vronsky is dealing with the shock. Unfortunately all we get is one not very interesting page. I’m sorry, but I didn’t suffer through 800 pages for this. Then we move past Vronsky and on to...her husband's reaction? No. In fact we left him about 50 pages ago and never come back to him. Instead we’re back to Levin. And this time his struggle isn’t political or agricultural, it’s religious. Admittedly, the basics (I say basics because once again, his inner monologue lasts way too long) of his struggle and eventual conclusions are touching and thought-provoking. His consideration of and eventual move away from suicide himself also provides a nice contrast to Anna. However, there’s still no mention of Anna even though he’s in close contact with some of her relatives. I wouldn’t mind the world forgetting about Anna and marking her death as unimportant. It creates a tragic ending with a commentary on upper class society. She was a fallen woman and society most likely would have been happier without the awkwardness of her presence in their lives. But I refuse to believe that Vronsky, her husband, and brother and sister-in-law were so unaffected by her death.

Let's be real, I wanted this book to be Keira Knightley level glamorous.

tldr: I really like the actual story of Anna’s affair with Vronsky. Specifically the psychology behind everything: why she left her husband, how her husband reacts, how society reacts, why Vronsky gives up his great bachelor life for her, how the pressure from society affects their relationship, and her eventual descent into madness. I also like the comparisons between Anna and Vronsky’s relationship and Levin and Kitty’s. Everything else (comprising hundreds of pages) is irrelevant and in the end, the title character is forgotten by the reader. Possibly there are condensed editions out there that focus more on the plot I enjoy, though I do worry that shorter means less psychology....anyway...that’s my review. I would recommend skipping the book and maybe trying a film adaptation instead.

Coming soon: Harry Potter!