A review by brighetti
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

challenging slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Prone to rambles and tangents on politics, agriculture, and the mundanity/everyday logistics of the characters' (lead or background) lives. After
Anna died
, the next page jumped straight into a long explanation of one of the character's published book being a flop. It was chapters later before the book returned to even acknowledging
Anna's death
. This interrupting tangent didn't even feel like it was used as a literary device to build tension, or create a sense of everyone else's relative normality/mundanity before they found out the shocking news - it felt like a jarring jump cut that never brought the reader to a satisfying release of tension following
her decision to die
. I've heard this book heralded partly because of how much it packs in - how many topics it covers, how informative it is about Russia at the time, and that it's not only a "great" love story but also basically a historical Time Capsule. I would argue that the amount it packs in is a discredit to the story. The information Tolstoy has added feels to be at his own whim, to satisfy his own interest, and at times it even feels as though he is vicariously boasting about his own knowledge and interests via the characters. It very rarely furthers the story, and (as is the case in the example above) actively stilts and disrupts the energy/momentum/tension/interest of the plot. Having said that, some of the passages about agriculture where the most pleasant to read - as they evokes pleasing images of fields and nature - which was a nice respite from the long-winded internal monologues of some of the other characters. Tolstoy manages to tell us extensively how the characters a feeling, what they are struggling with internally, by cycling through their thoughts on a repeated loop before they finally act. This, however, did not actually invest me in their emotional turmoil because it was all *told* not shown, and told rather repetitively at that.
The "great" love story isn't even that great in my opinion - as a reader I don't feel that their love is strong, I am told. Occasionally their actions (i.e. what they give up) is used to demonstrate how much they love each other, but that is still not quite written well enough to make me feel it. So, by the time the relationship is
fraught with toxicity and begins to crumble
, their love story hasn't been set up convincingly enough for me to be properly invested.
Also surely "a love strong enough to die for" is not true love. True love would never want you to die, and would never what to use death to hurt you.

There were passages that I enjoyed reading, and moments in the plot where I was engaged, but overall Tolstoy uses far to many words to tell a story in a less than interesting way. I simply think he could have done with a hard-truth editor. Or perhaps redirected some of the tangents into separate books so they are not so interruptive in this one. 
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