While commuting back and forth from London this week I have been reading “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy, and thought it might be interesting for some of the people who stumble across my various ramblings on this blog to hear my opinion on it “so far”.
I bought Anna Karenina early this year while attempting to buy enough from Amazon to qualify for free postage. I will admit to something of a history when it comes to The Classics - I have been on a mission for a long time to actually read the “great books”, so I don’t have to pretend I know about them when they crop up in conversation. The prospect of exposing those who claim to have read them is a rather good incentive too.
There is an oft repeated quote that where “War and Peace” is about society, “Anna Karenina” is about people. I would not dispute that based on what I have read so far. Although a very slow moving book, Anna Karenina paints a very rich and detailed picture of the lives of several families in Russia before the revolution.
I’m still not really sure what I think of it. The story - if one exists - meanders across several different lives. There is no over-arching plot, but there are themes. You can spot characters that would be just as valid today in Anna, Levin, many others. I have only read the first 200 pages, and already you can sense who’s lives will be fulfilled, and who are the “born victims”.
I’m wondering if hidden away within the characters that inhabit Anna Karenina, one or more of them may be Leo Tolstoy himself.