Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy | Book Talk

I also read this as a part of March of the Mammoths, which I host along with Jason over at Old Blue's Chapter and Verse and Alex over at bigalbooks. Here are all of our announcement videos:

#MarchingMammoths

If want to find me elsewhere:

[acruelreadersthesis]

Wow, I did not realize how much interference in the audio there was from the wind. My apologies! 😬

[shelflife]

I love how Jennifer from Insert Literary Pun Here called Levin's agricultural sections "Tolstoy's intellectual masturbation", maybe that's a way to look at the point of them. (I still was wholly invested in them, surprisingly; I think it was Levin's 'sense of mission' that endeared him to me. I absolutely loved the book, couldn't stop thinking about it for months). I saw a ballet adaptation of Anna Karenina recently produced by a local ballet company and it was absolutely horrible. I blamed it on the company at the time, but now I started thinking about what you said about it not being really plot-driven. It didn't really occur to me before but maybe it's just not a story to be adapted into a ballet, because the drama is too domestic. One of the main emotional peaks you talked about was (for me) the horse racing scene, but it's not something you would bring into a ballet :)

[Starscreamlive]

I'm honestly surprised that you didn't enjoy it more. I thought this would be right up your alley. Where you were more interested in Anna's story, I preferred Levin's story. I know that the novel is named Anna Karenina, but I felt that Levin was the main character, the most essential character to so much of what Tolstoy is attempting to convey. To make a comparison to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, although most of the action revolves around Ceasar, Brutus is the central figure. Levin is Tolstoy's Brutus.
I read it for the first time last year, and I ranked it #2 of my all time favorite novels, just below Absalom, Absalom!.

[tillysshelf]

With a side of agriculture made me chuckle because it's a very apt description. Not at all what I expected when I started reading and I'd almost erased all memory of it. I do think it added something though just in terms of understanding the time in which they were living.

[BookishTexan]

Bojack Horseman used to explain Tolstoy. Awesome. I think when I read this I found the parts about farming interesting in a historical sense much as I did with the whaling sections of Moby Dick that you mentioned.

[darioa]

I really enjoyed this book, especially Levin’s parts 😁. It managed to make me feel Russia of 1870s. You get interpersonal relationships, constraints of social dogmas, mechanisms of the class society and the political system, all nicely packaged in a soap opera. However, Keira Knightley on the cover does not elevate the experience 😊.

[Nyledam]

I think with classics the expectations are always really high since they have lasted for such a long time. It's been years since I read Anna Karenina (back in highschool) but from what I remember I definitely agree with your thoughts on it. Especially about the agriculture... :)

[TootightLautrec]

I liked Anna Karenina, but I didn't love it. It took me five attempts to even get past page ten, and now I'm having trouble remembering huge chunks of it. If I die without ever having read War and Peace, I'll be okay with that. As far as the Russians are concerned I prefer Dostoyevsky over Tolstoy. I did, however, LOVE the whaling sections of Moby Dick and have always been confused why other people find it boring. I have to say your ability to summarize and give a clear overview of such a complex book is highly impressive.

[john-alanpascoe]

I haven’t read Anna Karenina myself, but from your comments it does sound like you’d enjoy War and Peace

[faithbooks]

I read Anna Karenina decades ago. I remember really disliking Anna, her husband and Vronsky. I get into moods though where I can't stand rich bored people who just make misery. I loved Levin and Kitty. I thought they were a wonderful foil to Anna and Vronsky. I remember really liking how Levin matured. But my memory is really fuzzy about it all. I don't remember agricultural stuff at all in the book though. I guess that didn't bother me. However, I have to say along with you, that I didn't think the book lived up to its reputation either.

[shelflife]

Also, regarding War and Peace: it definitely has a lot more action, but that's exactly what made it difficult for me. I unfortunately have zero interest in military strategy, I was interested in the Napoleonic wars in the general sense (how they affected 'normal' people, society, architecture etc.) but the war sections were too in-depth for me, it was quite painful (and I enjoyed Levin's agricultural musings and whaling sections in Moby Dick). Still, the other sections were so rewarding that it was a 5/5 stars book for me. Overall, reading War and Peace is what I imagine childbirth to be like. For most of it I was asking myself "when is this gonna end?!", but once I've finished I thought "wow, this was the best book I've ever read".

PS. If you're bored, ISU is premiering events from Worlds 2018 every day at noon British time, on their YouTube channel!!! Just in case you didn't know already.

[MarcelReads]

Yeah, I read this book ages ago and I did not like Levin's chapters too. I don't care about growing potatoes.
I remembered about a character's (you know who) death and how the book drags on a bit. However, I remember crying when reading this book even though I did not like the characters necessary. It's just a tragedy.

[davidmurphy]

Enjoyed this a lot - thank you.

Oh no oh no oh no - you absolutely cannot cut out Levin’s parts!

[johncrwarner]

And I always though Anna Karenina was a soap order with a side order of... trains LOL

[DAYS_ATSEA]

Really good to see you again! I haven't ever finished AK. Don't tell anyone.

[whatpageareyouon]

Great thoughts! I think you'll like War and Peace more too. I personally found the advantages of Anna Karenina vs what War and Peace lacked, Tolstoy is a fascinating writer to read as a body of work vs his fleeting impulses of *grandeur


*Labor talk hahah

[ramblingraconteur]

Glad you finished it and thank you for sharing your thoughts. While I love Tolstoy’s stories and novellas reading Anna Karenina left me flat. Part of it was the general relationship between Anna, Karenin, and Vronsky. None seemed like people I would want to spend time with, and the agricultural sections have a tendency towards philosophizing that didn’t possess a full heart.

The passage about Levin’s bachelor brother and I believe it’s the nurse basically making eye contact in the woods was the one page (among 700) that really made an impact. Tolstoy is so capable of creating real, human moments that don’t veer into the nightmares Dostoevsky spirals his characters through.

I hope April goes well for you!

[CharlesHeathcote]

Your first descriptor of this book is exactly how I felt when I read it a few years ago. I have to admit that I usually get through classic books by likening them to soap operas. Anna Karenina is a book that I liked for the most part, but I do believe it had quite a few extraneous parts. I did read it after watching the Sean Bean adaptation of the book, and that might have raised my expectations too high.

[mame-musing]

Your thumbnail tag line is so on point. To me, the progression of the story temporarily went off the rails with that whole boring treatise on labor and agriculture. It was as if Tolstoy was writing a totally separate book. Some judicious editing would have been beneficial.
I still consider AK among my favorite novels. In my memory, I can gloss over Levin’s earnestness in getting back to the land.