Anna Karenina

I have never hated any character as much as I hated Anna. I have never wanted to strangle a character as much as I wanted to strangle everyone in this novel. This is 800 pages of Tolstoy's religious, political, agricultural, and philosophical opinions, interspersed throughout painful interactions, unlikeable inner monologues, a confusing timeline, and gaping plot holes/inconsistencies. I wanted to give this book more stars because it's extremely well-written and, for the most part, I greatly enjoyed the first 400-or-so pages. It's all downhill after that, unfortunately, and it really bumped down my rating.

I just finished this book as part of a summer read-together with friends via zoom. We broke the story up into five Zoom chats based on the parts of the book, and it was a great way to work our way through the story. This book has a lot of things to discuss, and fostered great conversations and insights. From my perspective, I'm so glad I read it. It is a story rich in detail and depth, with characters that I enjoyed reading about, even if I didn't always like them very much. This is a book that I will hold on to to read again sometime in the future. There is so much that I likely missed the first time through. For anyone who feels that this book isn't accessible to them, please give it a shot. I read the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and the writing is so good. The fact that the writing is a translation makes it even more impressive. Be prepared to like this more than you thought you might, and to need to take reading it a little slower than normal. It's a great book.

'..a 2007 poll of 125 contemporary authors in Time, which declared that Anna Karenina is the “greatest book ever written.”‘

Still just a romance. Ana loves Bob. Bob loves Maria. Maria loves Pedro. Pedro loves Ana. This is the crux of the book. If this is interesting to you, go right ahead and read it.

4:07/35:26 12%