Hello Bookworms,
Today I have a review of the longest book I read this year: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
Summary
Anna
Karenina is unhappy. After eight years, her marriage isn’t all that she hoped
it would be. She has a son, Serezha, that she loves dearly, and Karenin, her
husband, isn’t mean to her…he’s just distant. She’s not in a “bad” marriage,
but she seems to be in a loveless marriage.
Kitty
Scherbatskaya is old enough to get married but her mother and father are
divided as to whom she should marry. Her mother favors a military man. Her
father favors an older man, a gentleman farmer, humble and kind.
Constantine
Levin is an over thinker. Everything in his life he decides on with too much
thought including matters of the heart. He desperately wants to get married and
he’s sure that if that is ever to happen, it will be to the one woman that
occupies his mind. He longs to marry her and bring her to his farm and make a
life together…if only he had the courage to ask….
Vronsky is
a military man and a bachelor. And now he has fallen for a married woman after
meeting her on a train by chance. How will he deal with this new found
affection…a married woman is out of the question…what will society think? Or
does Vronsky care?
These four people are about to be intertwined in ways that none
of them ever imagined was possible.
Review
I do not understand why
this book ended up being called Anna Karenina. Honestly, after having read it,
I am convinced that it would have been smarter to call it Constantine Levin.
The story is, in volume, so much more about Constantine than anyone else in
this book. And frankly, I find it easier to make Constantine the hero of this
book that it is to make Anna the heroine. Anna is NOT heroine material. I feel
sorry for her sometimes, but I definitely was not rooting for her. In fact, I
found myself rooting for almost all of the other characters in the book before
her. So many people suffered because of her!
Overall I
would say that because it is a classic, some people may want to read this book
just for the experience of read THE Anna Karenina, however, I would only
recommend that, if anyone is determined to read this book, they be a mature
adult because of the long standing theme of extra-marital affairs (no, there’s
no sex scenes). It’s not exactly a book that most parents would want their
young one reading.
I usually
do not like to recommend that someone read an abridged version of a classic
book because, in many cases, so much is missed when the book is abridged.
However, after reading all 963 pages of Anna Karenina I would HIGHLY recommend
buying an abridged version. There are whole chapters that have nothing to do
with the actual plot of the book. Now, I am by no means saying that every book
be no more than three hundred pages and all related to the storyline. That
would be boring. What I am saying is that several detailed chapters on the
word-for-word conversations about the specifics of Russian farming and the
different political views surrounding it and the economics behind it is not
exactly something you expect to read in a fiction story about the woes of an
unhappy gentlewoman and housewife. And yes. It is about as exciting as it
sounds.
Aside from
the details that are highly unnecessary, there are plenty of interesting twists
and turns in the book and I think that the abridged version will bring those
events closer together in the timeline of the story and make the story move
forward more smoothly.
So what am
I saying here? Am I recommending the book or not? Truly, I’m not. But if you
are bound and determined to read it, do consider getting the abridged version.
Photo