Rereading Anna Karenina: Part 8 and the ending

1/ Nabokov’s lecture on Anna Karenina (from Lectures on Russian Literature) is a great companion to Tolstoy’s novel.

One of his most interesting points in the lecture is time: it’s not mentioned anywhere in the novel but Nabokov calculates that the action of Anna Karenina starts at 8am on Friday, February 11th (old calendar) in 1872 and Anna commits suicide on a Sunday evening in May 1876. 

He explains: 

“Oblonski reads in his morning paper about Count Beust, Austrian Ambassador to London, traveling through Wiesbaden on his way back to England. […] This would be just before the thanksgiving service for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, which took place Tuesday, February 15/27, 1872; and the only possible Friday is Friday 11/23 of February, 1872.”

The year of Anna’s suicide is easier to deduce because in the following chapter after her death, Tolstoy mentions the Serbian- Turkish wars, which started in June 1876.

Nabokov provides a more detailed timeline of Anna and Vronsky:

“The political events on the eve of the Turkish War, as alluded to in the last part of the novel, set its end at July 1876. Vronski becomes Anna's lover in December 1872. The steeplechase episode occurs in August 1873. Vronski and Anna spend the summer and winter of 1874 in Italy, and the summer of 1875 on Vronski's estate; then, in November, they go to Moscow, where Anna commits suicide on a Sunday evening in May 1876.”

Another interesting thing Nabokov points out is the time difference between the Anna strand and the Levin strand: even though Tolstoy moves harmoniously between the 2 strands of story and creates the illusion of parallels, in some parts there’s a gap of about a year or more than a year—Anna’s story moves faster than Levin’s, as Anna and Vronsky gallop to their destruction whereas the journey of Levin and Kitty is more open-ended.

2/ After Anna’s death at the end of Part 7, Tolstoy begins Part 8 by writing about Sergey Ivanovich Koznyshev (Levin’s half-brother, the Turgenev character). It works perfectly: generally in the novel, Tolstoy follows a strand of story and builds it up, and when it gets to the peak, he switches to the other strand till it gets to the peak, and switches again (the same rule for telling parallel stories in cinema). After the emotionally draining chapters that lead up to Anna’s suicide, he has to switch to something still, quiet, and that is Sergey Ivanovich’s story. By writing that Sergey Ivanovich, after the failure of his book, gets interested in the Serbian wars and is now on the way to see Levin, Tolstoy can let him, and thus the reader, meet Vronsky at the train station.

In Anna Karenina (and other works), Tolstoy has 2 main ways of moving between strands or groups of characters: either the narrator makes a jump (when the story gets to the peak), or a character moves from one place to another and the narrative then follows another character who appears in the same scene. There’s lots of travelling, and everything feels natural and harmonious.

At the train station, before seeing Vronsky, Sergey Ivanovich meets Oblonsky. As usual, he’s jolly and cheerful—nothing can hurt him deeply, nothing can sadden him for long, even his sister’s recent terrible death.    

“‘You don’t say!’ he exclaimed when the Princess told him that Vronsky was going on this train. For a brief moment Stepan Arkadyich’s face expressed sadness, but a minute later, when, with a slight spring in his step and smoothing his whiskers, he went into the room where Vronsky was, he had already completely forgotten his desperate sobbing over his sister’s dead body, and saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend.” (P.8, ch.2) 

Later: 

“‘There he is!’ said the Princess, indicating Vronsky in a long overcoat and a black, wide-brimmed hat, walking along with his mother on his arm. Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking avidly about something.

Frowning, Vronsky was looking straight in front of him, as if not hearing what Stepan Arkadyich was saying.” (ibid.) 

Looking at (Stepan Arkadyich) Oblonsky, I can’t help thinking of this Hamlet soliloquy:

“O that this too too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God, God,

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! ah, fie, ‘tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this:

But two months dead, nah, not so much, not two…” 

(Hamlet, Act 1 scene 2)

What’s a life worth if it’s forgotten so soon after death?

Vronsky however is nothing like Oblonsky. Nor is he like Emma Bovary’s lovers, Rodolphe and Léon. Again, placing Madame Bovary next to Anna Karenina, one can’t help seeing a smallness to Emma’s character—she is hollow and her affairs all seem so futile and stupid. Anna and Vronsky do love each other, even if their love is in some way destructive. His mother, Countess Vronskaya, doesn’t get it but he feels deeply. The Vronsky that loves Anna, I can’t help thinking, is different from the Vronsky that plays with Kitty’s feeling at the beginning of the book—his love for Anna ennobles him.

It’s a heart-rending scene, all the more because of the casual way Countess Vronskaya dismisses it and the way almost everyone, including Oblonsky, seems to just move on with their lives. 

3/ The great thing about Tolstoy’s characters is that his characters, like real people and better than any other writer’s characters, are complex and full of self-contradictions. But at the same time they’re still recognisably themselves and can’t help being themselves: Oblonsky for example is a man of pleasure and cannot feel anything very deeply; Levin always tries to be better, etc. Their essences, to use James Wood’s word, are always the same. 

Tolstoy often uses leitmotif, which makes it easier for readers to remember his vast range of characters, such as Oblonsky’s beaming smile, Kitty’s innocent eyes and radiant smile, Karenin’s shrill voice and the way he cracks his fingers, Anna’s round arms and shoulders, Veslovsky’s fat legs, etc. 

Vronsky’s leitmotif is his strong, even teeth and the last time we see him, he’s having a toothache.

4/ Anna dies, but the novel doesn’t end. There is another tragedy and that is Dolly’s tragedy of being married to a man like Oblonsky—she is not any less of a tragic figure than Anna has been. 

“Two weeks earlier a penitent letter from Stepan Arkadyich had arrived for Dolly. He begged her to save his honour by selling her estate to pay his debts. Dolly was in despair, she hated her husband, despised him, pitied him, made up her mind to obtain a divorce and refuse him, but she ended up agreeing to sell part of her estate.” (P.8, ch.7)

In the novel, the Anna strand and the Levin strand act as counterpoint to each other, and it may be argued that through the two couples, Tolstoy contrasts two kinds of love—passionate love (like between Anna and Vronsky) and a more prosaic love, based on compatibility, trust, and understanding (like between Kitty and Levin)—but the characters are not complete opposites. In fact, I would say that all four characters have something in common: they are all truthful, and all feel deeply. Part of Anna’s tragedy is that she feels tormented and cannot live in deceit like many others do in high society. Vronsky himself also wants truth and clarity. More importantly, for all of their faults, they both have depth of feeling. 

Oblonsky, in contrast, doesn’t. He cannot feel anything deeply. He cannot feel bad for long, and has no guilty conscience about cheating on his wife and neglecting his children. And he lives for only himself, and his own pleasures. 

5/ Unlike some readers, I find Levin’s conversion in the final part of the novel fascinating. It’s partly because Levin’s thoughts act as a counterpoint to Anna’s thoughts before her suicide (though some of his thoughts actually echo hers), and partly because his existential crisis, especially when he watches the peasants and thinks that they all are going to die and be buried, makes me think of Hamlet’s Yorick speech. I don’t think the chapters are didactic because Levin still has a questioning attitude, as he does for the entire novel. He still has some questions and is by no means certain about anything. 

See Levin, when he thinks he has found the meaning of life: 

“He now perceived his brother and his wife and the unknown visitor in a different way than before. It seemed to him that his relations with everyone would be altered.” (P.8, ch.14) 

The feeling doesn’t last long. Soon after, a coachman gets on his nerves. 

“This sort of interference riled him just as much as it always did, and it was with sadness that he immediately recognized how mistaken he had been in presuming that his spiritual state of mind could instantly change him when he came back into contact with reality.” (ibid.) 

And later: 

“He recalled that he had already managed to lose his temper with Ivan, treat his brother coldly, and talk in an offhand manner to Katavasov.

‘Was that really just an ephemeral state of mind which will vanish without trace?’ he thought.” (ibid.)

It reminds me of Kitty’s time in Germany—inspired by Varenka, she wants to change, to make sacrifices and live a simpler life, but cannot change herself. Levin cannot change himself either. As we see in his conversation with the over-intellectual and idealistic Koznyshev and some others, Levin remains the same.

And yet something is different. To steal Himadri’s line, “the possibility of a new approach to life has dawned on him: and on this note – a note not by any means of certainty – the novel ends.” (full post) 

6/ The final chapters of Anna Karenina are also fascinating because there are 3 main things happening: Levin’s conversion, the debate about the Serbian-Turkish wars, and Levin’s married life.

The debate is interesting because, as I’ve written before, Tolstoy depicts different perspectives and different voices, and we can see the difference between Levin and his idealistic half-brother Sergey Ivanovich Koznyshev. This is a character I didn’t remember after my last read, but I think now I’m going to remember him—it’s not hard to guess what his politics would be if he were alive today.

But the best part of the last chapters is the way Tolstoy writes about Levin’s married life, especially that scene of Kitty giving a bath to their baby Mitya. 

“The point was that Mitya had clearly and unmistakably begun to recognize his own family that day.

As soon as Levin had come up to the bath an experiment was carried out in front of him, and the experiment was a complete success. The cook, who had been specially summoned for this, replaced Kitty and bent over the baby. He frowned and started shaking his head. Then when Kitty bent over him, his face lit up with a smile, and he pushed his little hands into the sponge and burbled with his lips, making such a happy and strange sound that not just Kitty and the nanny but also Levin were lost in unexpected admiration.” (P.8, ch.18) 

This is magnificent. Levin has begun to love his baby. 

(These passages come from Rosamund Bartlett’s translation). 

After nearly 5 weeks, I have now finished rereading Anna Karenina. It is perhaps the greatest novel of all time. Nothing else like this (except War and Peace).

I love it even more than I thought. What a wonderful novel.

Rereading Anna Karenina: Parts 6 and 7

1/ In the previous blog post, I wrote that Tolstoy didn’t seem to allow Anna sexual pleasure. 

Look at this line about Levin and his wife Kitty:

“He had already forgotten that fleetingly disagreeable impression, and alone with her now, with the thought of her pregnancy never leaving him for an instant, he experienced the radiant pleasure, still novel to him, of an intimacy with the woman he loved which was completely free of sensuality.” (P.6, ch.3)

That comes from my current copy, translated by Rosamund Bartlett. To be sure, I’m also putting here the same line from the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude: 

“He had already forgotten that momentarily unpleasant impression, and being alone with her experienced, now that the thought of her pregnancy never left him, a feeling still novel and joyful to him of pleasure, entirely free from sensuality, at the nearness of a beloved woman.” 

Couldn’t help noticing “an intimacy […] which was completely free of sensuality”. I love Tolstoy, but I do think that one of his biggest problems is his unhealthy view of sex. 

2/ Here’s an idea I stole from Tom of Wuthering Expectations: Levin’s brother Nikolay, who has a prostitute girlfriend and dies from consumption, is a Dostoyevsky character; Levin’s other brother Sergey Koznyshev, who is over-intellectual and incapable of love, is a Turgenev character.

The scene of Sergey and Varenka picking mushrooms in the woods is magnificent. A bit infuriating, but magnificent.  

3/ Tolstoy likes to enter the mind of everybody, and does it better, more convincingly than any other novelist I’ve read. Sometimes he also writes from the point of view of a horse or a dog (though I wish he had also written about cats). This for example is an interesting passage about Levin’s dog Laska, from the hunting scene: 

“Levin was longing to drink some vodka and eat a piece of bread. He was exhausted, and felt he could only just pull his tottering legs out of the quagmire, so for a moment he hesitated. But Laska was pointing. All his tiredness vanished in an instant, and he walked easily through the quagmire towards his dog. A snipe flew out from under his feet; he fired and killed it, but the dog continued to point. ‘Fetch!’ Another bird flew up from under the dog. Levin fired. But it was not his lucky day; he missed, and when he went to look for the one he had killed, he could not find that either. He trawled through all the sedges, but Laska did not believe he had shot anything, and when he sent her to search, she pretended she was searching, but was not really searching.” (P.6, ch.10)

Later on, in chapter 12, Tolstoy describes the hunt almost entirely from Laska’s point of view, and yet it works perfectly. 

How many writers can pull off something like this? 

4/ As Dolly is on the way to see Anna and Vronsky, she meets a young woman who has just lost her baby. The woman says “‘What is there to miss? The old man has grandchildren enough as it is. They’re just trouble. You can’t work or do anything. They just tie you down.’” (P.6, ch.16). That is shocking, but as Dolly thinks more about it, she can’t help thinking there’s some truth in those cynical words. 

“…thought Darya Alexandrovna as she looked back over her whole life during the fifteen years she had been married, ‘it’s just been pregnancy, nausea, dull-wittedness, indifference to everything, and above all looking hideous. Even Kitty, young and pretty Kitty, has lost her looks, but when I’m pregnant I become hideous, I know. Labour, suffering, hideous suffering, that last moment … then the feeding, those sleepless nights, that dreadful pain …

[…] And what is it all for? What will it all lead to? To me living out my life without a moment’s peace, either pregnant or breastfeeding, permanently cross, grumpy, worn out myself and wearing other people out, repulsive to my husband, while the children will grow up unhappy, badly brought up, and poor…’” (ibid.) 

This, ladies and gentlemen, comes from a writer that many readers call a misogynist. 

Many readers, for some reason, are so fixated on Anna’s downfall and the ending that they’re blind to the understanding and sympathy Tolstoy has for the women in Anna Karenina, especially Dolly. One may argue that the author depicts Dolly’s illusions about Anna’s life, and her daydreams, only to show her later realise that Anna has changed and isn’t truly happy, but the fact remains that Dolly is an honest and sympathetic portrayal of a woman worn out by her several children and unloved by her husband. 

After the conversation with Anna, Dolly chooses her children, as a mother does, but throughout the novel, Tolstoy doesn’t describe her life as all good and easy. He doesn’t idealise it. 

I note that Dolly is one of the few characters in the book who are kind and not hypocritical. Tolstoy depicts Princess Varvara, for example, as a hypocrite who pretends to be nice to Anna only to enjoy the comfort at Vronsky’s house; Betsy is also a hypocrite, who has an affair herself but abandons Anna because of her awkward position in society; Karenin’s only friend, Countess Lydia Ivanova, is sanctimonious and her devotion to Karenin isn’t entirely innocent; Karenin himself isn’t entirely honest either, he is self-righteous and uses religion as an emotional crutch, etc. Dolly, in contrast, is a good woman and not a hypocrite. Tolstoy has compassion for her, and her suffering.

5/ Through Varenka Veslovsky (Kitty’s flirtatious cousin), Tolstoy again subtly contrasts Anna and Kitty, Vronsky and Levin.

The contrast between the 2 men becomes even more obvious as Vronsky, now that he has left the army, becomes a landowner like Levin and joins the zemstvo and devotes his time to public duties, like Levin used to do. 

I like that Levin, in spite of himself, comes to like both Vronsky and Anna. 

6/ I haven’t said anything about Tolstoy’s metaphors and similes. They tend to be more straightforward than, and not as striking as, Flaubert’s metaphors and similes. But sometimes they can be very interesting.  

For example, this is how Dolly feels pretending to enjoy a game at Vronsky’s house.

“All that day she had felt she was acting in a theatre with actors who were better than she was, and that her bad acting was ruining the whole show.” (P.6, ch.22) 

I like that.

This one is about Levin trying to sort out a business for his sister who lives abroad. 

“All this fuss and bother, the endless going from one place to another, the conversations with very kind, good people, who completely understood the unpleasantness of the petitioner’s position but could not assist him—all this effort without any result produced in Levin a ghastly feeling which was akin to that exasperating sense of powerlessness experienced in dreams when one wants to apply physical force.” (P.6, ch.26) 

Straight to the point. 

7/ There are 3 different portraits of Anna in the novel: one in Karenin’s room, one by Vronsky, and one by an artist named Mikhailov.

This is the first painting: 

“Above the armchair hung an oval portrait of Anna in a gold frame, which had been finely executed by a famous artist. Alexey Alexandrovich glanced at it. Her inscrutable eyes fixed him with a mocking, brazen stare as they had on the evening of their altercation. The sight of the black lace on her head, her black hair, and beautiful white hand with its fourth finger covered with rings, superbly painted by the artist, also struck Alexey Alexandrovich as unbearably brazen and defiant. After looking at the portrait for a minute, such a shudder ran through Alexey Alexandrovich that his lips quivered and uttered the sound ‘brr’, and he turned away.” (P.3, ch.14)

This is Mikhailov’s painting:

“From the fifth sitting onwards the portrait astonished everyone, and Vronsky in particular, not only with its likeness but also its special beauty. It was uncanny how Mikhailov had been able to uncover her special beauty. ‘One would have had to know and love her as I have loved her to uncover that most endearing heartfelt expression of hers,’ thought Vronsky, although he had only discovered this most endearing heartfelt expression of hers from the portrait. But this expression was so truthful that he and others felt they had known it for a long time.” (P.5, ch.13) 

Later, when Levin looks at the same painting:  

“While Stepan Arkadyich went behind the lattice screen and the man’s voice which had been speaking fell silent, Levin gazed at the portrait, which stood out from the frame in the gleaming light, and could not tear himself away from it. With his eyes riveted on the remarkable portrait and not listening to what was being said, he even forgot where he was. This was not a painting but an enchanting living woman with curly black hair, bare arms and shoulders, and a pensive half-smile on lips covered with soft down, looking at him triumphantly and tenderly with eyes which unnerved him. The only thing which showed she was not alive was that she was more beautiful than a living woman could be.” (P.7, ch.9) 

Then Levin sees the real Anna: 

“She was less dazzling in reality, but in the flesh there was also something new and alluring about her that was not in the portrait.” (ibid.) 

Later:

“… With this expression on her face she was even more beautiful than before; but this expression was new; it lay beyond the range of expressions radiating and transmitting happiness that had been captured by the painter in the portrait. Levin looked again at the portrait and at her figure as she took her brother’s arm and proceeded through the tall doors with him, and he felt a tenderness and pity for her that took him quite by surprise.”(P.7, ch.10) 

I don’t have much to say about the 3 portraits, for now, but these passages are so good.

It seems to be a mistake on Tolstoy’s part that Levin and Oblonsky have been childhood mates but Levin has never met Anna till this scene, but it doesn’t matter because the scene is excellent. 

8/ I shall not write about the childbirth scene, which is one of the greatest scenes in the novel. Instead, I want to write briefly about the scene of Oblonsky seeing Karenin with Countess Lydia Ivanova and Landau (P.7, ch.21-22).

It is a simple enough scene with 4 main characters, but there are many things going on at the same time. At the centre of action, Oblonsky, Karenin, and the Countess are there to talk about Anna’s request for divorce; in the background are Landau the clairvoyant, who looks at portraits or walks about and does his own thing, and the footman, who occasionally interrupts the conversation by giving Lydia Ivanova something and takes her order.

In the conversation itself, Oblonsky wants to plead Anna’s case but Karenin seemingly prefers to rely on Lydia Ivanova, and Lydia Ivanova is more interested in talking about Landau and religion.

Tolstoy writes the scene from Oblonsky’s perspective and there are 2 things going on within him: he’s asking for a divorce for Anna, and at the same time thinking about a job position he means to ask Lydia Ivanova to put in a word for him. Because of the favour, the second motive, Oblonsky can neither state his views strongly, nor go as far as he should in the matter of Anna, and risk offending the Countess.

In short the scene has several layers, and several things taking place at the same time. Under Tolstoy’s skilful hand, it all flows perfectly and feels so natural—it even feels simple. 

9/ For now, I shall not write about Anna’s death. The chapters are emotionally draining, and just unbearable. 

Rereading Anna Karenina: Parts 4 and 5

1/ In Part 4 chapter 12, in the dinner scene, Tolstoy has a minor character called Pestsov say “inequality in marriage lay in the fact that a wife’s infidelity and a husband’s infidelity were not punished equally, either by the law or by public opinion”. Tolstoy himself demonstrates it in the novel—through Anna’s infidelity and her brother Stepan’s infidelity. He also shows later that society’s doors continue to be open for Vronsky but closed to Anna. 

The dinner scene is very good: there are a few debates, and again Tolstoy has voices and counter-voices, as in Shakespeare, and conveys everyone’s personality. Oblonsky (Stepan Arkadyich) for example is the genial host, who gets all the different guests to mingle (which his wife hasn’t been able to do before his late arrival) and who always knows when to intervene when the conversation touches a sore point of anyone present. Sergey Ivanovich Koznyshev (Levin’s half-brother) is intellectual and has his own opinions, but has the talent to tell a joke to make everyone laugh and end a serious discussion. 

In the same room are Levin and Kitty, but they’re in their own world.

“… he felt that he and Kitty were the only people who existed, not just in that room, but in the whole world. He felt he was at such a high altitude that his head was spinning, while somewhere far away down below were all those nice, good Karenins, Oblonskys, and the rest of the world.” (P.4, ch.9) 

That is like Anna and Vronsky in the ball scene: 

“[Kitty] could see they felt they were on their own in the crowded ballroom.” (P.1, ch.13)

(Translated by Rosamund Bartlett)

The story moves seamlessly between different groups of characters in the same room, and different moods—it is magnificent, especially when Tolstoy moves from Karenin and Dolly, a scene of suffering and sympathy, to the scene of Levin and Kitty, who feel they’re the happiest in the world. The Anna strand and the Levin strand act as counterpoint to each other and it’s most obvious in these chapters: as Karenin is planning for divorce, Levin gets engaged to Kitty.

2/ Tolstoy is brutally “honest” about Karenin’s thoughts on the way to Anna after her “Am dying” telegram: 

“He could not think about it, because when he imagined what might happen, he could not dispel the idea that her death would at one stroke undo all the difficulty of his position. Bakers, closed-up shops, night cabbies, street-cleaners sweeping the pavements flashed in front of his eyes, and he observed all of this, trying to stifle within himself the thought of what awaited him and what he dared not wish for, but nevertheless did wish for.” (P.4, ch.17) 

Uncertain about whether Anna’s request is genuine or a trick, but not wanting others to condemn him in case she dies, Karenin hurries home, and gets told that she safely gave birth the day before.

“Alexey Alexandrovich stopped and turned pale. He now clearly understood how intensely he had wanted her to die.

‘And how is she?’

Korney came running down the stairs in his morning apron.

‘Very poorly,’ he answered. ‘There was a doctors’ consultation yesterday, and the doctor is here now.’

‘Take my things,’ said Alexey Alexandrovich, and feeling slightly relieved at the news that there was still a hope she might die, he went into the hall.” (ibid.) 

This is a man who talks about God and religion. This is a man who talks about love and duty and forgiveness. 

But everything changes when Karenin sees Anna, as she’s close to death. There is something here, something I can’t explain. Anna and Karenin and Vronsky seem to enter a heightened state of consciousness, and do things they themselves don’t understand and can’t rationalise. It is sublime. 

3/ Part 4 is where Karenin becomes more magnanimous and dignified whilst Anna and Vronsky appear small and selfish. When I read Anna Karenina the first time, I thought this was Tolstoy siding with Karenin. 

However, it’s more nuanced and complex. As written above, on the way home, Karenin wishes Anna to die. 

Now look at this little moment of Karenin, when Oblonsky persuades him to agree to a divorce:

“And turning away so that his brother-in-law could not see him, he sat down on a chair by the window. He felt bitter, he felt ashamed; but alongside this bitterness and shame he felt joy and awe at his supreme humility.” (P.4, ch.22) 

He feels good about his own goodness—that doesn’t sound truly good, does it? 

At the same time, Tolstoy includes two significant things for the reader to see: firstly, Anna is hopelessly stuck and even if she can obtain the divorce, the ecclesiastical law wouldn’t allow her to marry again whilst the ex-husband is alive, and she would be ruined; secondly, Oblonsky points out that Karenin is 20 years older than Anna and they married without love, so their marriage is nothing like the marriage between Levin and Kitty. Regardless of his own views and opinions, Tolstoy presents the full picture, showing all the facts and nuances and complexities, and we can judge for ourselves. 

4/ The chapters leading up to the Levin-Kitty engagement and the scene of the engagement itself filled me with such joy and happiness, as though they’re real people. Tolstoy, I think, can write about all kinds of human experience and all kinds of emotions, and he does it better than any other novelist. 

5/ I’ve noted the subtle way Tolstoy draws the 2 main strands together. 

Levin and Karenin both react to an emotional blow (Kitty’s rejection and Anna’s affair respectively) by burying themselves in their work. 

Kitty goes to Europe (Germany) during her illness, Anna and Vronsky go to Europe (Italy) after their near-death experience. 

Anna gives birth, later Kitty also gives birth. 

In Part 4, the narrative moves between Karenin preparing for divorce and Levin getting engaged to Kitty.  

In Part 5, the story moves from the wedding of Levin and Kitty, to the “honeymoon” of Anna and Vronsky in Italy, then from the ennui and dissatisfaction of Vronsky and Anna, it moves to the disenchantment at the beginning of Levin and Kitty’s marriage. 

6/ Speaking of “honeymoon”, I can’t help noticing that Tolstoy doesn’t seem to allow Anna sexual pleasure. The first time she and Vronsky have sex, it doesn’t seem that enjoyable—she is filled with shame and guilt. If she enjoys it at other times, Tolstoy doesn’t mention it. 

Contrast that with the way Flaubert writes Emma Bovary or Zola writes Thérèse Raquin: we know Emma and Thérèse love sex (or maybe they’re just French).

This is a remark more than a complaint—not writing about women enjoying sex seems to be the norm in 19th century literature.  

(By the way, in Shakespeare there are a few women that like/want sex: Emilia from Othello, Helena from All’s Well That Ends Well, Lady Percy from Henry IV, Part 1, etc.) 

7/ See what Levin says to Oblonsky at the beginning of the novel:   

“‘…I have an aversion to fallen women. You are afraid of spiders but I’m afraid of these vile creatures. You probably haven’t studied spiders, after all, and don’t know their manners and customs: it’s the same for me.’” (P.1, ch.11) 

Now look at this passage about Levin, after he and Kitty agree to visit his dying brother Nikolay, who is taken care of by his prostitute girlfriend Marya Nikolayevna: 

“Deep down he even more seriously disagreed with the idea that she need not have anything to do with that woman who was with his brother, and he thought with horror of all the possible conflicts that might arise. The mere thought of his wife, his Kitty, being in the same room as a whore made him shudder with disgust and horror.” (P.5, ch.16)

In such moments, I find Levin unlikable, even obnoxious, especially considering what he has done sexually. I do remember from the last read, however, that later on Levin would meet Anna and rethink his view on “fallen women”. It’s similar to the way Tolstoy set out to write a novel to condemn adultery, but gradually came to love and have sympathy for his heroine.

If Tolstoy puts himself in Levin, it’s not very flattering. When they meet the dying Nikolay, Levin appears judgmental, ineffectual, and helpless, next to the kind, caring, and sufficient Kitty. Tolstoy doesn’t shy away from depicting the ugliness of illness and death, and the feeling of disgust and terror in Levin. 

8/ The Death chapter is magnificent. It affects me a lot more strongly now than last time. 

“The sight of his brother and the proximity of death revived in Levin’s heart that feeling of horror at the combined unfathomability, proximity, and inevitability of death which had overwhelmed him that autumn evening when his brother came to visit. This feeling was now even stronger than before, while he felt even less capable of understanding the meaning of death, and its inevitability seemed even more ghastly; but now, thanks to his wife being close by, that feeling did not reduce him to despair; he felt the need for life and love in spite of death. He felt that love had saved him from despair, and that this love had become even stronger and purer in the face of despair.” (P.5, ch.20) 

9/ After Nikolay’s death, Tolstoy returns to Karenin.

When I read Middlemarch a few years ago, I remember struggling with it for a while because of my clash with George Eliot, and it was chapter 42 that convinced me it was a masterpiece. Before this chapter, Casaubon is only seen from outside and from afar—he is seen by other characters as dry, difficult, demanding, emotionless, a man whose blood is “all semicolons and parentheses”. In chapter 42, George Eliot depicts Casaubon from the inside and makes the reader see him in a completely different light: he is also vulnerable and lonely and helpless, he is human.

Tolstoy doesn’t quite do the same thing because the stiff, duty-bound, passionless, self-righteous, and unlovable Karenin is already depicted with sympathy and compassion—we have seen him suffer. But Tolstoy goes further, and makes us realise the man’s utter loneliness and helplessness: 

“His despair was increased still further by the awareness that he was completely alone in his grief. It was not just that he did not have a single person in all of Petersburg to whom he could talk about everything he was going through, who might pity him, not as a senior official, or as a member of society, but simply as a suffering human being; he did not have such a person anywhere.” (P.5, ch.21) 

One common failure of many adaptations of Anna Karenina is that Karenin is depicted as a cold monster and we can’t really sympathise with him (though we probably have old Hollywood code to blame—for Anna to get sympathy, her husband has to be completely unsympathetic). The 2012 film tries to subvert that but ends up swinging too far the other way—not only does Karenin not seem cold and stiff but he’s also too good-looking (it’s Jude Law). One doesn’t think Anna would feel suffocated in the marriage, and can’t really sympathise with her (Keira Knightley) jumping into an affair that would cause her downfall.

To go back to the novel, in this passage I’ve spotted a continuity error: earlier in the book, Tolstoy writes that Karenin mentions sending Seryozha to his sister, and now says that he only has brothers. The sister isn’t mentioned anywhere else so that’s probably from an earlier draft of the book. 

10/ The scene of Anna secretly meeting her son Seryozha on his birthday is such a powerful scene. Tolstoy writes so well the point of view of a 9-year-old boy and the point of a view of a mother.

The scene at the opera is also magnificent. 

One of the things I forgot from the last reading is that in Anna Karenina, Tolstoy (almost) always narrates and describes from one character’s perspective for a stretch of time, usually a scene or a sequence, then switches to another character’s perspective. Think of the descriptions in Balzac’s Eugenie Grandet for example, especially the long description of the streets and buildings at the beginning of the book: it is objective (seen by the author), whereas the description in Anna Karenina is subjective (seen by a character). The same technique has been used by Flaubert in Madame Bovary.

Thus Tolstoy enters all of his characters’ minds, and he can inhabit them all: even a child’s or a dog’s. 

Wonderful novel. 

Rereading Anna Karenina: Part 3

1/ Perhaps I sound like a fangirl but one of the things I’ve noticed, rereading Anna Karenina, is that Tolstoy is not as preachy and didactic as some people say. I often come across the complaint that Tolstoy is very sure and confident of his own beliefs, and imposes them upon the reader, but I don’t think that’s the case. Just look at the discussion between Konstantin Levin and his half-brother Sergey Ivanovich in Part 3 for example: even though Tolstoy writes more of Levin’s thoughts because that’s the main character, he presents 2 opposing points of view and their arguments, he lets us see why each character thinks the way he does and how he views the other’s reasoning, and he (the author) raises more questions than provides answers. Levin questions everything throughout the novel. So does Tolstoy.

(I’m thinking that I should check out his nonfiction). 

Himadri of Argumentative Old Git blog has similar thoughts:

“Tolstoy, despite his reputation for didacticism, does not judge: Tolstoy once said that fiction is most effective when the author is not seen to take sides. This may seem strange coming from an author renowned for his didacticism, but he lives up to his principle: here, instead of judging, he explores. He questions incessantly the extent to which these characters are responsible for what they do, for being who they are. As he enters the mind of each of his characters, it appears that they cannot act otherwise: and yet, each is morally responsible for their own actions, and this remains, right to the end of the novel and beyond, a terrible unsolved paradox. Each of these characters is trapped within their own selves: they cannot even begin to understand their own complex psyches, and, to their terror, appear to rush headlong towards a doom they can vaguely sense, but cannot avoid. The sense of the tragic is intense: never has the terror in our everyday lives been expressed with such disconcerting power.” 

The full blog post should be read: https://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/all-happy-families-are-alike-some-thoughts-half-way-through-anna-karenina/ 

This is a blog post about the subject of free will vs determinism, from War and Peace to Anna Karenina: https://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/on-re-reading-anna-karenina/ 

2/ Whenever I hear someone condemn Tolstoy as a misogynist because of “what he does to Anna”, I can’t help wondering if they’ve forgotten about Kitty and Dolly (not to mention Natasha, Marya, Sonya, etc. in War and Peace).

Note how Tolstoy writes the ball scene almost entirely from Kitty’s point of view: Anna and Vronsky have fallen in love at first sight at the train station, but the ball scene is a crucial moment, a significant moment when they dance together before others and in a way cross the line for the first time—Tolstoy doesn’t describe it from Anna’s or Vronsky’s perspective, but instead focuses almost entirely on Kitty’s. He depicts the heartbreak of a young girl who comes to a ball full of hopes and excitement and finds herself jilted, humiliated. 

Dolly is another woman in the novel who suffers because of the callousness of a man. Here is a tragic figure, not any less tragic than Anna though in a different way. Here is a sympathetic portrayal of a woman who is worn out by life and her 6 children, who is no longer beautiful and no longer loved by her husband. Here is a moving depiction of a woman who suffers terribly because of her husband’s affairs and wants to leave but cannot leave, as she has nowhere to go. 

Anna Karenina has 2 main strands of story—Anna’s strand and Levin’s strand—but the story of the Oblonsky family is also significant and can also be seen as some sort of counterpoint to the story of the Karenins. In the Karenin marriage, the wife cheats and becomes a social outcast; in the Oblonsky marriage, the man cheats and it’s socially accepted. Anna’s story is the tragedy of a woman who leaves her husband; Dolly’s story is the tragedy of a woman who doesn’t. 

3/ See this passage about Dolly:

“Rare indeed were the brief periods of tranquillity. But these concerns and worries were the only possible happiness for Darya Alexandrovna. Without them, she would have been left alone to brood about her husband who did not love her. Besides, however difficult it was for a mother to deal with the fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the pain of seeing signs of bad tendencies in her children, the children themselves were now rewarding her pains with small joys. These joys were so small that they were as unnoticeable as specks of gold in sand, and during the bad moments she could see only the pain and only the sand, but there were also good moments when she could see only the joy and only the gold.

Now, in the solitude of the country, she began to become more and more aware of those joys. Often, as she looked at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she was partial to her children since she was their mother; nevertheless, she could not help telling herself that she had delightful children, all six of them, each in their own way, each one of a kind, and she was happy with them and proud of them.” (P.3, ch.7) 

(Translated by Rosamund Bartlett) 

That is what’s so magical about Tolstoy: he can enter the mind of everybody, including a mother.

The chapters about Dolly are wonderful. 

4/ Tolstoy might have to set out to write a novel to condemn adultery, but he’s a great artist, not a simple-minded moralist. Tolstoy lets us see why Anna isn’t happy in her marriage and falls in love with someone else: Karenin is a cold man, having neither passion nor affection, and only talks about duties and honour and public opinion. I have always thought so, but in this rereading, I see more clearly the way Tolstoy writes about the different reactions of Karenin and Dolly upon discovering the truth. They both suffer, in different ways, but Dolly appears more tragic and helpless, and more sympathetic, whereas Karenin still seems cold, stiff, and incapable of love, in his suffering. 

Some readers may say they only like the Anna strand, or the Levin strand, but the different strands of Anna Karenina cannot be separated—they’re part of a whole and have to be seen together. 

5/ See this passage of Levin seeing Kitty before he proposes to her the first time: 

“He could tell she was there from the joy and fear gripping his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the other end of the rink. There did not seem to be anything special about either her clothes or the way she held herself, but it was as easy for Levin to recognize her in the crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was lit up by her. She was a smile illuminating everything all around. […] He walked down, trying to avoid looking at her for too long, as if she were the sun, but like the sun, he could still see her even when he was not looking at her.” (P.1, ch.9) 

Is that not so good? The part about the sun reminds me of Shakespeare:

“ROMEO […] But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she…” 

(Act 2 scene 2) 

Let’s get back to Levin and Kitty: 

“… The childlike expression of her face combined with the beauty of her slender figure constituted her particular charm, which he remembered well; but what was always so astonishing and unexpected about her was the expression of her gentle, calm, and truthful eyes, and in particular her smile, which always transported Levin into a magical world where he felt tender-hearted and soothed, as he could remember being on rare days in his early childhood.” (P.1, ch.9)

When Tolstoy describes Anna, he writes about the beauty of her whole figure, her neck, her arms, her hands, her black hair, the little locks of her curly hair, her movements, etc. When he describes Kitty, he mostly writes about her eyes and smile, and focuses more on the effect she has on Levin, the joy and happiness she gives him. 

Everyone must notice the contrast between the 2 beautiful women: Anna has black hair and Kitty has blonde hair, like Ellen and May respectively in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (the hair colour is switched in Martin Scorsese’s film). Both novels fit the idea I have read before that in 19th century literature, blonde hair is associated with purity, innocence, and goodness whereas dark/black hair often evokes something exotic, sensual, passionate, dark, dangerous, etc.      

Now look at the moment when Levin sees Kitty, having just returned from abroad, at a time when Levin thinks he has got over her: 

“At the very moment when this vision was about to disappear, the candid eyes came to rest on him. She recognized him, and an expression of joy and surprise lit up her face.

He could not have been mistaken. There was only one pair of eyes like that in the world. There was only one being in the world capable of concentrating the whole world and the meaning of life for him. It was her. It was Kitty.” (P.3, ch.12)

Just wonderful. 

6/ Tolstoy often writes about things people want to say and leave unsaid. Henry James and Edith Wharton also do, for example, Jane Austen doesn’t. But I’ve noticed something even more interesting: Tolstoy writes about people not listening, such as when Sergey is discussing politics and Levin tries to make out what’s the black thing he sees in the distance, or when the governess tells Anna about Seryozha’s misdemeanour and she’s thinking about how to keep her son if Karenin kicks her out of the house. 

Each person is caught up in their own world. 

One of the joys of reading literature, especially Tolstoy, is that we get to know these fictional people in a way that we can never know another person in real life. 

7/ This is a magnificent line, about Anna: 

“Stopping to look at the top of an aspen tree swaying in the wind, its washed leaves sparkling brightly in the cold sunshine, she realized that they would not forgive, that everyone and everything would now treat her as pitilessly as this sky and this foliage.” (P.3, ch.15) 

Much as I love Madame Bovary and think it’s stylistically perfect, Anna Karenina makes it feel hollow in comparison. Emma has no inner conflicts, and little interest in her own daughter, whereas Anna always struggles with herself, with guilt and shame, with her hatred of deceit, and feels torn between her love for Vronsky and her love for her son Seryozha. Anna has more depth of feeling. 

8/ I still think Anna Karenina should have had a different title—I don’t know what, but the current title doesn’t convey the breadth of the novel. Anna Karenina has a smaller scope than War and Peace but also has hundreds of characters, and like War and Peace, it’s also about life and death, the meaning of life, the question of how to live; imperial Russia and current debates such as the woman question, the debate about farming and peasants, the question of minorities; and so on. Even the question of determinism vs free will from War and Peace is present in Anna Karenina, though Tolstoy doesn’t spell it out: to what extent are these characters responsible for what they do, and for being who they are? And yet, each of them is morally responsible for their own actions. 

Now and then I hear some readers complain that it’s a drag or that it has superfluous detail, but that implies that some stuff is unnecessary and should be removed—that is a misunderstanding of Tolstoy’s purpose. Tolstoy’s novels are not only about the general plot.   

I don’t think Tolstoy aims to lecture about the social and political issues either: if you look at the debate between Levin and some other characters at the house of Sviyazhsky about farming methods in Russia (Part 3), that’s what it is—a debate. Levin, who is seen as a stand-in for Tolstoy, doesn’t have the answers—he raises questions and looks for the answers.  

9/ The chapters at the end of Part 3, of Levin and his dying brother Nikolay, are so poignant. I’ve never read anyone who writes about death and the fear of death as well as Tolstoy. 

Rereading Anna Karenina: Parts 1 and 2

1/ I have been rereading Anna Karenina but not written a word, because of writer’s block. 

8 years since I first read the novel, 8 years since I was introduced to Tolstoy, I still think he’s the greatest of novelists. As I reread Anna Karenina, I can’t help thinking that apart from Tolstoy, Cao Xueqin is the only novelist who creates that kind of seamless and natural flow, as the story moves from one scene to the next, from one group of characters to another—there seems to be no plot and each character seems to have a life of their own, independent of the author. When reading other authors, you may notice a structure, a pattern, a plot, and you may see that character and action serve the plot—not so with Tolstoy and Cao Xueqin—even the most minor characters seem to have a life of their own. However, Cao Xueqin is mostly comparable to Tolstoy in his scope, wide range of characters, and compassionate view of humanity; Hong lou meng doesn’t have the same psychological depth and complexity. 

With Tolstoy, nothing escapes his eyes, he notices the slightest movements and subtlest changes in expression. He’s better than anyone at depicting a character’s conflicted feelings and self-contradictions. Just follow Anna’s conflicted thoughts as she’s on the train returning to St Petersburg after she has fallen for Vronsky in Moscow, and the changed way she now sees her husband; or watch the scene where Kitty and Dolly are arguing and Kitty, in a fit of temper, says something that would wound her sister the most and she immediately regrets it; or read the scene of Karenin battling with himself after he notices for the first time that there’s something indecorous about Anna and Vronsky, and knows that he needs to talk to his wife but doesn’t know what to say. 

It is wonderful.

As I reread the novel, I’ve also realised that complaints about his didacticism and his opinionated narrator are very much exaggerated. Tolstoy is no George Eliot. He is much subtler. One example is the conversation between Oblonsky and Levin somewhere at the beginning of the novel: Tolstoy depicts 2 very different people, 2 opposite points of view, and presents them as they are. Throughout Anna Karenina, Tolstoy shows different perspectives and depicts his characters with compassion and sympathy—I don’t deny that once in a while, the author takes an unnecessary dig at something, but it is rare—Tolstoy depicts conflicting perspectives, almost like voices and counter-voices in Shakespeare, and shows so many different sides and aspects to each character that they are, in a sense, beyond his control and judgment. A useful comparison is with George Eliot: you can see who she approves or disapproves of, and can roughly divide her characters into 2 groups (selfless or selfish); it is much harder to do so with Tolstoy’s characters. 

2/ This is an interesting passage: 

“Levin felt that in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, his brother Nikolay was no more in the wrong than those people who despised him, despite all the depravity of his life. It was not his fault that he had been born with his unruly character and a mind that was constrained by something.” (P.1, ch.24)

The translation is by Rosamund Bartlett (last time was the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude). 

Here’s another great passage, about Karenin:

“Alexey Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very nonsensical and incomprehensible because it was life itself. Alexey Alexandrovich had spent his entire life living and working in official spheres which had to do with the reflections of life. And every time he had bumped into life itself he had shied away from it. He was now experiencing a feeling similar to that which would be felt by someone who, calmly crossing a bridge over a precipice, suddenly discovers that this bridge has been taken down, revealing an abyss. This abyss was life itself, while the bridge was the artificial life Alexey Alexandrovich had been leading. For the first time conjectures occurred to him about the possibility of his wife falling in love with somebody, and he was horrified by the idea.” (P.2, ch.8) 

And:

“Here, looking at her bureau, with the malachite blotter and a note she had begun sitting on top of it, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think about her, and about what she was thinking and feeling. For the first time he conjured up a vivid picture of her personal life, her thoughts and her desires, but the idea that she could and should have her own private life was so alarming to him that he hastened to drive it away. This was the abyss he was afraid of peering into. Putting himself into the thoughts and feelings of another person was a mental activity alien to Alexey Alexandrovich.” (ibid.) 

This is brilliant, utterly brilliant. Reading Tolstoy makes me, upon putting down the book, notice things and see people differently. 

3/ Here is something I didn’t notice or didn’t remember last time—the scene where Karenin confronts Anna for the first time: 

“She looked at him so ingenuously and merrily that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her would have been unable to notice anything unnatural, either in the sound or the meaning of her words. But it meant a great deal to him, knowing her as he did—knowing that she would always notice whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual and ask the reason why, knowing that she would immediately share with him all her joys, amusements, and sorrows—to see now that she did not want to notice his state of mind, or say a single word about herself. He saw that the recesses of her soul, which had been open to him before, were now closed to him.” (P.2, ch.9) 

Does this mean that they have an “acceptable”, albeit passionless, marriage? Or is it merely Karenin’s illusion? 

4/ One of the things I’ve always loved in Tolstoy’s works is the joy of life: 

“…right on Thomas Sunday, in the evening, the fog lifted, the clouds dispersed into fleecy wisps, the sky cleared, and real spring arrived. The following morning a bright sun rose and quickly devoured the thin layer of ice coating the waters, and everywhere the warm air shimmered as it was suffused with the steam rising from the worn earth.” (P.2, ch.12) 

And:

“If Levin was happy in the cattle-pens and in the farmyard, he became happier still in the open country. Swaying rhythmically along with the ambling pace of his trusty little horse, drinking in the warm, fresh scent of the snow and air as he rode through the wood, over soft, fast-disappearing snow that was covered with tracks, he rejoiced in every one of his trees, with their swelling buds and the moss reviving on their bark.” (P.2, ch.13) 

I love the way Tolstoy always conveys an exuberance, a sheer joy for life. I love that he loves life, in spite of everything. 

5/ A few times in the novel, when Anna’s on the train back to St Petersburg, or when Levin’s sitting at home reading a book about heat and getting distracted by other thoughts, Tolstoy uses a technique like stream of consciousness, as the characters’ thoughts get muddled and jump from one thing to another. War and Peace and Anna Karenina make most novels before them and around the same time as them feel old-fashioned and constrained by convention; so far I haven’t read anything modern that have that effect on Tolstoy’s novels, but perhaps we’ll see, I still have to read Joyce and Proust. 

It’s not only about techniques, however—Tolstoy’s greatness mainly lies in his understanding of human nature and human behaviour. At this, I think Shakespeare and Tolstoy are far ahead of everyone else. 

Take the sequence in Part 2 when Oblonsky comes to visit Levin in the country. Over the past months, Levin has been trying to bury his memories of Kitty after the rejection. Oblonsky, jovial and tactful, doesn’t mention her name; they eat and talk and go hunting together; Levin also doesn’t ask about her. At some point, they talk about country life and Oblonsky says Levin is a lucky man.

“‘Maybe it’s because I enjoy what I have, and don’t grieve over what I don’t have,’ said Levin, remembering Kitty.

Stepan Arkadyich understood and cast a glance at him, but said nothing.

Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing with his usual tact that he was reluctant to talk about the Shcherbatskys, and for not saying anything about them; but Levin did now want to find out about the matter tormenting him, except he did not have the courage to raise the subject.” (P.2, ch.14)

Levin asks his friend how things are going, they talk about Oblonsky, then return to hunting and talking about birds. They have a great time together, catching a few woodcocks, it gradually gets dark and they start heading home.  

“They were now standing about fifteen paces from one another. ‘Stiva!’ said Levin suddenly out of the blue. ‘How come you won’t tell me whether your sister-in-law has got married yet, or when she will be?’

Levin felt so secure and calm that he thought no answer could possibly upset him. But he certainly did not expect what Stepan Arkadyich said in reply.” (P.2, ch.15) 

Levin is shocked to learn that Kitty is very ill and sent abroad, and that everyone fears for her life. Another writer would probably continue with the conversation and let Oblonsky tell more about Kitty’s suffering, but Tolstoy doesn’t: the 2 men suddenly hear a shrill whistle and both seize their guns and shoot at the bird. Later on the way home, they talk more about Kitty:

“…although he would have been ashamed to admit it, he was pleased by what he found out. He was pleased that there was still hope, and even more pleased that the person who had made him suffer so much was suffering herself. But when Stepan Arkadyich began to discuss the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin cut him short…” (P.2, ch.16) 

Tolstoy’s characters feel so real, so relatable because they have conflicted feelings and sometimes have ugly feelings, as we all do. They also feel so real because they do things they themselves don’t understand. Here Levin cuts Oblonsky short, saying that he has no interest, and starts asking about the wood that Oblonsky has come to the country to sell. The story now moves onto Oblonsky’s bad deal with Ryabinin about the wood, Levin’s argument and intervention, etc. Levin is in bad mood for a while because of the stupid sale, but underneath the surface, the news of Kitty is gradually having an effect on him. It all seems mundane and ordinary but the chapters are so wonderful because Tolstoy is writing about 2 things happening at the same time: the action on the surface, and the struggle in Levin’s mind. 

“‘It’s wonderful how they make this soap,’ he said, examining and unwrapping a fragrant bar of soap which Agafya Mikhailovna had put out for his guest, but which Oblonsky had not used. ‘Just look, it’s a real work of art.’

‘Yes, everything’s brought to such a state of perfection nowadays,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, with a moist-eyed and blissful yawn. ‘Theatres, for instance, and those entertainment … ah—ah—ah!’ he yawned. ‘Electric light everywhere* … ah—ah—ah!’

‘Yes, electric light,’ said Levin. ‘Yes. Well, where’s Vronsky these days?’ he asked suddenly, putting down the soap.” (P.2, ch.17) 

It’s just brilliant. And that’s where Tolstoy’s power lies: he lets the characters’ lives slowly unfold, and everything happens so naturally that it doesn’t seem to be serving a plot.

6/ The greatest scene in Part 1 is the ball—this is the scene that changes everything for Anna, Vronsky, and Kitty. Tolstoy focuses on Kitty’s perspective, and it is so wonderful that one cannot help wondering how Tolstoy could understand so well the excitement, the hopes, the disappointment, the heartbreak, the pain and humiliation of an 18-year-old girl. 

In Part 2, the greatest scene is the horse race. It is magnificent, Tolstoy’s writing is cinematic—like a montage. He first describes the scene all from Vronsky’s point of view, then switches to Karenin, goes back in time, describes Karenin’s meeting with Anna before the race, then moves to Anna at the race and switches between her watching Vronsky and Karenin watching her. Everything flows in a perfectly natural way. Why do we need film adaptations of Anna Karenina? Tolstoy can create montage and lively scenes like a film, but a film cannot give us access to the characters’ thoughts as Tolstoy does. 

7/ In the chapters of Kitty in Germany, Tolstoy seems to bring some of himself into her characterisation—like the author, Kitty aspires to be good, to forget pleasures and vanity, to do her duties and live for others, only to realise that she cannot do it, as it would only lead to hypocrisy and deceit. Tolstoy is a master because he shows that, through her meetings with Varenka, Kitty gets a glimpse of a very different life and becomes calmer and more mature, but she does not turn into a completely different person. She cannot change who she is. 

I have to continue to see what I think, but right now I seem to like Kitty more than I did last time.