A review by samants
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A collection of thoughts:
  • HUGE TW for suicidal ideation. 3 characters contemplate and/or attempt it, and you get really into the minds of two of them. Consider yourself warned.
  • Rich people being messy!
  • I don't think the book is actually about Anna Karenina. It's really about Levin, who is an author self-insert, and kind of an annoying one at that. He's prone to jealousy, emotionally erratic, and self-pitying to an extreme. I don't mind an annoying main character, but it feels a bit bait-and-switch for this to be called Anna Karenina.
  • The characters are incredibly full of life and fun to read about. I can see why people say this is a masterpiece; Tolstoy captures the nuances of human relationships, societal mores, and day-to-day living stunningly. The characters felt so alive and just very human. People in late 1800s Russia: they're just like us! A mark of how well-done this was is how I have thoughts about each and every character (but I will only give some of my thoughts here).
    • Stiva was such a shitty husband but sooooo fun to read about. So charming and fun and funny. Terrible husband and father. Great friend to party with.
    • Anna was such a flawed person, seeking happiness but going about it in the worst way possible. So messy and toxic but you really feel for her when
      she is snubbed in St Petersburg
      .
    • Poor Dolly. She should never have
      listened to Anna
      .
    • I felt so bad for Seryozha. He did nothing wrong and has a really rough go of it. I hope he and
      Annie
      made it out of everything ok.
    • RIP
      Frou-Frou. Terrible name that made me laugh aloud.
  • I don't have any experience with suicidal ideation, but
    Anna's unspooling at the end of her life felt very frantic and genuine. You could feel her panic and I found it very affecting.
  • The philosophical and economic essays in the book were sort of interesting but made it a bit slow at times. Honestly, it made me kind of want to read a book or take a course about Russian history, which is overall a positive review of the book, I guess, but it really did slow everything down. I want to read an essay about Anna Karenina and the Russian Revolution.
  • Unexpected queer representation: Countess Lidia Ivanovna is canonically bisexual (like, literally written in the text) and Kitty is almost certainly bi as well (she becomes infatuated with both Varenka and Anna). Slay
  • Anna
    kills herself
    and there are still 19 chapters left in the book. It's kind of a weird denouement and really makes it feel like the book is two different novels put together. I didn't mind Levin's story, but his
    finding God/spirituality
    was a bit of a letdown after the breathless last chapter of Part 7.
  • Lastly, I think one of the biggest complaints people have about Russian literature is the number of names, which is honestly fair because the cast of this book is massive. However, if you take the time to understand the Russian naming system (given name, patronymic, family name, nickname(s)) it gets much easier. Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky is usually referred to as one of: Stepan, Stiva, Stepan Arkadyevitch, and Oblonsky. Maybe I'm just Filipino and used to nicknames, but to me this makes complete sense.
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