🟨 Anna Karenina (1878) Review - What Are You Waiting For!? | Book Waffle
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Anna Karenina (1878) written by Leo Tolstoy
Oh, Lordy. The drama.A friend once described Anna Karenina as "the best novel ever made" and "eight books in one".
I'm not sure if I agree with either of those characterizations.
First, let's clarify what this is. Anna Karenina follows a motley cast of Russian aristocrats in the late 1800's as they deal with a whole host of yearning romances, passionate infidelities, and other other pinky-out pastimes.
It's essentially a season of a soap opera where each of the eight books = one episode. Each is contained but not complete.
The highs and lows. The inner angst and turmoil. It's very very much soap opera-esque. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if early soaps used Anna Karenina as a heavy inspiration. I never reach for a period drama, but I imagine that those lean on this classic quite a bit too.
But with that you also get lots and lots of melodrama. The constant angst can feel suffocating at times. The story was originally published in a serial format, and I can see that helping with the pacing. Because, if one reads it straight through, there is a lot of angstiness to take in. A lot of angstiness paired with a metric fuckton of nothing happening. Doubly so in the second half.
Plenty of people enjoy that. I'm not one of those people.
That's not to say the book is bad. In fact, it's pretty darn good. The character drama is fierce at times and the characters are well-defined. The prose is Tolstoy's. Which is to say that it's fantastic. The man really knew how to set a scene, and I've always adored Tolstoyan humor and wit.
The cast is huge. Way too big, in my opinion (and some characters have hella similar names to my non-Slavic ears). Homeboy threw a dozen characters at me in the first hour of reading and I was like "Woah cowboy, calm down with that."
The highs and lows. The inner angst and turmoil. It's very very much soap opera-esque. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if early soaps used Anna Karenina as a heavy inspiration. I never reach for a period drama, but I imagine that those lean on this classic quite a bit too.
But with that you also get lots and lots of melodrama. The constant angst can feel suffocating at times. The story was originally published in a serial format, and I can see that helping with the pacing. Because, if one reads it straight through, there is a lot of angstiness to take in. A lot of angstiness paired with a metric fuckton of nothing happening. Doubly so in the second half.
Plenty of people enjoy that. I'm not one of those people.
That's not to say the book is bad. In fact, it's pretty darn good. The character drama is fierce at times and the characters are well-defined. The prose is Tolstoy's. Which is to say that it's fantastic. The man really knew how to set a scene, and I've always adored Tolstoyan humor and wit.
The cast is huge. Way too big, in my opinion (and some characters have hella similar names to my non-Slavic ears). Homeboy threw a dozen characters at me in the first hour of reading and I was like "Woah cowboy, calm down with that."
The book does all right at nudging readers toward key players in a scene, but that can be a double-edged sword. Once I realized who was important, I tuned-out everyone else. I don't believe I should be consciously picking through my food in a so-called masterpiece.
The same can be said for whole chapters. There's heaps of scenes that didn't add much if anything to the story. I have to imagine Tolstoy added them to buff the serial run. The final ~350,000 word count could have been cut by at least 100,000 and only benefitted from it. Had me like Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie.
The same can be said for whole chapters. There's heaps of scenes that didn't add much if anything to the story. I have to imagine Tolstoy added them to buff the serial run. The final ~350,000 word count could have been cut by at least 100,000 and only benefitted from it. Had me like Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie.
"Goddammit Anna! What are you waiting for!?"
The themes are hit and miss for me. I do appreciate Tolstoy's philosophical musings, I do. Peasant's rights and Russian Social Class are hallmarks of his writing. And while those were explored here, I don't think that they were explored in a particularly interesting way. Much of this is done by characters dumping their thoughts onto the reader.
The themes are hit and miss for me. I do appreciate Tolstoy's philosophical musings, I do. Peasant's rights and Russian Social Class are hallmarks of his writing. And while those were explored here, I don't think that they were explored in a particularly interesting way. Much of this is done by characters dumping their thoughts onto the reader.
I suppose there are a few scenes where one of the nobles works in the fields with the peasantry in a way that seems to say "all men are alike in the eyes of God." Methinks that sentiment that would hit harder in the era the work was published. Especially so considering the revolutions that were to shake up Imperial Russia in the decades to come.
It's a bit funny, though; because after reading Tolstoy's impassioned views in The Kingdom of God is Within You, I expected to see his ideals brought to life in this fiction classic. His perspective expertly realized within his characters. Not so. He was more eloquent and entertaining in the aforementioned nonfiction which is a bit weird. Granted, he wrote that work more than a decade later.
And so many themes just end up being... there. There's a lot to be said about trust and betrayal. Faith too. Not sure if I got anything profound from them.
The examination of an ideal man and woman were a notable exception which I found incredibly interesting. Lots of parallels to be drawn and conclusions to make about what a healthy couple should look like in Tolstoy's eyes.
All in all, I come away from this behemoth of a novel satisfied, but with mixed feelings. I can't deny that I was entertained. I was. But some parts of it didn't jive with my tastes, and other parts felt like missed opportunities.
AND DON'T USE THE CLIFFNOTES CHARACTER MAP. THAT SHIT SPOILED THE HELL OUT OF ME WTF GUYS.
It's a bit funny, though; because after reading Tolstoy's impassioned views in The Kingdom of God is Within You, I expected to see his ideals brought to life in this fiction classic. His perspective expertly realized within his characters. Not so. He was more eloquent and entertaining in the aforementioned nonfiction which is a bit weird. Granted, he wrote that work more than a decade later.
And so many themes just end up being... there. There's a lot to be said about trust and betrayal. Faith too. Not sure if I got anything profound from them.
The examination of an ideal man and woman were a notable exception which I found incredibly interesting. Lots of parallels to be drawn and conclusions to make about what a healthy couple should look like in Tolstoy's eyes.
All in all, I come away from this behemoth of a novel satisfied, but with mixed feelings. I can't deny that I was entertained. I was. But some parts of it didn't jive with my tastes, and other parts felt like missed opportunities.
AND DON'T USE THE CLIFFNOTES CHARACTER MAP. THAT SHIT SPOILED THE HELL OUT OF ME WTF GUYS.
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