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A review by meghaha
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2.0
I’m conflicted trying to evaluate Anna Karenina. On one hand, I’d like to shout, “I hated it! I hate Tolstoy!” On the other hand, I can’t go so far. Denied the sense of catharsis I’d get if only I could unreservedly roast this book, I’m stuck in no-man’s land, reaction-wise. I’m torn between alternately hating and respecting this book.
My reading experience:
I really struggled getting through all 900 pages of this. At times I felt like Tolstoy was killing me slowly (I could feel his phantom fingers around my neck). Then just as I was breathing my last, a vivid scene would revive me enough to continue. And so over the course ofAnna Karenina: I frequently felt boredom and irritation; I sometimes laughed due to a comic situation or remark, and I was occasionally impressed by and immersed in a well-crafted scene.
But Tolstoy didn’t need those 900 pages. He needed maybe 400 pages to tell this story. The rest is bloat.
On particular scenes:
The scenes I found masterful, and wouldn’t mind re-reading:
‣Kitty’s joy leading up to the ball, and her rejection of Levin
‣Anna and Vronsky’s first meetings (especially the ball), wherein she feels pleasure and dread, he submission and dread; all framed through Kitty’s despair
‣Anna on the train during the snowstorm, reading, and encountering Vronsky
‣Anything with Nikolay
‣Anna being snubbed at the opera
‣Dolly’s joy with her children in the country
‣Anna sneaking in to see her son
‣Anna on the way to the train station for the last time
Scenes that exasperated me:
‣Anything with Levin
‣Levin
‣LEVIN
‣ANY TIME LEVIN OPENED HIS DUMB MOUTH
Scenes that nearly put me into an early grave:
‣Levin scything
‣Levin going snipe hunting (I told myself he was going to get accidentally shot or shoot someone in order to gather the will to keep reading, and I for real sobbed after I realized I was put through that whole sequence for nothing)
‣Levin and Kitty’s wedding (I felt like I’d been made to sit through an entire wedding, but maybe that was the point) & her childbirth
‣The whole business of voting for the marshal
Really, the marvelous scenes of this book, if extracted, would make for a gem of slim volume. As is, they’re buried.
On the major characters:
Surprisingly, Anna Karenina isn’t the main character in this book. Nope, that’s Levin, who I just so happen to hate with the fire of a thousand suns.
Not soon after we meet Levin for the first time, he says this: “...[I] have a loathing for fallen women. You’re afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin.” That’s maybe the most revolting two sentences ever uttered by a main character who isn’t an actual serial killer? I don’t care if that comment is foreshadowing what Anna will become, or how Levin will be moved to sympathy, despite earlier prejudices. The fact that Levin is a grown manchild of thirty years when he’s going around calling other human beings vermin precludes any excuse for his behavior.
Despite Tolstoy caring about every small development in Levin’s life, and trying to make us care, I didn’t care one iota. To hell with Levin’s cows, his spoiled or unspoiled oats, his incompetent farming reforms, his woe about how nobles are being impoverished. And I found repellant his assertion that he and his family “never depended on anyone for anything”(so we’re just going to forget serfdom?); his fatalism about doing anything to improve the quality of life of peasants; his belief in the supremacy of self-interest; his insistent romanticization of the rural over the urban; his romanticization and simplification of peasants. One could argue that Tolstoy is being self-deprecating, and semi-autobiographical Levin is supposed to be an ignorant fool in the beginning so you happily embrace his come-to-jesus moment at the end. That still doesn’t make sitting through all his speeches and opinions any more bearable.
What to make of the fact on one hand, Tolstoy writes that Levin “was too much influenced by the impressions of the moment, and consequently filled with contradictions,” but also writes “whatever faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him”? That’s just layers and layers of contradictions there, written by a deeply contradictory author. One thing that is clear though, is that Tolstoy intends to portray Levin as fundamentally good despite his flaws, and puts the most effort into his characterization, and humanizing him.
I liked Anna, though maybe I shouldn’t have. She’s so lively at the beginning-- see her impatience from reading a novel because “she had too great a desire to live herself.” Her husband says of her: “No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman” and that honestly sounds like a compliment. And one can’t help but admire her declaration she “must love and live.”
In the beginning, Anna is a vibrant, complex character, but I stopped feeling that way when Tolstoy began to depict her demise. The way Tolstoy portrays her in the last third of the book, I see Anna less as a undoubtedly real person, and more of a two-dimensional construct of an Author With A Message. It’s a view that becomes inevitable when you trace her arc backwards from her suicide: it’s as if all her beauty, vivacity, and charm were created for the sole purpose of Tolstoy being able to snuff it out. Which leaves a bad taste. Anna’s sudden and unconvincing embrace of death and Levin’s sudden and unconvincing and embrace of Christianity makes it seem these characters were created solely so they could reach these ends. It feels heavy-handed. And I feel positively angry that Levin gets a chance of redemption and enlightenment, but Anna must be thrown under a train. Sure, it’s realistic, and Anna’s demise might have been conceived more by society itself than Tolstoy, as he was inspired by a woman who’d committed suicide in the same manner. Is it Tolstoy or the society he was living in that manufactured the characters’ endings? Probably both.
On the minor characters:
Tolstoy is lauded for his breadth of characters, each distinct. But although people comment that Tolstoy is good at writing women (and I felt that while reading, especially in the beginning of the book), now that I’ve closed this book, the women in Anna Karenina all seem to be portrayed in a overly simplistic manner. The women are filtered through the eyes of a man who thinks he understands them, and does a pretty good job of convincing the reader he’s found their inner thoughts and core, when in fact, who knows if he really has. Not just Anna, but Kitty, Dolly : they all exist for men, for Tolstoy. I’m irritated that Tolstoy seems to say: I’m empathetic and wise, I’ve studied women, I know their inner thoughts, this is all they are composed of: here is their sum and total. And to have their sum and total be so non-dynamic, and shallow in comparison to the shades of feeling and thought given Levin. It rankles.
I mean, maybe sensitivity to how women are portrayed is making me ignore the rest. You could argue even Vronsky and Stepan get the short shrift. If Stepan is so shallow, how would he be able to say this to Levin: “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow”? And the narrator saying that the worst thing that ever happened to Vronsky was losing the race and having his horse shot is really unfair, given his grief over Anna. (Not to mention a racing horse is supposed to symbolize Anna. Maybe it fits, but it’s still a gross equivalency from Tolstoy’s pen, just as fallen women are vermin).
Tolstoy convinces himself and his readers that he’s so empathetic that he understands everyone (well, everyone that’s an aristocrat) but his empathetic “understanding” might be a warped view of anyone unlike himself. He leaves you with confidence you’ve understood diverse characters, that your viewpoints have been broadened by spending time in their minds, when how can you be sure? To think you understand someone perfectly, know their innermost thoughts and workings as well as they know themselves, to write it all down, convinced you’re right, doesn’t mean you are. What if Tolstoy’s wrong, but he’s convinced us all he’s right? I can’t join in on applauding his depiction of very different characters without some hesitation.
On the prose/descriptions:
Maybe in the original Russian, the long-winded passages, microscopically focused on the minutiae of daily life, and the tracking of infinitesimal changes, are beautiful enough to justify their existence to a reader. But while you can admire Tolstoy’s (via translator Constance Garnett) eye for detail, and his sensitivity for individual moments/instances, you also want to groan because he keeps describing and does it so gracelessly. There are writers whose every word is a wonder, so that it doesn’t matter if they get caught up in intricate descriptions. I can’t number Tolstoy among their company. With a few exceptions (especially in the beginning of the book) his prose simply isn’t good enough to make description for the sake of it enjoyable. Of course, it’s possible that he did have an eye / ear for wording in Russian, making these long passages a pleasurable experience in the original text. In English, his descriptions are often tedious, and even when they should be light and delicate, weigh on you like a stone.
On Anna Karenina's well-loved status & value:
I’m surprised that this book has captured the hearts of so many. Woolf, Hemingway, amongst other intimidating literary company, all think Tolstoy is wonderful, and Anna Karenina his best. I would try to reason it out by saying that perhaps during the long 19th century and slightly after, this book was more special to its readers, less problematic, but that it’s lost some of its charm nowadays. Except modern readers seem to love it, and Tolstoy just as much? Refer to Tolstoy’s lead over Shakespeare in "The Greatest Books of All Time" list, and the hundreds of thousands of 5-star ratings on goodreads.
That’s where I’m lost, because I can’t love this book, or even number it among the best novels ever written, and that isn’t just my bitterness speaking. Brilliant moments it has, but it’s weighed down by hundreds of pages of extraneous writing. It’s uneven. And in portraying the aristocracy of Czarist Russia as vapid and tiresome, it does not escape being vapid and tiresome itself in many sections.
It’s hard to not see Anna Karenina as more than a better-than-most society novel that’s engorged itself on tiresome digressions about farming and debates about other social issues, that no longer need debating. The setting provides for interesting details at times, but I can’t help but think if Tolstoy wasn’t describing the 19th century and faraway Russia, the details would be utterly banal. Would any of this be special to a Russian of that time, or worthy of describing? I’m trying to imagine some contemporary American writer using 900 pages to write a novel about himself and other rich people in New York society, and throwing in some extremely long passages about jogging in the gym, or why should the millionaire main character support universal health care for the plebes, how dull! I would loathe such a book unreservedly, even if it did offer some psychological insight, some vivid scenes. Fast forward even 50 years, translate it into another language, and it would present an interesting look into early 21st century America for its readers. Not because the details or people described are intrinsically worth reading about.
Tolstoy’s problematic viewpoint
Reading this, I never could forget Tolstoy was a wealthy aristocrat. His perch from which he writes about Russian society is inherently troubling. With this in mind, Tolstoy’s portrayal of peasants is repulsive--peasants who say, “what’s good for the master is good for us too.” Peasants become material for ridicule, for jokes, for cheap romanticization. They’re nothing more than a reflection at which the aristocrat (Levin, Tolstoy) can look at for his own self-gratification, when it suits. And of course a stock humble peasant is the catalyst for Levin’s religious enlightenment.
I also hate that Anna’s romanticization of love is a fatal flaw, but Levin’s romanticization of the countryside is a merit. And although this is smaller: I’m annoyed Tolstoy denies Kitty any chance to talk about women’s education, because she is supposedly too in love with Levin at the moment.
I don’t care that Tolstoy was from the 19th century, or for the idea I need to make accommodations for him and this book. Classics stand the test of time. That means, they are as resonant and meaningful to a reader not of their time or place. If your novel is so chock-full of outdated ideology to a modern reader it’s infuriating, if your modern reader is bored to tears by the character’s once relevant, but now petty concerns: that is the very definition of not aging well. If I still have to read this book in contemporary times, I have the right to judge it as it stands. Classics must age well, or why else are we reading them? There are Greek plays from 2,000 years ago that have aged better than this book. There are so many classics out there that have aged better than this book.
Tolstoy’s morality and Christianity:
Whatever odious thoughts semi-autobiographical Levin spouts before his religious transformation (and some after), Tolstoy’s later-in-life tenants seem to be more or less solid. It’s hard to not see a change for the better in a moral code that stipulates love not hate, pacifism, and vegetarianism (and yet, we had to read about snipe hunting). Though, one gets the feeling Tolstoy defined what goodness was but was unable to keep to it. Of course, I have no right to criticize him for trying but failing, as it’s so very human of him. What I do have issue with: his becoming a dispenser of morality, his confidence he was right. Any moral strictures coming from a Russian count whose wealth comes from exploiting serfs and later peasants, relies on the invisible labor of his wife in order to be creative, and doesn’t properly adhere to his own moral code have no authority for me.
Given how Christian this book is, how adamantly it works to convince its reader that belief in God is natural and inevitable, how it asserts atheists can't invent their own moral framework, I’m surprised the Soviets didn’t ban it. Then again, proselytizer of religion or not, Tolstoy puts you through 900 pages with irritating aristocratic characters, with the end effect that you support the Russian Revolution out of sheer schadenfreude.
What I can admit to Tolstoy doing well:
Tolstoy's talent lies in tracking small, infinitesimal changes in the psyche. Of delineating fluttering moments, as if they were developing under the loving focus of a high definition camera. Of staying power: I’ve been thinking of this novel for a few days.
He’s inspired and taught many writers, some who I am fond of. For instance, I like Woolf, and her stream-of-conscious style, her attention for the fluttering moment, has its origin in Tolstoy attempting to describe discrete moments all throughout this text, and is particularly clear in the stream-of-consciousness of Anna’s breathless last scenes as she arrives to the train station.
I also liked the amount of doubles/parallels/foils in this book. In that manner at least, it is structured well.
***
Quotes I liked:
“ It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm”
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”
“I think," said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, "I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself”
“the malignant gentleman”
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
Favorite Passage:
“She passed the paper knife over the window pane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight that all at once without cause came over her. She felt as though her nerves were strings being strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously, something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with unaccustomed vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or were standing still altogether; whether it were Annushka at her side or a stranger. "What's that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman?" she was afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For a moment she regained her self-possession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in wearing a long overcoat, with buttons missing from it, was the stoveheater, that he was looking at the thermometer, that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him at the door; but then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the long waist seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it with a black cloud; then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as though someone were being torn to pieces; then there was a blinding dazzle of red fire before her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and hide everything. Anna felt as though she were sinking down. But it was not terrible, but delightful. ”
My reading experience:
I really struggled getting through all 900 pages of this. At times I felt like Tolstoy was killing me slowly (I could feel his phantom fingers around my neck). Then just as I was breathing my last, a vivid scene would revive me enough to continue. And so over the course ofAnna Karenina: I frequently felt boredom and irritation; I sometimes laughed due to a comic situation or remark, and I was occasionally impressed by and immersed in a well-crafted scene.
But Tolstoy didn’t need those 900 pages. He needed maybe 400 pages to tell this story. The rest is bloat.
On particular scenes:
The scenes I found masterful, and wouldn’t mind re-reading:
‣Kitty’s joy leading up to the ball, and her rejection of Levin
‣Anna and Vronsky’s first meetings (especially the ball), wherein she feels pleasure and dread, he submission and dread; all framed through Kitty’s despair
‣Anna on the train during the snowstorm, reading, and encountering Vronsky
‣Anything with Nikolay
‣Anna being snubbed at the opera
‣Dolly’s joy with her children in the country
‣Anna sneaking in to see her son
‣Anna on the way to the train station for the last time
Scenes that exasperated me:
‣Anything with Levin
‣Levin
‣LEVIN
‣ANY TIME LEVIN OPENED HIS DUMB MOUTH
Scenes that nearly put me into an early grave:
‣Levin scything
‣Levin going snipe hunting (I told myself he was going to get accidentally shot or shoot someone in order to gather the will to keep reading, and I for real sobbed after I realized I was put through that whole sequence for nothing)
‣Levin and Kitty’s wedding (I felt like I’d been made to sit through an entire wedding, but maybe that was the point) & her childbirth
‣The whole business of voting for the marshal
Really, the marvelous scenes of this book, if extracted, would make for a gem of slim volume. As is, they’re buried.
On the major characters:
Surprisingly, Anna Karenina isn’t the main character in this book. Nope, that’s Levin, who I just so happen to hate with the fire of a thousand suns.
Not soon after we meet Levin for the first time, he says this: “...[I] have a loathing for fallen women. You’re afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin.” That’s maybe the most revolting two sentences ever uttered by a main character who isn’t an actual serial killer? I don’t care if that comment is foreshadowing what Anna will become, or how Levin will be moved to sympathy, despite earlier prejudices. The fact that Levin is a grown manchild of thirty years when he’s going around calling other human beings vermin precludes any excuse for his behavior.
Despite Tolstoy caring about every small development in Levin’s life, and trying to make us care, I didn’t care one iota. To hell with Levin’s cows, his spoiled or unspoiled oats, his incompetent farming reforms, his woe about how nobles are being impoverished. And I found repellant his assertion that he and his family “never depended on anyone for anything”(so we’re just going to forget serfdom?); his fatalism about doing anything to improve the quality of life of peasants; his belief in the supremacy of self-interest; his insistent romanticization of the rural over the urban; his romanticization and simplification of peasants. One could argue that Tolstoy is being self-deprecating, and semi-autobiographical Levin is supposed to be an ignorant fool in the beginning so you happily embrace his come-to-jesus moment at the end. That still doesn’t make sitting through all his speeches and opinions any more bearable.
What to make of the fact on one hand, Tolstoy writes that Levin “was too much influenced by the impressions of the moment, and consequently filled with contradictions,” but also writes “whatever faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him”? That’s just layers and layers of contradictions there, written by a deeply contradictory author. One thing that is clear though, is that Tolstoy intends to portray Levin as fundamentally good despite his flaws, and puts the most effort into his characterization, and humanizing him.
I liked Anna, though maybe I shouldn’t have. She’s so lively at the beginning-- see her impatience from reading a novel because “she had too great a desire to live herself.” Her husband says of her: “No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman” and that honestly sounds like a compliment. And one can’t help but admire her declaration she “must love and live.”
In the beginning, Anna is a vibrant, complex character, but I stopped feeling that way when Tolstoy began to depict her demise. The way Tolstoy portrays her in the last third of the book, I see Anna less as a undoubtedly real person, and more of a two-dimensional construct of an Author With A Message. It’s a view that becomes inevitable when you trace her arc backwards from her suicide: it’s as if all her beauty, vivacity, and charm were created for the sole purpose of Tolstoy being able to snuff it out. Which leaves a bad taste. Anna’s sudden and unconvincing embrace of death and Levin’s sudden and unconvincing and embrace of Christianity makes it seem these characters were created solely so they could reach these ends. It feels heavy-handed. And I feel positively angry that Levin gets a chance of redemption and enlightenment, but Anna must be thrown under a train. Sure, it’s realistic, and Anna’s demise might have been conceived more by society itself than Tolstoy, as he was inspired by a woman who’d committed suicide in the same manner. Is it Tolstoy or the society he was living in that manufactured the characters’ endings? Probably both.
On the minor characters:
Tolstoy is lauded for his breadth of characters, each distinct. But although people comment that Tolstoy is good at writing women (and I felt that while reading, especially in the beginning of the book), now that I’ve closed this book, the women in Anna Karenina all seem to be portrayed in a overly simplistic manner. The women are filtered through the eyes of a man who thinks he understands them, and does a pretty good job of convincing the reader he’s found their inner thoughts and core, when in fact, who knows if he really has. Not just Anna, but Kitty, Dolly : they all exist for men, for Tolstoy. I’m irritated that Tolstoy seems to say: I’m empathetic and wise, I’ve studied women, I know their inner thoughts, this is all they are composed of: here is their sum and total. And to have their sum and total be so non-dynamic, and shallow in comparison to the shades of feeling and thought given Levin. It rankles.
I mean, maybe sensitivity to how women are portrayed is making me ignore the rest. You could argue even Vronsky and Stepan get the short shrift. If Stepan is so shallow, how would he be able to say this to Levin: “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow”? And the narrator saying that the worst thing that ever happened to Vronsky was losing the race and having his horse shot is really unfair, given his grief over Anna. (Not to mention a racing horse is supposed to symbolize Anna. Maybe it fits, but it’s still a gross equivalency from Tolstoy’s pen, just as fallen women are vermin).
Tolstoy convinces himself and his readers that he’s so empathetic that he understands everyone (well, everyone that’s an aristocrat) but his empathetic “understanding” might be a warped view of anyone unlike himself. He leaves you with confidence you’ve understood diverse characters, that your viewpoints have been broadened by spending time in their minds, when how can you be sure? To think you understand someone perfectly, know their innermost thoughts and workings as well as they know themselves, to write it all down, convinced you’re right, doesn’t mean you are. What if Tolstoy’s wrong, but he’s convinced us all he’s right? I can’t join in on applauding his depiction of very different characters without some hesitation.
On the prose/descriptions:
Maybe in the original Russian, the long-winded passages, microscopically focused on the minutiae of daily life, and the tracking of infinitesimal changes, are beautiful enough to justify their existence to a reader. But while you can admire Tolstoy’s (via translator Constance Garnett) eye for detail, and his sensitivity for individual moments/instances, you also want to groan because he keeps describing and does it so gracelessly. There are writers whose every word is a wonder, so that it doesn’t matter if they get caught up in intricate descriptions. I can’t number Tolstoy among their company. With a few exceptions (especially in the beginning of the book) his prose simply isn’t good enough to make description for the sake of it enjoyable. Of course, it’s possible that he did have an eye / ear for wording in Russian, making these long passages a pleasurable experience in the original text. In English, his descriptions are often tedious, and even when they should be light and delicate, weigh on you like a stone.
On Anna Karenina's well-loved status & value:
I’m surprised that this book has captured the hearts of so many. Woolf, Hemingway, amongst other intimidating literary company, all think Tolstoy is wonderful, and Anna Karenina his best. I would try to reason it out by saying that perhaps during the long 19th century and slightly after, this book was more special to its readers, less problematic, but that it’s lost some of its charm nowadays. Except modern readers seem to love it, and Tolstoy just as much? Refer to Tolstoy’s lead over Shakespeare in "The Greatest Books of All Time" list, and the hundreds of thousands of 5-star ratings on goodreads.
That’s where I’m lost, because I can’t love this book, or even number it among the best novels ever written, and that isn’t just my bitterness speaking. Brilliant moments it has, but it’s weighed down by hundreds of pages of extraneous writing. It’s uneven. And in portraying the aristocracy of Czarist Russia as vapid and tiresome, it does not escape being vapid and tiresome itself in many sections.
It’s hard to not see Anna Karenina as more than a better-than-most society novel that’s engorged itself on tiresome digressions about farming and debates about other social issues, that no longer need debating. The setting provides for interesting details at times, but I can’t help but think if Tolstoy wasn’t describing the 19th century and faraway Russia, the details would be utterly banal. Would any of this be special to a Russian of that time, or worthy of describing? I’m trying to imagine some contemporary American writer using 900 pages to write a novel about himself and other rich people in New York society, and throwing in some extremely long passages about jogging in the gym, or why should the millionaire main character support universal health care for the plebes, how dull! I would loathe such a book unreservedly, even if it did offer some psychological insight, some vivid scenes. Fast forward even 50 years, translate it into another language, and it would present an interesting look into early 21st century America for its readers. Not because the details or people described are intrinsically worth reading about.
Tolstoy’s problematic viewpoint
Reading this, I never could forget Tolstoy was a wealthy aristocrat. His perch from which he writes about Russian society is inherently troubling. With this in mind, Tolstoy’s portrayal of peasants is repulsive--peasants who say, “what’s good for the master is good for us too.” Peasants become material for ridicule, for jokes, for cheap romanticization. They’re nothing more than a reflection at which the aristocrat (Levin, Tolstoy) can look at for his own self-gratification, when it suits. And of course a stock humble peasant is the catalyst for Levin’s religious enlightenment.
I also hate that Anna’s romanticization of love is a fatal flaw, but Levin’s romanticization of the countryside is a merit. And although this is smaller: I’m annoyed Tolstoy denies Kitty any chance to talk about women’s education, because she is supposedly too in love with Levin at the moment.
I don’t care that Tolstoy was from the 19th century, or for the idea I need to make accommodations for him and this book. Classics stand the test of time. That means, they are as resonant and meaningful to a reader not of their time or place. If your novel is so chock-full of outdated ideology to a modern reader it’s infuriating, if your modern reader is bored to tears by the character’s once relevant, but now petty concerns: that is the very definition of not aging well. If I still have to read this book in contemporary times, I have the right to judge it as it stands. Classics must age well, or why else are we reading them? There are Greek plays from 2,000 years ago that have aged better than this book. There are so many classics out there that have aged better than this book.
Tolstoy’s morality and Christianity:
Whatever odious thoughts semi-autobiographical Levin spouts before his religious transformation (and some after), Tolstoy’s later-in-life tenants seem to be more or less solid. It’s hard to not see a change for the better in a moral code that stipulates love not hate, pacifism, and vegetarianism (and yet, we had to read about snipe hunting). Though, one gets the feeling Tolstoy defined what goodness was but was unable to keep to it. Of course, I have no right to criticize him for trying but failing, as it’s so very human of him. What I do have issue with: his becoming a dispenser of morality, his confidence he was right. Any moral strictures coming from a Russian count whose wealth comes from exploiting serfs and later peasants, relies on the invisible labor of his wife in order to be creative, and doesn’t properly adhere to his own moral code have no authority for me.
Given how Christian this book is, how adamantly it works to convince its reader that belief in God is natural and inevitable, how it asserts atheists can't invent their own moral framework, I’m surprised the Soviets didn’t ban it. Then again, proselytizer of religion or not, Tolstoy puts you through 900 pages with irritating aristocratic characters, with the end effect that you support the Russian Revolution out of sheer schadenfreude.
What I can admit to Tolstoy doing well:
Tolstoy's talent lies in tracking small, infinitesimal changes in the psyche. Of delineating fluttering moments, as if they were developing under the loving focus of a high definition camera. Of staying power: I’ve been thinking of this novel for a few days.
He’s inspired and taught many writers, some who I am fond of. For instance, I like Woolf, and her stream-of-conscious style, her attention for the fluttering moment, has its origin in Tolstoy attempting to describe discrete moments all throughout this text, and is particularly clear in the stream-of-consciousness of Anna’s breathless last scenes as she arrives to the train station.
I also liked the amount of doubles/parallels/foils in this book. In that manner at least, it is structured well.
***
Quotes I liked:
“ It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm”
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”
“I think," said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, "I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself”
“the malignant gentleman”
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
Favorite Passage:
“She passed the paper knife over the window pane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight that all at once without cause came over her. She felt as though her nerves were strings being strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously, something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with unaccustomed vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or were standing still altogether; whether it were Annushka at her side or a stranger. "What's that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman?" she was afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For a moment she regained her self-possession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in wearing a long overcoat, with buttons missing from it, was the stoveheater, that he was looking at the thermometer, that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him at the door; but then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the long waist seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it with a black cloud; then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as though someone were being torn to pieces; then there was a blinding dazzle of red fire before her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and hide everything. Anna felt as though she were sinking down. But it was not terrible, but delightful. ”