Date Finished: 17/01/2013
My Rating: 3.5/5
Anna Karenina is, perhaps, a surprisingly easy book to read. Full of rich characters, lovely descriptions of life and society, perhaps a little too much about progressive farming techniques, a love story... basically everything you need from a good book.
My problem with it is this: Anna Karenina is a complete knob. Admittedly, part of this is due to the time the book was both set and written, but she starts off by persuading her sister-in-law to stay with the cheating, lying (and annoyingly likeable) husband and not walk out on their loveless marriage. This pissed me off right from the start!
Anyway, Anna embarks on an affair with Vronsky, leaves her long-suffering husband, and then spends the rest of the book moaning about not being accepted in society, and how lonely she is, and being jealous of Vronsky and making his life difficult, inventing arguments, and missing her son, and not really liking her daughter, and generally being pathetic. Now, I'm not saying that my problem is entirely due to her having an affair in the first place. As far as I can tell, her marriage to Karenin was not due to passionate love or anything. I just wish she'd been a stronger character, and thought to herself "I made this decision, I knew it was going to be difficult, I'm going to make the best I can out of it". Maybe if she'd held her head high, sorted out the divorce and not been a dick about the whole thing then she would have been more deserving of the eponymous role.
Quite frankly, I think she deserved everything she got.
As an aside, the love story I liked is not the one between Anna and Vronsky, her lover. I couldn't care less about either of them. It is the one between Kitty and Levin. That one is nice.
So, who should read this book? Despite me not liking Anna, I think this is an important book to read if you like classic novels. It's got bits of interest around politics, lifestyle and whatnot.
Next book: The Stand, Stephen King
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