Many themes of Anna Karenina are timeless: marriage, infidelity, the roles of men and women, personal fulfillment, honor, spirituality, and naturalism. If that isn't enough, then Tolstoy offers an 18th-century look at Russian society and culture, still well before the run-up to the revolution. Don't look to Tolstoy for enlightened feminism, although one of the characters argues for education and equality for women, and one of the minor threads relates to the status of peasants.

Tolstoy is not especially subtle in portraying his characters, full of emotion and conflict. Nobody is idealized, yet all still prompt some sympathy. The main characters are so richly drawn. Anna's decline was inevitable, but it's the loss of someone far from pure evil, with her significant talents and deep capacity for love.

Read Brothers Karamazov and Anna K at around the same time, as I did, and you'll get an excellent opportunity to compare two of the greatest Russian novelists head-to-head. Two thousand pages well spent.

I'm probably one of the very few people who read this classic without having a clue as to the ending (no, never saw the movie--still haven't) ... so it was a genuine surprise and it rocked me. The opening line is a killer ... nothing else like it in all of literature. Although I prefer Dostoevsky to Tolstoy, this is a genuine masterpiece.

It's really hard to understand sometimes! Anna Karenina is the famous Tolstoy tale of a wife who has an affair. At first, I wanted to quit it was such a difficult read, but once I got through it, I loved it. I have to say, I thought Kitty and Levin's relationship was really cute, especially when they finally kissed! I was super-sad when Anna killed herself, it just sucked that was so sorrowful that she felt the need to die. I didn't really like Vronsky, he seemed sort of like a jerk who just lost interest in Anna, after she left her husband and son for him. I like the parallels between Anna and Levin. Sometimes, it did get a little boring, like when Levin worked with some peasants in a field, it took like, a huge portion of the book to explain about the field-work. Also, I got a little confused when Levin started to believe in God. All in all, a good read, not for those who get bored easily, though.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." That line opens and sets the tone of "Anna Karenina," a tangled and tragic tale of nineteenth century Russia. Tolstoy's story of lovers and family is interlaced with razor-sharp social commentary and odd moments that are almost transcendent. In other words, this is a masterpiece.

When Stepan Oblonsky has an affair with the governess, his wife says that she's leaving him, and now the family is about to disintegrate. Stepan's sister Anna arrives to smooth over their marital problems, and consoles his wife Dolly until she agrees to stay. But on the train there, she met the outspoken Countess Vronsky, and the countess's dashing son, who is semi-engaged to Dolly's sister Kitty.

Anna and Vronsky start to fall in love -- despite the fact that Anna has been married for ten years, to a wealthy husband she doesn't care about, and has a young son. Even so, Anna rejects her loveless marriage and becomes the center of scandal and public hypocrisy, and even becomes pregnany by Vronsky. As she prepares to jump ship and get a divorce, Anna becomes a victim of her own passions...

That isn't the entire story, actually -- Tolstoy weaves in other plots, about disintegrating families, new marriages, and the melancholy Levin's constant search for God, truth, and goodness. Despite the grim storyline about adultery, and the social commentary, there's an almost transcendent quality to some of Tolstoy's writing. It's the most optimistic tragic book I've ever read.

For some reason, Tolstoy called this his "first novel," even though he had already written some before that. Perhaps it's because "Anna Karenina" tackles so many questions and themes, and does so without ever dropping the ball. No wonder it's so long and imposing -- Tolstoy covered a lot of ground in here.

And while "Anna Karenina" was not the first book he wrote, it is probably the deepest and most moving. Tolstoy steeps the book in social commentary, and his personal philosophies. It's also one of those books that takes a very long time to move itself forward -- Tolstoy's writing is slow and ponderous, with a lot of serious discussion about religion and relationships. But his intense, slightly rough writing is worth it.

In some tragic books, you get the feeling that the author really despises his characters, and doesn't really care what happens to them. Tolstoy never gives you that feeling -- no matter how annoying his characters are, they always have something interesting or endearing. No caricatures at all -- even Anna's irritating, arrogant brother is given some quirks to make him seem real.

Oddly enough, the most moving character here is not Anna, but Konstantin Levin -- the tortured, passionate landowner is so earnest that it's difficult not to care about him. Apparently he was Tolstoy's alter ego, which explains his depth. But Anna and Vronsky are strong leads, a passionate pair who are both selfish and seductive, but never boring.

A beautiful look at living right vs. living wrong, "Anna Karenina" is a truly magnificent book. This book is undoubtedly Tolstoy's opus, and a stunning look at human nature.

Please be aware that this hardback is the MAUDE translation, not the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. The link from the paperback that says the hardcover is still available re-directs you to this page. The Pevear/Volokhonsky translation in hardback appears to be unavailable.

Half the content is elaborate banal detail used to establish context, but in it's more consequential moments this novel is the final word on the disingenuous nature of institutionalized aspects of social behaviour. It's a theme I've pondered and seen touched on in a few other books, but I was blown away by how comprehensively Tolstoy articulates and extrapolates my own thoughts.
This novel is primarily a work of philosophy, using the characters to illustrate social observations at the expense of a fully cohesive narrative.
It's difficult to understand how fans of classic fiction, who generally consider "reading" a neccessity for respectable people, don't take offense to this book as it seems to be constantly critcizing that kind of cultural pretense.
Another interesting thing I got from the book is how culture 100+ years ago doesn't seem as formal and conservative as I had previously been led to believe. Parents were already complaining about tradition falling out of favor among the younger generation and governmental red-tape was already something criticized as getting in the way of practical goals. On the other hand the doctors of the era are presented as having no medical knowledge whatsoever.
my fave quote:
"The word talent, which they understood to mean an innate and almost physical capacity, independent of mind and heart, and which was their term for everything an artist lives through, occurred very often in their conversation, since they required it as a name for something which they did not at all understand, but about which they wanted to talk."

My favorite book from Russian author Count Leo Tolstoy. The passion, the datails, everything about this book is powerful. I read it in College and I just re-read it last summer. I will read it again.

It was interesting to read this--arguably the greatest of all novels--just after CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and several years after WAR AND PEACE. By comparison, this novel is gentle and lucid, written with the eye of comedy despite the tragic ending of its heroine, and intimate in scale despite its immense themes. Among these are the first stirrings of communism, the differences between social norms and true morality, and the search for religious belief, echoing the course of Tolstoy's own conversion. Although it is heresy to say so, I found Levin, the author's alter ego, the pastoral world he inhabits, and his love for Kitty to be ultimately more moving (to the point of bringing tears to the eyes) than the passion of Anna and Vronsky. I think this is because their subplot really begins to develop at precisely the point where the adulterous affair of the title character begins to lose its forward drive. But in both sides of the story, Tolstoy's eye for detail is unmatched; his set-pieces like the ball, the horse race, the bird hunt, and the election are uniformly superb; and with his vivid characters for company, his book flies by.

I read this in the Modern Library hardback edition, whose translation by Constance Garnett, reworked by Leonard Kent and Nina Berberova, flows a lot more smoothly than the unretouched Garnett of the Barnes and Noble CRIME AND PUNIHSMENT.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

- Leo Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"

Anna Karenina is a beautifully written novel about three families: the Oblonskys, the Levins, and the Karenins. The first line (one of the most famous in literature) hints at Tolstoy's own views about happy and unhappy marriages having these same three families also represent three very different societal and physical locations in Russia in addition to distinctly different views on love, loyalty, fidelity, happiness and marital bliss.

Tolstoy seems to stress that `trusting companionships" are more durable and filled with happiness versus "romantic passion" that bursts with flames and then slowly; leaves ashes rather than a firm, solid foundation to build upon.

It is like reading a soap opera with all of its twists and turns where the observer is allowed to enter into the homes, the minds and the spirits of its main characters. The moral compass in the book belongs to Levin whose life and courtship of Kitty mirrors much of Leo Tolstoy's own courtship of his wife Sophia. Levin's personality and spiritual quest is Tolstoy's veiled attempt at bringing to life his own spiritual peaks and valleys and the self doubts that plagued him his entire life despite his happy family life and the fact that he too found love in his life and a committed durable marriage. At the other end of the spectrum is Anna, who also because of her individual choices and circumstances, falls into despair.

It is clear that Tolstoy wants the reader to come away with many messages about the sanctity of marriage, love and family life. He also wants us to be mindful of the choices that we make in life and the affect that these choices have upon ourselves, our station and path in life as well as the affect upon those that we profess to love. Tolstoy also wants us to examine what makes our lives happy or not; and what is at the root of either end result. Levin and Kitty are the happiest married couple; yet Levin faces his own double bind when struggling against domestic bliss and his need for independence on the other hand and how to achieve both (if that is possible) without relinquishing that which made him who he was born to be.

Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin are the primary protagonists in the novel and both are rich and fine characters in their own right. Both of them focus on self; one however finds the self to be a nurturer which puts value into life very much as a farmer; while the other views self with despair and as a punisher or destroyer. Both views, diametrically opposed, force the characters on very different paths and lives for themselves. Then there is the dilemma of forgiveness versus vengeance. The very epigram for the novel from Romans states: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." Yet vengeance upon oneself or others is not up to individuals but God; and yet the characters are haunted about what forgiveness is or isn't and by the hollowness of words versus heartfelt and soulfully reflective actions. The themes of social change in Russia, family life's blessings and virtues and farming (even if it is simply the goodness one puts into life and how one cultivates it and others) dominate the novel's landscape. Trains also play a symbolic importance in the novel and it is odd that Tolstoy himself years after writing Anna Karenina dies himself in a train station after setting off from his home in an emotional cloud.

Sometimes the names of the characters themselves can be confusing: so a hint to the reader might be to think of each Russian character's name as having three parts: the first name (examples here are for Levin and Kitty) like Konstantin or Ekaterina, a patronymic which is the father's first name accompanied by a suffix which means son of or daughter of like Dmitrich (son of Dmitri) or Alexandrovna (daughter of Alexander) and then the surname like Levin or Shcherbatskaya. Thus the explanations for the Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (nicknamed Kitty) and Konstantin Dmitrich Levin (Levin).

I loved the book and its details and the richness of the characterizations as well as the storytelling technique of the great Tolstoy and I have to agree with Tolstoy when he stated, "I am very proud of its architecture-its vaults are joined so that one cannot even notice where the keystone is. " The vaults: "Anna and Levin" are joined with the very first line of the novel and with their focus on themselves.


Rating: A

Bentley/2007

This is world literature and a story, albeit an older one, that teaches us much about life. I would HIGHLY recommend this book as a gift to any young adult. Yes, it is lengthy but, here, Tolstoy has yielded us one of the finest tales ever written.
Anna Karenina is pure female Homo sapiens. She is both good and bad, but, most of all, human. When I began this fine story, I thought I would be disappointed by having anticipated what was about to happen -- I BELIEVED that this was going to tell me about a good girl who was about to have bad things happen to her and that Tolstoy was going to barter for my sympathies for her. Well, no such thing! Instead, Anna Karenina could well be living in the 21st Century, given her proclivities and lifestyle, (well... at least if you use your imagination just a bit). And sometimes I admired her and sometimes I wanted to strangle her, but I could never see where Tolstoy was really headed with her until the very end.
Anna is by no means the only interesting character in the work. Maybe some folks get to like Levin, for example, but by the end of the book, I really despised him. And there is one of the principals (I won't name him) which will surpise the reader with both his perseverence as well as with his positive morality. Religion, or perhaps hipocracy, is a large feature of the work as well, and it is rendered in a fashion which often has present-day applications.
But, most of all, beyond the moral lessons, ANNA KARENINA is just a great and readable story. It's a lot like reading "Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal" (Lloyd C. Douglas) -- the moral lessons are present but do not interfere with the saga.
It's difficult to say enough good about this book. Buy it, read it -- you will enjoy it. Classic literature at its best.

This book on CD was just ok for me. The story was not what I expected but I'm happy I did get through it.

The most frustrating part of this book on CD was the audio. I had to be constantly fiddling with my player's bass and treble controls to even hear it with the volume turned as high as it would go. It would have been fine had I choose to listen to it in a very quiet room and not in my car while computing to work everyday. The audio was so poor I considered having to buy a top of the line stereo system for my car. In the end I choose to just strain my ears and keep my fan off or on very low to get through it.

The difficulty and frustration just trying to hear this story being read, for sure, influenced my appreciation of the writing of this book. I'm told it's a classic and I wanted to appreciate the story and writing and could now tell myself to read the book but won't. Now knowing the ending would taint the story from the beginning for me. A real disappointment I didn't enjoy this classic as I thought I would.

I read Anna Karenina in ten days and put it down only when I absolutely had to. I woke up in the middle of the night and read on! I skipped favorite activities and events because I wanted to sneak home and read.

I read it because it's been described as the best novel ever written. I need some time to get the book into perspective to make that decision for myself, but it certainly was awesome.

I wouldn't describe it as being about Anna Karenina or as a love story. It's more about life and what the people in the book are thinking and feeling as they face its challenges. It's certainly a great study in love addiction! The level of detail given to the characters thoughts and feelings as well as to everything else in the book is amazing, gripping, and often funny.

I found many of the conversations about philosophy and politics uninteresting and incomprehensible, but that's probably due to my ingnorance about what was going on at that time and place.

It's a long book and it did feel like quite an accomplishment to complete it. I'm kind of relieved that it's over so I can resume my life!

Sure, Tolstoy is a very good writer but it's a stretch to try and claim that AK is the "best novel ever written." I found it unfocused and slow in developing a plot. O.k., part of that is just the style of the writing of the time but that's not a complete excuse.

Personally, I think Dostoyevsky is a better and more interesting writer. Tolstoy is a classic, and I respect him for that, but don't assume he's great just because people (including Oprah) tell you so...

While I have not yet had a chance to actually read the book (because of other reading obligations with grad school), the book itself appears to be in good condition.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". With this opening the reader is brought at the heart of the novel: family life and the lives led by the separate members of families. The idea of a novel about the grand monde had long haunted Tolstoy as well as writing about a married lady of that world who would ruin herself. The two lovers, Anna and Vronsky think that in their relationship they can escape society, but find they cannot. Without the freedom of the society they live in their passion becomes a kind of prison. Their entourage is too much part of them: they need it too much and the attempt to do without it destroys them both.
All the characters in Anna Karenina are intensely real: the peasants in the fields, the people in Moscow, Stiva, Levin, Kitty, the Shcherbatskys. They all know each other, they live in the same world with the rest of the Russian upper class. The inner mental life and struggle of Levin reflects Tolstoy's own state of mind at the time he was writing. He had conservative views on marriage and childrearing which he thought were a woman's duty.
Is the novel out of date? Would Anna today get a divorce, marry Vronsky and live happily ever after? Tolstoy didn't think so Tragedies like that of Anna Karenina do not depend on social change and enlightened social arrangements.

The book arrived in record time and in excellent condition. I am totally satisfied with the product.