Book Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

I’ve read a few classics, but talk about a gripping one!

When it comes to Russian authors, Leo Tolstoy is a name that is taken with a lot of respect and it’s clear to see why.

I finished reading Anna Karenina just yesterday… one fun thing about the quality of the book that can be seen in the photo; a friend had given me some books that she hadn’t read and since she was moving into a new place she wanted me to keep them. I had no idea I had this classic resting on my shelf until I opened and cleaned every single one of them. I was delighted to say the least and the state it was in made me just as happy for some reason.

Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina deals with the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire, passion, betrayal and the constrating aspects of city life vs rural life.

It is regarded as of the most realistic novels, and rightly so. It’s a hard hitting one in two ways; one, how unforgiving and merciless the society is towards a woman for committing the same act/sin as a man and yet it’s the woman who faces the wrath of both: the society and life while the man, Anna’s own brother Stiva in the story, gets away with it…well, because he is a man. And two, how since 1878 (the year it was published) the laws of society still continue to doom women till this date. Nothing new about the sad contrasts between the opportunities available to men and to women of that time, you can hardly escape the sense of superiority that men feel in this patriarchal world. Again, nothing new.

The novel; it’s all about the characters, their individuality and yet I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in their situations no matter how contrasting they were portrayed as. One thing that I really enjoyed was how Tolstoy had taken his time to describe every little fine detail that aided in picturing every scene in the back of my head.. also, it’s notable how instead of bombardment of metaphors describing things in terms of other things that they resemble, Tolstoy used the precise word for the thing itself unlike a hundred other authors of the same stature or below.

Many times while I was reading I wondered how all of this was going to end. it’s a habit that I can’t get rid of.

It wasn’t like a regular story where there’s a pretty clear end goal, like get the bad guy, or solve the mystery, nothing like that. It was more like things were just happening like in real life and I wondered what would happen next.

I thought maybe it’s just going to stop abruptly, as if Tolstoy would just suddenly be done writing about all these characters, showcasing his command over portraying lives of a lot of people different from one another under the umbrella of one novel, but it really did have an ending to conclude everything; which seemed somewhat weird to me, because I just wasn’t expecting that. Another amazing thing about the novel was how Tolstoy could switch between different characters and settings.

Thinking back on the story I remember many ups and downs and tense moments and light hearted moments, it was enjoyable and pretty easy to read. However I’d also like to mention that I got quite irritable whenever any of its chapters turned into Farming Guide 101 because Tolstoy dug really deep into it. I did enjoy it initially but then it seemed to get repetitive; Mr. Constantine Levin’s life and dealings occupied a great deal of the novel which I wasn’t a huge fan of, and who was also the second chief character of the book besides Anna herself whose character faced a tragic ending.

All in all it felt like reading about real people with real life struggles, real joys, real sorrows and real suffering.

Have you happened to read this classic? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it! 😃

_______________________________________________

Find me on IG – @GrammedByRoo