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Anna Karenina Review

What I call a good book is one that when you read it again later, you find things in it you didn't see the first time.

And so I'm re-reading my ancient copy of Anna Karenina in Russian and suddenly got hit in the face by what I think is the real core of the tragedy.

Aleksey Aleksandrovich Karenin was raised properly but without emotion and without the wanderyahr or social season that many of his contemporaries got. He had to plunge directly into work. As a result, he had no education at all in how to behave in women's society and he had no concept of emotional relationships. So after spending some time with Anna Arkadievna Oblonskaya in social situations, he wasn't in love with her and didn't know the meaning of love, but he got maneuvered into marrying her by her aunt without being able to laugh off the claim that he had compromised Anna.

The irony is that when Vronskij did compromise her, Aleksey finds all kinds of reasons not to let her go. First it's because she's his wife and even though she breaks her promise to observe the proprieties, he refuses to consider divorce. Then after Vronskij and Anna go the whole way, after she gives birth to an illegitimate child, after Karenin offers to let Anna continue living in his home and even takes a liking to the baby, after she leaves, after she lives with Vronskij for years, Karenin lets the weeny clairvoyant Landau/Bezzubov tell him to refuse a divorce.

This book at least in part is about three men who think the whole world revolves around them: Karenin the government official; Vronskij the wealthy playboy; and Oblonskij the dissipated wastrel. The women caught in their toils all suffer, even Countess Lidiya Ivanovna who takes physical, mental and moral possession of Karenin, who will never love her no matter how often he takes her advice.

Although the theme of female emancipation is touched on in the novel, it is Kitty Levin who speaks for Tolstoy in rejecting the concept. Konstantin Levin is essentially Tolstoy himself, and Kitty is to some extent Tolstoy's wife, Sofiya, nee Behrs, who wrote in her journals how much she hated Tolstoy's punishment of unfaithful wives in his literature, including the Kreutzer Sonata. She felt it hypocritical given his physical appetites after marriage as well as before, appetites he failed to arouse in her. But the good wife forgives the man's past since he is faithful to her in the present, and the man has a right to all the wife's attentions.

Even the children have no claim on her, as is clear from Kreutzer Sonata. Because of his own jealousy, Tolstoy made Sofiya end her childhood friendship with a very musical man who was a friend of her family, because it took her attention away from him. Then later in his life he abandoned his family, forcing all the financial responsibilities onto Sofiya, and finally actually leaving home, to die at "the last station."

But at least Anna has a name, unlike the wife in Kreutzer Sonata. It's just that none of the men in her life expect her to actually have a life. Karenin can't love her but expects her to be a pattern of wives in high society -- where she meets a number of women who have affairs but at least don't break up the family. Oblonskij sends her to his wife to heal the wounds caused by her _discovery_ of his infidelity -- not by the infidelity, but because Dolly, the pattern wife, never conceived of her husband having an affair or even kissing anybody else. Vronskij says he loves her but he can't understand her love for her son and disses her affection for his horse trainer's family after the father drinks himself into the DTs.

It's all wrapped up in the tragedy of society's expectation that if you have a nice house and clothes and go to parties and do what everybody lays down as the rules, you've achieved the summit of how people should live, regardless of the signs that something is broken. Nobody in Anna's life pays attention to her continuing use of morphine, which I think has to be at the bottom of her increasingly erratic behavior and ultimately her suicide.

Yes, they're all sorry when it's too late, as Anna says to herself at one point. And not one of them is capable of doing anything to avert the tragedy, I think because they believe that in their social circle, _and because Anna is part of their lives_, nothing like that would ever happen to disturb them.

And isn't that what we hear in the news every day? "She was such a nice person!" "We lived next door for years..." Because the person in the news was part of our lives, it's impossible they could be living their own life, and that it could turn out so tragically.

That's what a great novel does. If you pay attention, you'll hear echoes of it in the news involving people who never heard of the book or even the author. That's reality in writing.

Anna Karenina Overview

Translated by Constance Garnett, Introduction by Leonard J. Kent and Nina Berberova

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Customer Reviews

Embarrassment of riches - Allen Smalling - Chicago, IL United States
It's not necessary for me to repeat the high praise heaped upon ANNA KARENINA, which although slow-going in spots is nonetheless highly recommended by practically everyone, a world class read. But an argument is handy among those who would argue the merits of various translators and translations. Below are four of them with four representative passages from the opening paragraphs of this novel:

Constance Garnett (1901, with many revisions by others, many available for sale here, also for free online):
"the wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl,..."

(Introducing Prince Stephan Arkadyevich):
" -- Stiva, as he was known in the fashionable world -- "

"He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa,"

Louise and Aylmer Maud (1918), available here as an Oxford World Classic:
"His wife had discovered an intrigue between her husband and the former French governess,..."

" -- Stiva, as he was called by his set in Society[note cap. "S"] -- "

"He turned his plump, well-kept body over on the springy sofa,"

David Magarshak (1961), Signet(Mass Market) Paperback:
"The wife had found out that the husband had had an affair with the French governess,..."

"(Stiva, as he was called by his society friends),"

"He turned his plump, well-cared-for body on the springy sofa,..."

Peavar/Volokhonsky, 1991 (Penguin Classic and [same pagination, fancier cover] Oprah's Pick:
"The wife had found out that the husband was having an affair with the former French governess . . . "

" -- Stiva, as he was called in society -- "

"He rolled his full, well-tended body over the springs of the sofa,..."

The first thing to say is that these four quotations have a great deal more in common with each other than not. Nonetheless, there are differences: note that only two of the four mention that the object of Stiva's affection was a former employee. Despite several layers of revision, Garnett's translation, nearly a century old, at times slips into archaism: note the reference to high society as the "fashionable world," a term for which modern readers could be excused for construing something along the lines of couture, high fashion in clothing. Both the Garnett and the Maude version maintain the euphemism "intrigue" for "love-affair," while the two more recent translations keep to the more contemporary and less euphemistic "affair." In the Magarshack translation (1961), the use of the pluperfect in "the husband had had an affair" is technically correct, even today, but the P&V version with its "was having" just rolls by better to me.

Overall, though, of the four my personal favorite is the 1961 Magarshak trans-lation, also the cheapest (but smallest in trim size). If I had to conduct a group discussion of ANNA KARENINA, though, I would almost cetainly gravitate to the much-better-distributed Peaver/Volokshonky edition because the differences or any presumed demerits, to me, are not as significant as granting the easiest accessibility to a group of individual readers. I could probably muddle through the archaisms in the Maude version -- it is the most reworked and in many respects the most solid, despite its age -- but I know I would have problems with the Constance Garrett.

The important thing to remember is that ANNA KARENINA is a book that demands to be read, and the reader who takes the time to read it fully will be well rewarded in vivid characterization, deft plotting, romance, social insight, and history, despite how one feels about the (sometimes exasperating) agrarian-political theorizing of Tolstoy's stand-in, Levin.

Something for Everyone - Lacey Losh - Lincoln, NE
Like many people who begin reading Anna Karenina, I was intimidated by the size of the novel. As I'm a slow reader, I took it at my own pace. It's 900+ pages took me just under 2 months to read.

Now that the story is over, I miss my window into Tolstoy's world. I loved the array of characters in this novel and while I found that I identified with certain characters more than others, I think there's something for everyone in one story line or another. I did find that there were parts of the novel that bored me, such as Levin's confusion at the election process and the hunting trip that took place in the later part of the book. However, I was captivated by Levin's struggle to find meaning in life and his consideration of what it means to have morals without religion.

I enjoyed getting into Anna's head, but also appreciated understanding the feelings of her husband as well as her lover. Tolstoy's ability to write from different perspectives and opposing points of view, male and female, was my favorite aspect of the book.

Oblonsky was, without question, my favorite character. You meet him right away, and though he's not always a key player in the novel, Anna and Levin's lives always intertwined with Oblonsky just enough to leave me wanting more. His character is larger than life, and one I will keep with me as a literary favorite.

great translation but disappointing binding and print - katrina alexandrovna - jerusalem, ISRAEL, IL
I ordered this edition because I am fond of the Maude translation which has been a friend for years. However, I was disappointed in the binding and print which are not of high quality and will not last the course. I bought the book for my son, so that he could (someday) share my enthusiasm for the book. While the text lends itself to this, the binding and print are inferior which detracts from the enjoyment.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010