I have started this review several times over the past week - and I just debate whether to give it a glowing, literary-masterpiece, oh wow type of review ... or to be honest and say that while yes, parts of it were excellent, there were also parts that were so incredibly boring and pointless (!) that I almost fell alseep. :zzz: I guess I'm going to go for the truth.
I read a lot. I've read really long books, really short books, really good books, and really bad books. I've read great literary novels, gripping mysteries, and more than my fair share of romances. I didn't read Anna Karenina because it's Oprah's latest book club pic - but her choosing it did move it up on my "To Read" list. I wonder if Oprah would have chosen it if she HAD read it. On her show, she called it one of the greatest love stories of all time? I'm not really getting that ...
It gets 3 stars simply because I did like the start of the love story between Kitty/Levin (though I would hardly term it one of the greatest love stories of all time). I enjoyed their first scenes together at the ice rink, and then at their house - his first proposal and subsequent rejection were so well written. Much later, when Levin sees Kitty in the carriage out in the country - and he realizes he could never stop loving her. When he writes out his proposal to her ...
"Wait a minute," he said, sitting down to the table. "I've long wanted to ask you one thing." He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes. "Please, ask it." "Here," he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, "When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?"
There seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding the words. She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, "Is it what I think?" "I understand," she said, flushing a little. "What is this word?" he said, pointing to the n that stood for never. "It means NEVER," she said; "but that's not true!"
He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d. Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch when she caught sight of the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upwards at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, "Then I could not answer differently." He glanced at her questioningly, timidly. "Only then?" "Yes," her smile answered. "And n...and now?" he asked. "Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should like—should like so much!" she wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f, a, f, w, h. This meant, "If you could forget and forgive what happened." He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, "I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you." She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver. "I understand," she said in a whisper. He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, "Is it this?" took the chalk and at once answered. For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the word she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, "Yes."
Those were good scenes. It seemed to go downhill after that.
But Levin did tend to go on and on ... and on ... about rural politics - and I spaced out quite a few times during those scenes. 19th century Russian politics! Way too much unnecessary dialogue. I've read that many of Levin's speeches are going off about the author's own personal political leanings. (I can only imagine what Tolstoy must have been like at dinner parties. Sheesh.)
I completely detest the novel's title character - Anna. She is a selfish, co-dependent and egotistical drama queen. If I was Vronsky (or her husband Karenin) I would have dumped the girl after a few weeks in her company. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? She has an affair, leaves her child to run about Europe with her lover, and then seems to not comprehend everyone not feeling the terrible state of her situation. You just want to tell her -- Get Over It. Take the divorce offered you and get over yourself.
Perhaps that is why when I was about a third of the way through the book, I didn't really feel like finishing it. I found no character that I really liked. The two main characters - Anna and Levin - I didn't have any strong desire to learn their fate. The title character annoyed me with her constant self-pity and disregard for others feelings and Levin was quite boring and too self-assured (and his somewhat shy/sweet behavior towards Kitty turns into boring conversation after they are finally married).
Oblonsky (Anna's brother) was probably the most likeable character - and he was a cheating husband!
I understand the point of the novel ... the themes ... but the characters used to bring about your understanding just don't quite do it for me.
If I'd known that Oprah picked it as a must-read, I might have skipped it! Unfortunately, I'd just begun reading it at the time. I, too, didn't like it much, and found it a bit boring. My own comments on it: http://www.richardsramblings.com/archives/2004/10/001660.html
Thank God, someone else who feels the same way about the book. Every other review I've read just gushes about it, while I can't bring myself to finish it.
It's so dull! While I do like how Tolstoy decribes Alexey Karenin's emotional character, most of the other characters are absolutely insufferable. Kitty is overly dependent and Anna is a miserable cow. Vronsky is a jerk and Levin is a self-indulgent bore.
The best character was the Russian artist, Mikhailov. And he was only in the book for about four pages.