Finally done with it. It's wordy, but only because it was a long book so I do not expect other reviews to be this long.
Tolstoy caught me off guard immediately because there was no sign of the character the book was named after. I was starting to believe Anna was going to be a small character and Stepan was the true main character, because Anna didn’t show up until chapter 8. My first impression of Levin was of a man that was very insecure and socially awkward, yet he had enough confidence to ask Kitty for a marriage. After her denial one could see Levin’s self-esteem crash and he suffered with it for about half the novel. Vronsky didn’t make a strong impression at the beginning inferring that when he was with Kitty he was just of shell of his true self. The ball in Moscow was one of the most important scenes in the book where Vronsky was flirting with Anna and as a strait male I thought Vronsky did quite a good job playing the pick-up game with Anna. Kitty saw immediately that Vronsky had eyes for Anna and was very hurt because she saw too that Anna was beautiful. I think Anna played around with Vronsky at the expense of Kitty in order to have a little drama in her life. Although when Vronsky showed up on the train on the way back to St. Petersburg she realized that this was no longer a game. I’m going to give Stepan and Dolly’s relationship some analysis as well because I think Stepan is a funny character. Early on Dolly is pretty weak in her convictions and I honestly believe that Dolly was just milking attention at the beginning of the novel in order to be relevant. I will say that Dolly does make a comeback later in the novel and transforms into a character that is extremely likeable.
Before we go to St. Petersburg to see how Anna and Vronsky
are doing we are taken to Levin’s farm. Levin is quite a farmer and very
passionate about it. But I did think he was sort of dry in this part of the
book. You would think Levin would be quite humble because of his dislike for
the city, but he has strong opinions about peasants to put it lightly. I would
probably have to read this section again in order to get a sense of Levin’s
theories of agriculture, because it was hard to pay attention with St.
Petersburg coming up. Kitty tries to change her personality in Germany so she
may gain certain clarity to her life. I have to say that she comes off kind of
phony and displays her immaturity in dealings with a local family she almost
breaks up, but it’s in Germany where she learns how fragile and complicated
adult relationships really are.
While Vronsky courts Anna in St. Petersburg we get a better
sense of how Karenin thinks. He is a man with little personality and passion,
which is the exact opposite of Anna. You could feel the tension in the room
when Anna was talking to Vronsky and Karenin entered the party. Tolstoy does a
great job setting up the context in which you can hear the whispers of people
talking about this inappropriate relationship. The short chapter in which Anna
and Vronsky have sex was sort of weird. I read the chapter and was very
confused about what just happened because there was crying and the exaggerated
dialogue of Anna moaning the word “murderer.” I thought they had just broken
off their relationship, but I looked online at a chapter review and it said
that they just had relations. I read the chapter again with this in mind and I
could see it, but I thought it was more comical than emotional. My favorite
scene in the book was the horse race because it was just filled with tension
and I could see the plot potentially pulled in many different directions.
During the race the reader was as nervous for Vronsky as Anna was, so when
Vronsky fell you could understand why Anna wept. The revelation of the affair
to Karenin had to be done after the race because it was becoming ridiculous how
clue less Karenin was acting. The reveal was odd because Karenin scolding Anna
for weeping in front of everyone and Anna seemed frustrated at the lack of
passion in Karenin’s voice. I’m
sure Anna would have respected Karenin more if he just said what was on his
mind instead of holding it in and talking like a constitutional lawyer.
Although Karenin was the one being cheated on he played up his role as the
victim way too hard and set himself up for embarrassment.
The reconciliation of Kitty and Levin was not as tense as
St. Petersburg, but you felt like the stakes were higher than with Anna and Vronsky.
One could guess that Vronsky and Anna would not last, but you really wanted
Levin to shut-up about farming and just settle down with Kitty. The ridiculous
way that they got together was so symbolic that one could tell that Tolstoy was
commenting that their relationship was magical and impossible for anyone else.
Back in St. Petersburg we first encounter supernatural
themes when Anna and Vronsky have dreams that foreshadow Anna dying in
childbirth. This caught me a little off guard because Tolstoy stood pretty
consistent about letting anything seem too mysterious. There is probably
something to fact that dreams and miracles only happen in Anna’s storyline
rather than Levin’s. One positive trait that Anna tested Vronsky with was the
news of the pregnancy. I always read the Vronsky character as having maturity,
but Anna couldn’t see that until this news. Reading the chapters with Anna on
her deathbed was sort of an enigma. They were very emotional powerful chapters,
but then almost immediately Anna was recovering causing a lot of confusion
within the culture of the novel. I’m sure Tolstoy did this to keep the reader
on their toes in order to infer that any character may die or survive at any
moment. Vronsky’s attempted suicide kind of came out of nowhere because he was
in the middle of an inner dialogue. I’m not going to dig too deep into the
reasons of the suicide, but assume that Vronsky was emotionally damaged from
Anna dying. I think that Vronsky didn’t want to kill himself, but he wanted to
feel pain as Anna was feeling.
Tolstoy tested my patience and nerves with the wedding of
Kitty and Levin. Tolstoy knew that the wedding couldn’t go on without drama so
he threw in some wedding day uncertainty. When Anna and Vronsky were in Italy I
kind of hated their fakeness that they played up with art. This was the
equivalent of Kitty’s little trip to Germany where the characters try to “find
themselves,” but they are really just running away from their problems.
Tolstoy sort of played up Kitty as the spoiled youngest
daughter, but her character had her best moment in my opinion when she cared
for Levin’s dying brother Nikolai. I don’t think she cared for Nikolai because
she liked him, but because she saw how Levin was afraid of death.
I thought that maybe Anna’s negative flaw in Italy was a
one-time thing when she had the very emotional reunion with her son. It was a
very bittersweet moment because you could feel the connection she has with her
son, but you know that it would be short-lived. Meeting her son gave her a
blind confidence to go back into her former social life led by her nourishing
quality of naïveté. Anna first displays her irrational behavior after the embarrassment
of the play where she tries to blame Vronsky for not stopping her from going.
This becomes common practice with her as she realizes that her social mobility
becomes stagnant.
Tolstoy gives a not so coy test to Levin and Vronsky in the
character of Veslovsky who is a young philanderer. Levin fails miserably
showing a flaw in his otherwise solid character, because he becomes
irrationally jealous of Veslovsky. Kitty doesn’t get mad at Levin, but tries to
help support and comfort him with his problem. On the other side of the coin
Vronsky displays that he is not the jealous type. His self-confidence is at its
height and he just wants to settle down with Anna who is grasping at any drama
she can drum up in order to seem relevant.
Anna’s most disappointing moment in my view was when Dolly
came to visit the country estate. Anna behaved like a snob in front of Dolly
who was obviously uncomfortable. This was quite an evolution of Anna who was
very supportive of Dolly earlier in the novel. This was also the point when we
realize that Anna is not a good mother to her daughter. This is probably
because she blames the new child for ruining/stealing the affection of her son.
There was also the chapter in which Anna met Levin and she took pride in
knowing that she could have corrupted Levin. I’m not sure what Tolstoy was
trying to show us in this scene, but to portray that Anna was temptress.
It was at this point in the novel where I was getting sort
of impatient because it seemed that this book was never going to end. This
feeling was heightened because Tolstoy takes the reader out to the countryside
to the elections. Levin and Vronsky are again compared to each other in regard
to their social and political prowess. It would seem that Levin again failed
this test while Vronsky thrived in that capacity. Levin is really just a simple
man who wants to live away from the political world that everyone seems so
caught up in. On the same subject Vronsky understands how to play the social
game and use his skills to thrive in this world.
Karenin’s religious crusade against Anna is aided by the
fact that Countess Lydia is pulling his strings. Which seems very odd to me
because it seemed he resented Anna’s independence, yet he is now fine having
another woman tell him what to do. I also don’t understand the obviously
allegorical character in the clairvoyant French boy who advises Karenin. It was
a weird scene to read when Stepan was in the room and this Frenchman just doses
off. I’m severely lost as to the significance/virtue of this character.
The fall of Anna was a little hard to follow because at this
point I was reading really fast in order to reach the conclusion. Anna felt
that Vronsky was the only person she had so when Vronsky was associating with
another woman, Anna just collapsed emotionally. When she did ultimately kill
herself I was actually kind of relieved because she was bringing Vronsky down
with her. The coming suicide was evident for this once charming woman that
fought the standards in her world, but she was not strong enough to resist the
esteem that came with these standards. Whether or not Vronsky was actually
having an affair was meek because Anna became selfish and betrayed the
characteristics that made me respect her. After her death the novel was pretty
much over.
Tolstoy added salt in the wound of readers who were sad over
Anna’s death when we found out what happened to Vronsky. I was hoping that
Vronsky would move on with his life, but when Anna died so died his soul. I
don’t know what else Vronsky could have done to help Anna, but literally hold
her hand the entire last third of the book. Tolstoy also left us with a little
humanity when he gave Lenin a boring, yet pleasant ending.
My favorite theme in the novel was the change of
circumstance. While Kitty and Levin were miserable, Anna and Vronsky were
happy, but in the end Kitty and Levin were the ones at peace. Passion does not
equal happiness. It’s only an investment to be paid out with agony.
I read this book with no expectations of what I was getting.
I was pleasantly surprised how sometimes Tolstoy threw in a curveball and got
me to quickly flip every page. This was my first book I read of Tolstoy, but do
I have the patience to read War and Peace?
I will only say maybe and that’s only because he writes quick resolutions
installed in very short chapters for the most part.
I will have a review of the 2012 film Anna Karenina coming up soon.
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