Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is a rich, young, beautiful socialite. She has a successful, respected husband, a large group of wealthy and influential friends, and an intelligent young son. Yet she is bored, and feels as though her life is empty because she has never known love. While visiting her brother, she meets the dashing Count Vronsky, and an affair begins that deeply affects her family and the people around her.

The novel, Anna Karenina, is founded on a problem that by today's standards would not be as destructive as it was in 1880s Russian society. When the Vronsky-Anna affair deepens from a merely physical attraction to love and eventual pregnancy, the main problem for the principal characters lies in the difficulty of divorce in Russia, a problem which has no equivalent in today's looser society. As such, Anna's plight unfortunately loses a lot of its weight, and we are forced instead to treat the novel as a social statement, a cross section of Russian morality and thought, a glimpse at a way of life long since gone.

Because of Tolstoy's impressive range and ability to portray each character in an almost totally unbiased manner, this is not so much of a problem. Levin, the somber land owning aristocrat, given to farming and pining for the woman Vronsky spurned to be with Anna, is arguably the novel's other primary focus. His storyline deals with the difficulties the landed aristocracy faced as wealthy commoners began to prove themselves capable of making a profit using American capitalism as a tool, something the nobility had rejected as vulgar. It is through Levin that most of the ideas of the novel are explored: That of religion, serfdom and nobility, elections, the 'new' morality of the younger aristocrats, and so on.

A flaw of the novel - although I will put it down to social differences rather than technical mistakes, as Tolstoy shows no lack of talent in most areas - is that Anna is not very sympathetic. I did not care for her problems, and found her a vapid, irritating character. She complains, she whines, she pouts. She is horribly jealous. She did not care at all for her second child, nor was she interesting in anyone else's interests, problem or desires. Yes, we the reader are made aware that she is beautiful and interesting and intelligent, but in all of her dealings with the other characters, she comes across as either selfishly manipulative or airily vacuous.

However. The 'Levin' sections of the novel are wonderful. Levin, the helpful introduction informs me, is Tolstoy's greatest self portrait. They shared the same occupation, the same wife, the same ideas. On Tolstoy's wedding day, he forgot his shirt, so too does Levin. Perhaps this is why the character of Levin is so realised, so sympathetic, so endearing. Of course, he has his unpleasant moments, but these serve to round out his character, rather than annoy. There was a scene, about five hundred pages into the novel, when a gun was accidentally fired by one of the characters. At the time, I stopped reading, put the book down for a moment, and felt a sense of dread that one of my favourite characters might have died. They hadn't, but I think this is one of the greatest recommendations for the novel that I have to offer. I genuinely cared about this man - Levin - and I did not want to see him come to harm. The same could not be said of Anna.

As a social statement, Anna Karenina is amazing. While I found the 'problem' of divorce a difficulty to reconcile with my own social upbringing, the way it was discussed, argued, condemned and praised within the wealthy circles of Russia was extremely interesting. All of Tolstoy's characters were intelligent and articulate, able to give reasoned, attractive arguments to either the positive or negative side of Anna's actions.

Is Anna Karenina to be recommended? Yes, a thousand times yes. There is a richness, a full, created identity of the world in which the characters live that is difficult to find in another piece of art. Tolstoy's world is fully realised, because it is the world - or was. A problem in many works of fiction is that it is hard - if not impossible - to believe that the characters and situations could exist once the pages have finished turning and the story is over. Not so with Anna Karenina. The characters, and most importantly, the settings, are allowed to breathe and live. It is as though we are seeing a slice of a full, coherent reality, and while it is not necessarily the most important slice of life for everyone, it is a significant piece. Before and after this slice, the characters live, even though we do not see it, and this is felt within the pages.

Links

Wikipedia - Author
Wikipedia - Novel
ebook - Note that the new Penguin Deluxe Classic edition is a better translation
Amazon

Categories

Russian Authors