Ana Karenina

Just because you can take 800 pages to say something about the human condition doesn't mean you should.I'd rather be reading Chekhov.

Lo escuché a 0,8 porque iba muy rápido para mi gusto. Por lo demás muy bien.

Tolstoy's War and Peace is one of my favorite books. Many of the reviews I have read rates Anna Karenina as a superior book. I could not disagree more. I very much appreciate Tolstoy's ability to create unique characters and to invite the reader into the minds and emotions of them. I found that I enjoyed the ups and downs of the multiple stories within the novel. However, I found that this novel did not truly have a plot. Through over 1100 pages, I never once remember thinking, "I can't wait to see what happens next!" The novel just plods along as a study of relationships. Another problem I had was that I had a hard time liking the main character of Anna Karenina. I didn't appreciate her actions, and struggled with the end of her story. Perhaps that was more of my life issues than her's, but either way, it soured the story for me.

Tolstoy’s greatest novel, what some deem the greatest novel ever written, seems to ‘proceed as plotlessly and accidentally as life itself’ (E. B. Greenwood, Introduction to Anna Karenina, p. xii). Tolstoy contrasts two people of different character and temperament both of whom we squirm, flinch and weep in response to their actions. Anna lives for her own needs, passions and freedom. Levin lives for the good of others and his soul. In this way Anna and her affair with Vronsky depicts so outstandingly what modern philosophers call expressive individualism, where being true to our authentic self by expressing our deepest desires and acting on them is heroic. The Tolstoy critic Andrew Kaufman says in an interview that the 1860s were a time of great transition in Russia whereby the more traditional value system was being replaced by a new value systems. Tolstoy watched his friends and family members were getting divorced at alarming numbers. And this concerned him because in his view, the family is one of the key social units. And when families fall apart, he believed societies begin to fall apart. This is a central theme in Anna Karenina. Tolstoy heard people saying, "maybe marriage isn't the be all and end all of life. Maybe even if you do get married, not having kids might lead to a greater happiness." And, and of course, this is something that's very much echoed in today's world. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy shows that the problem with these arguments is that they come from a false set of assumptions: This idea that more freedom means more fulfillment, that the gratification of one's personal desires, leads to more happiness. Tolstoy came to the opposite conclusion; that in many cases, less freedom can lead to a more abiding happiness because it forces us to make choices to make hard choices, and to commit to those choices with the fullness of our being. And family life is the ultimate embodiment of making those kinds of choices, of limiting our freedom for the sake of love. And so it is the characters who embrace the duties, the pain, the vulnerability of family life—of fatherhood, motherhood, being a son, being a daughter—those are often the characters who in the end, end up achieving the deepest kind of fulfillment.Kaufman gives an example from Tolstoy's own life. While writing War and Peace, he used a very interesting metaphor to describe what he was like before he got married, and what he's like now. It was the metaphor of an apple tree that he described himself as. An apple tree, that once sprouted in all different directions. But 'now, that it’s trimmed, tied, and supported, its trunk and roots can grow without hindrance.' It's a very powerful image. At the heart of it is this idea that sometimes limits are what allow us to grow more fully. And limits are actually what allow us to realise our fullest human potential.So according to Tolstoy a life like Anna's, which looks so romantic and promising, usually ends in tragedy. The reversal of fortunes is shown when Anna and Kitty are contrasted by Dolly (Kitty's sister): “‘How happily it turned out for Kitty that Anna came,’ said Dolly, ‘and how unhappily for her! The exact reverse,’ she added, struck by her thought. ‘Then Anna was so happy and Kitty considered herself miserable. Now it’s the exact reverse.’” (p. 551)Anna becomes a slave to her love/lust for Vronsky and finds herself trapped without access to her son, with excessively jealous of Vronksy, and unable to live without his enmeshed love.Tolstoy contrasts Anna's persist of freedom to desire what she wants to Levin's. Upon his engagement to Kitty, Levin's brother and friends question him about the loss of freedom he will experience when he is married. Levin replies, “‘What is the good of freedom? Happiness consists only in loving and desiring: in wishing her wishes and in thinking her thoughts, which means having no freedom whatever; that is happiness!’” (p. 442). Levin’s desire is not possessive self serving eros (like Anna’s), but generous other-centred agape. The result is that while Levin’s life is not easy, although there is doubt and jealousy and fear and conflict, there nevertheless is true freedom, fulfilment and happiness. He is not enslaved but a servant of love and goodness. I found the book long and tedious at points but I suppose that is because Tolstoy so wants us to “love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations”. He packs in so much of life into the 806 pages, not just in the grand moments but also in the ordinary ones. The result is that you end up on a journey through 19th century Russia, a place and time I have now lived vicariously through. But Tolstoy also takes you on a journey to the very heart of human experience. The plot changes don’t come quickly. Instead Tolstoy spends significant time taking you into the mind and heart of all these different kinds of characters: nobels and peasants, philosophers and farmers, men and women, the promiscuous and duty-bound. Tolstoy draws you in to empathise with all these as you realise you share their same hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, temptations and regrets. The conversions of Karenin, Anna and Levin all demand attention. I am not sure Tolstoy ever really grasps the nature of the gospel of grace. He comes close at points but never really gets there. The closest we get is Karenin’s forgiveness of Anna, Anna’s cry for forgiveness at her death, and Levin’s humble recognition of the gift and goodness of life.I think this novel is like the book of Ecclesiastes: it teaches us about life under the sun and concludes that the meaning of life is “to live for God, to the soul” (p. 785). or as Solomon says, "A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?" (Eccl 2:24–25)Yes this is the meaning of life, but what does that look like? And how is atonement possible when we fail. Tolstoy raises this question superbly, hints at an answer, but in many ways it's still a mystery. For a clear answer we must turn to the Gospels or perhaps to the novels of Dostoevsky who perhaps understood better the gospel of grace.

Esta es sin duda una novela esplendida de ir analizando paso a paso, hasta el inevitable final de Anna Karénina: muere porque no está dispuesta a la falsedad que su medio social le exige, porque no está dispuesta a llevar una doble vida como le ofrece su marido, porque defiende que el amor está primero que cualquier convención, porque cree que debería tener las mismas libertades que los hombres. 

Me acorde de la pelicula, que ví, cuando era niña.

Gran novela este resumen es fluido y muy entretenido, disfrute mucho el audiolibro aunque no empatizara con la protagonista.

¡Epico Dramon! Aunque quién da lectura no es muy expresiva y no logra transmitir las emociones de los personajes la escucha se disfruta.

La historia de la Rusia de esos tiempos y quizás aún ahora.
Toda la trama de esas grandes familias. Nada distinto a lo de hoy.

I can say a lot about Anna Karenina, but I like to keep my reviews short and simple, when I bother to include them at all.

This book has some of the best writing about character's thought lives and how relationships work I've come across. The prose in my translation (Pevear and Volokhonsky) is also excellent. I recommend it very much.

Many segments of this book are among my favorite segments in literature. There are parts I want to remove, but they're quite good too. I simply didn't want to read as much economic philosophy as the book has in it. Levin's thought life, while politically important, was not interesting to _me_. Someone else might love that part of the book.

Me gustó mucho la historia de amor y de desamor.... como suele suceder en la vida real

SPANISH? IM PAYING IN DOLLARS FOR THIS!














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I really enjoyed this book. It was boring only a couple of times, but the short chapters made it easy to read.

Hermosamente narrado! Me encantó escucharlo. Las emociones tan bien plasmadas. Fácil de seguir y sobre todo de empatizar con cada personaje.

No es todo el libro, pero aún es mi favorito

Buena historia, entretenida y bien narrada me gustó el final.

La narración excelente, gracias… La historia, completamente aberrante. Me costo mucho terminar el libro pues está lleno de vanidad, egoísmo, ligereza… cosas que empequeñecen al ser humano… En fin por cultura general, leído esta.

What a struggle, these Russians. A fascinating read if you can get a copy with lots of footnotes, the window it gives into the society of that era is its most redeeming feature. Anna herself is a frustrating protagonist of an almost soap opera mentality, drama after drama. The ending is almost a relief.

I did not expect to like this book. I was expecting a long and drawn-out epic romance, but instead I found treatise upon treatise and plot turns that were both surprising and delightful. The most important aspect of this book is the evolution of its characters. So believable. So symbolic and indicative of Tolstoy's philosophies. Beautiful language spinning out the multitudes of scenic backdrops and the personality drive aspects, both outloud and interior, of all the characters. Anna Karenina is a wonderfully poetic and curiously didactic tale of realism written down through the energies of creation and molded by astute observances of life. More Tolstoy please.

los temas de Tolstoy son interesantes, pero lei poco espero buscar mas obras de este famoso escritor.

La obra no me gustó. Escribir sobre una mujer infiel y un hombre que anda con una mujer casada no fue completamente de mi gusto. Respeto a León Tolstoy, pero no considero está una de sus mejores obras.
Adicionalmente considero que la narrativa es acelerada, pareciera que la narradora quería terminar apresuradamente su diálogo. Muy se prisa y en momentos al no dar la entonación adecuada, se pierde en el escucha, cuál es el personaje que está hablando. Mi sugerencia es que hable despacio para que así pueda dar una mejor entonación a las palabras y pueda uno dar seguimiento a los personajes que ahí aparecen...

Tolstoi tells us the story of three different couples in 19th-century Russia: Stepan Oblonski and his wife Darja, Darja’s sister Kitty and Lewin and finally Anna Karenina, Stepan’s sister, and Alexej Wronski.At the beginning of the novel Anna and Lewin are both on their way to Moskau.Anna wants to help her brother Stepan Oblonski to fix his marriage. He betrayed his wife Darja with the nanny and Anna wants to reconcile the couple – with a short-turn success: Darja decides to stay with her husband but neither she nor Stepan will be totally happy again.Lewin travels to Moskau because he wants to ask Kitty to marry him. But Kitty already fell in love with Alexej Wronski who is courting her, so she turns down Lewin’s offer. She soon regrets it, because on a ball Alexej Wronski falls in love with Anna Karenina who’s married to Alexej Karenin.What now evolves is a fantastically written novel about relationships and loneliness, about marriage, love and adultery.Tolstoi’s great talent is the power of observation: He uncovers the inner life of his protagonists to the very core and presents the two-faced morals of society. Moreover Tolstoi shows how everybody is the architect of his own fortune, e.g.: Although Anna and Wronski love each other, they make their lifes a living hell, because they are too jealous and insecure – and they think too much about it. Or when Lewin is married to Kitty, he’s actually looking for things that are not to his taste. He can’t just enjoy his luck, but he has to relativize it.I really liked how everybody gets his/her chapters in which his/her motives are explained. It gave me a balanced picture of the characters – how they see themselves and how they are seen from the others.It’s a great piece of literature : Recommendation!

This is the first review I've ever written of a book that merits "five stars with a caveat."I fell in love with Tolstoy through his short writings first, and then tackled "War and Peace," which is phenomenally brilliant, and then, at age 23, read this. I appreciated it, but it didn't grab me. Eight and a half years later, I've read it again. I feel that I appreciated it more, but it still just doesn't grab me. Like Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," I see the technique in the writing and the complexity of the characterisation, and I marvel at the extent to which a male author can capture female characters' thoughts and try to empower them through their despair. For some reason, though, I just didn't fall in love with either book. I also think it struck me more the second time how much "Part Eight," the prologue that Tolstoy added after the publication of the rest of the book, felt tacked on and contrived. There's not quite the sense of closure that one wants at the end of "Part Seven," but there's not the right kind of closure in "Part Eight," either, and there's something mysteriously beautiful about the way the book could have ended, had he left it alone.I thought about docking this one a star, but reviewed my own criteria for ratings that I established on my profile, which lists a five-star book as one anyone "interested in the subject" should read. And I suppose if you're the right person, "Anna Karenina" meets this standard. So who should read it? If you're interested in Russian and/or 19th century literature, you should read this once. If you're interested in feminism and/or gender equality, you should read this once. If I haven't named you yet, and you like to read the classics for the sake of bettering yourself, but feel that big tomes are a struggle, this might be one I'd suggest you skip. If you only read one Tolstoy, "War and Peace" should obviously be it. (And I can't bear to suggest you stop there, because "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," "The Kreutzer Sonata," and many of his short stories are sublimely lovely and much easier reads). I want to love "Anna," but I must be a Karenin. I just can't see exactly why everyone else in the novel and in the world is so taken with her.

Deberían dejar muy en claro que se trata de una versión abreviada, que además concluye varias páginas antes.

I first read this book when I was 11. A dramatic child? Me? It remains a favorite, and ensures that I'll forever be a champion of Tolstoy.

Sin duda, una obra maestra de la literatura. Me encantó.

Tolstoy writes with such focus and clarity. He is so true to his characters that if the reader has had a similar experience he immediately identifies with Tolstoy’s character. He also tends to moralize throughout his stories, which I find interesting. Not that I agree with his beliefs but it allows you to peer into the soul of a great writer.As the first lines indicate, Anna Karenina is about family. For me, even more than family it was about the choices we make along our individual journeys. The novel is laid out in such a way as to fully realize the depth of each character’s choice as it relates to their individual situation. I readily identified with Levin as he explored his love for Kitty beginning with his initial rejection through to the end of the novel. I enjoyed his little asides as he pontificated on various subjects. I loathed the Anna, Vronsky, and Alexis story. I found myself skimming through their story to get back to Levin and Kitty’s story.

Alright, I may get thrown lettuce and tomatoes for this comment but I did not like this book. Like I said for my previous book, it’s just not my cup of tea. This seems to be a trend for me. Most of the literary classics I read I don’t like all that much. I can’t say why exactly. I must not like life stories all that much. I’m much more into adventure and action I guess. I’m a fantasy fan foremost. And unfortunately I don’t think that will ever change. I do however want to broaden my horizons, which is why I joined the group read in the first place. If I hadn’t be part of the group read and felt a sort of obligation I might not have finished this book. As it was I spent many hours cross-stitching and listening to this book and hoping it would end soon. There is a great deal of patience needed to listen to or read this book. There is tons of detail here. I mean a lot. It’s over a thousand pages. I guess I didn’t mind the plot and the inherent warnings/lessons/however you want to take it, but the amount of time it took to get the story out was very long. It certainly gave me time to get to like the characters. The only problem was, I didn’t much like any of them. Maybe I just couldn’t individually relate to them. I’m young and I grew up in the twenty-first century. My world is very different from the time and setting in this book. I also like strong female protagonists. And for me, Anna was not an independent or very strong woman. I did not understand why she let love and lack of love control her so much. Again this could just be because I’m young but I don’t relate all that well with protagonists who let things like love control their actions. I’ll admit that I don’t know what choices women did have in those days, but I still wished for something different. Anyways, all of this combined made for a book that I couldn’t get into. I’m not sure I could have got through it so quickly if I hadn’t been alternating it with another audio book. But I’m sure that other readers very well may love the book. I on the other hand am glad I finally finished it.

I was pretty excited to read Anna Karenina, given how much I loved War and Peace, and given that people assured me it'd be easier to get into and easier to read faster. Actually, I'm something of a freak, because I found War and Peace easier -- perhaps because I found it more interesting. Anna Karenina still does have a range of themes and characters, but War and Peace just had more of both. Also, there was a lot of history in War and Peace, and not so much in Anna Karenina. I'm not sure why that made me like the former better, since I'm not much for history and especially not Russian history. But there we are. Perhaps it was also that I didn't find the characters quite as compelling -- Levin, yes, but Kitty and Anna and Vronsky, not so much. They're very well written and realistic, particularly Anna herself, but I didn't get wrapped up in them.

In terms of the themes and techniques, Anna Karenina isn't lacking (unless you look only on the surface, and see only a tragic love affair). Some of it didn't hold much interest for me, such as Levin's thoughts on farming, but the contrasts between the city and the country are well done, and the contrast between Anna and Vronsky's relationship and Kitty and Levin's is quite well handled. The motif of the train is quite subtle, something I didn't notice until I read about it on wikipedia, but that was also quite interesting to note once I did realise.

When I say I didn't like Anna Karenina as much, it's not like I hated it. It's more like the difference between four stars on goodreads ("really liked it") and five ("it was amazing").

Una narración muy amena. Lo escuché de principio a fin.