Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The good

• Some interesting glimpses of history in late 19th century Russia: the nobility; the servants; the obsession with French culture; the early glimpses of communism; and so on.

• I liked the use of foreshadowing and characters who are mirrors of other characters. Some examples:

• Anna arrives at the train station, and shortly after, someone gets run over by a train.
• Anna finds out that her brother is having an affair and counsels her sister in law to forgive him.

• Vronsky, who looks the part of an officer, but is mostly a playboy, is assigned to show a snobby, shallow prince around Moscow, and resents the prince… because he reminds him so much of himself.

• There were some items that I found funny. I’m not sure if they were supposed to be funny; quite frankly, I lack enough context on 19th century Russia and Tolstoy’s writing to say. But I found them amusing nonetheless.

• Alexei Karenin, Anna’s husband, sitting down and rationally working through all his options for how to deal with the fact that his wife is having an affair with Vronsky. Should I challenge Vronsky to a duel? No, no, that won’t work, I’ll just get killed. Should I get a divorce? No, can’t possibly do that, that would ruin my reputation. Ah, I know the solution: we’ll all just pretend like it never happened. But wait, then they will continue on with the affair and be happy, whereas I, the wronged party, will be miserable. No, that can’t stand. OK, so we’ll pretend it never happened, but I shall put my foot down that it won’t happen in the future. Then they’ll be miserable and I’ll be happy. Yes, that’s the ticket!

• Levin trying to make his farm more efficient, but the workers constantly snubbing him at every turn. He buys them a new plow so they can go faster, but they just immediately break the plow, and spend the day sitting around doing nothing. So then he has a brilliant insight, and comes up with a new system of agriculture for Russia, where the peasants will share in the profits! Sounds like stock options for silicon valley startups. So does he go and help the workers on his own farm? No! He locks himself in his room and decides to write a book about it. I love the 19th century aristocrat not able to solve problems on his own farm, but thinking he can solve problems for the whole world instead.

The not so good

• Waaaaaaay too long. You could easily cut 50% of this book and lose nothing. I mean, there is a long scene in there where Levin is just… farming. Like, seriously, he’s using a scythe and stuff. It adds nothing to the story, but sure does fill up a lot of pages.

• The women characters often don’t feel like real people, but caricatures. They are absurdly emotional, constantly get ill when their emotions overcome them (good old “brain fever”), and generally act ridiculous. Anna Karenina herself is the worst offender of all. She struck me as a ridiculous drama queen, constantly freaking out about everything, never happy, etc. He won’t give me a divorce, my life is over! He will give me a divorce, my life is over! I’m barred from high society in Russia, oh dear me, now I’m forced to live in resplendent luxury in Italy! My husband will never forgive me, I can’t live like this! Wait, my husband did forgive me, I can’t live like this! I can’t live without my son! I can’t live with my son! Ugh. This is perhaps the weakest part of the story: she’s supposed to be the dramatic central focus, but it just comes off as overwrought melodrama. Perhaps this is something that didn’t age well.

Rating: 3 stars