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Anna Karenina

4K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  Mr The Other 
#1 ·
I recently reread Tolstoy's best, and it shook me in a way I REALLY did not expect it to. I was touched in a way that I didn't at all feel when I first read it at 16. Now, if you've not read it and are planning to, spoiler alert.

The book is about a wealthy noblewoman in pre-revolutionary Russia who is married to a Mr. Karenin. She falls in love with another man, Count Vronsky, and has an ongoing affair with him. Eventually she moves away from Karenin and their home to elope with Vronsky, but the fact that she cannot legally remarry and the immense subconscious shame she feels leads her into paranoia that Vronsky is cheating on her. That paranoia drives her to suicide. There are other side-stories intertwined with it, but that's the gist of the parts I consider worth retelling.

The first time I read the book, I felt awful for Anna and for Vronsky. It was clear to me that Karenin was a heartless robot who never cared for Anna, that Vronsky was the one who truly loved her for her soul, and if only she weren't so paranoid, she could have been happy with him.

Now, as a wayward wife myself, I see things differently. I see so much of my husband in Anna's husband Karenin. They are both very reserved, and inwardly- I think- very loving. I may have been reading into things too much and seeing what wasn't there, but it seemed to me, upon rereading the book, that Karenin, despite his outward coldness, is truly tender towards Anna. For example, when she nearly dies having her lover's baby and her husband promises to forgive her and reconcile. This time, the one I felt most sorry for was not Anna, but Karenin. He truly seemed to love her, and to want only the best for her, and to be willing to surrender every scrap of pride he had for her sake, in spite of his rational, cold demeanor.

Has anyone else read Anna Karenina or any other book (or seen a movie, TV show, etc.) and found it had an entirly different meaning to you post-A as it had done pre-A?
 
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#2 ·
The majesty of the book was that it was possible to be sympathetic to Karenina. Vronsky was easily manipulated, she gave up her children, but the stifling atmosphere was easy to comprehend. Karenin has a very rigid idea of how things should be, which means he is willing to take her back, but it is more attachment to things being proper. I confess, coming back to Tolstoy and find he suddenly seems rather naive to my jaundiced middle aged eyes, whereas Dostoevsky seems fresh still.
 
#3 ·
Of course I still felt very sorry for Anna, but I felt worse somehow for Karenin, in a way that I would not have expected to. Again, I could have read too much between the lines, but Karenin was within his rights to grant his wife the divorce and let her move on. Nobody would have shamed him, even back then I don't think, for that choice. But he chose his wife, as much as he possibly could choose her being that she was in love with someone else and all.

Naive? How do you mean?
 
#7 ·
Thanks for this Ella. After forcing myself to endure Dr Zhivago and slogging through Ayn Rand's torturous novels with their twisted take on 'romantic' relationships, I've never been able to bring myself to the Tolstoy/Dostoevsky trough.

I might have to do it now just to see how they stand against the reality that is brutal Russian pragmatism.
 
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#9 ·
Old Wuthering Heights. The most romantic man ever Heathcliffe!!! What about his poor destroyed wife? Cathy - She was truly a prize too!!

I'm being mean. I know the self destruction is far clearer in the book but most are taking about the film. It always annoys me when certain actors (Depp) consider themselves romantics & compare themselves to heathcliffe!! Even more annoying when my ex (of nearly 30 years!) uses it as an excuse to stalk me.
 
#11 ·
I'd say that they actually glorify angst ... but if you want angst, then affairs are always on special in aisle 2. No easier way to create it. ;)
 
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