Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (1873)

Anna Karenina

I picked up this book immediately after reading Our Mutual Friend, and by a strange coincidence it appears Tolstoy did the same when writing it. He makes an early reference to an obscure character from Dickens’ dark tale, and then proceeds to give us a story which shares its unusual structure as we follow the largely unrelated life stories of the eponymous Anna and of the lovable but overly analytical Konstantin Levin.

Levin’s part of the story is mostly a gentle affair, as he experiences life ups and downs while continuously wrestling with deep philosophical questions of right and wrong, the meaning of existence, and his relationship with his land and the peasants who work on it. He marries a nice girl and eventually pulls himself together to provide a happy ending of sorts.

Anna Karenina’s section is very different. She cheats on her husband, abandons her child and then finds that the life of an adulteress is not easy in 19^th century Russia. Unable to find any easy answers to her problems she eventually spirals towards depression, madness and suicide. It would have been easy for Tolstoy to awaken our sympathy for Anna by making her a better mother, or her husband an intolerable monster but he avoids going down this route. One of Anna’s chief grievances against her spouse, for example, is that he has sticking out ears.

I found myself warming to Anna less and less as the story progressed, despite her beauty, intelligence and charm, and it was only in the very last moments of her life that I found myself suddenly feeling sorry for her – if this was Tolstoy’s aim he achieves it brilliantly. What he does less well is the ending of the book, which in my opinion should have closed with Anna’s death. Instead, in a manner reminiscent of War and Peace, we have to wade through another hundred pages of philosophical waffle in order to find out what happens to Levin (he cheers up a bit).

Another feature which the book shares with Tolstoy’s best known work is the concept of having multiple characters with the same name. I thought he may have done this almost by accident with the many Nikolays of War and Peace, but there is no excuse for giving Anna’s husband and lover the same first name - come on Tolstoy!

Rating: 7/10 – decent effort with a few flaws

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