Anna Karenina

There are certain works that are redeemed as masterpieces. Everyone knows that they are, but often it is the case that few have actually read them. Now of course i am talking in the world of literacy (books) in which certain names hold a lot of power; Tolstoy is one of them.

I knew very little about the man, but had heard many references to his works over the years - surely there must be something there. So, i finally decided that enough was enough and i will give the old Russian master a whirl.

I picked out the book from a number of other classics from a bookshelf at a friends house. It happened to be the second fattest book there to my joy - War and Peace, another Tolstoy book (i'm not going to say novel, as he himself considered it as something more than that), so i lay in a shed that evening after a relatively tame internal soaking of paraffin-esque liquids attempting to start this redeemed masterpiece.

The book is about social interactions between certain well off households in Moscow and St Petersburg. There are perhaps 4 main main charcters involved: Kitty, Anna Karenin, Levin, and Vronsky. However, there are many others which could be considered main characters, but to me these were the ones that the story focuses mostly on. To save myself the embarrassing task of summarizing i am dropping in the summary from Wikipedia:

Anna Karenina is the tragedy of married aristocrat and socialite Anna Karenina and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing – something that prefigures her own later situation, though with less tolerance for her by others.

A bachelor, Vronsky is willing to marry her if she would agree to leave her husband Karenin, a government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, her own insecurities and Karenin's indecision. Although Vronsky eventually takes Anna to Europe where they can be together, they have trouble making friends. She is shunned, becoming further isolated and anxious. Despite Vronsky's reassurances she grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his imagined infidelity, fears losing control and eventually takes her own life.

A parallel story within the novel is of Levin, a country landowner who desires to marry Kitty, sister to Dolly and sister-in-law to Anna's brother Oblonsky. Levin has to propose twice before Kitty accepts. The novel details Levin's difficulties managing his estate, his eventual marriage, and personal issues, until the birth of Levin's first child.

I always find that the first chapter or two of a book are a chore - at this stage i have no connections with any of the characters/plot etc... It takes a wee while to engage with the dynamic of the story unfolding. In the case of Tolstoy i have to confess that yes, it took a bit of time identifying with the characters etc from the immediate start, but relatively i was more gripped than most from the start. The way he writes is that everything mentioned is to be focused intently on, and he will spend the next four chapters or so at least to make sure that the thing described has been properly engaged. But it is no means a burden to read about the nature of farming, on the philosophy of politics or the ideas involved in life and death - these things are what makes the book.

What i loved most about the book is the descriptive tongue it uses to illiterate the situation in such vivid detail. It wasn't just stated the setting, and the time of day and what they characters were wearing. But rather it would tell of the smells from the recent pasture, the crisp air from the coming winter, the rough hedges from abandonment due to short staff, the thoughts of what is going through the minds of those present etc... Obviously my descriptions of Tolstoy's descriptions are severely inadequate, so i will say that it paints a world in so many rich colours, at times its almost blinding.

I have never come across a fictional piece of work which has so much content before! - i laughed and cried during the reading of it. It was a world brought to life, and a world i wished to be part of. There was so much intelligence within the writing and the characters, the read therefore became a learning experience as well as a great story. Truly though the story came alive though with the characters. It was a psychological feast of immense presence. The subtlest motions carried weight, and the way the characters interacted was not only masterfully and poetically penned, but it made perfect sense. We were brought into the minds of the characters and indeed Tolstoy.

Tolstoy considered himself to be most like Levin; an awkward kind of man who is lost within the social realm and struggles with himself day in and day out, but is clearly a capable and astute figure. I associated myself with this character most too - he does consider himself a lone soul in a world of moving objects, a world which baffles him and depresses him. I come across this in my day to day life too - it's hard to place yourself in a world which doesn't entail purpose. To find no path is laid before you and all that is certain is death - these are troublesome thoughts, and these are some of the thoughts which Levin engages with during the novel. The last few chapters, after the demise of Anna, Tolstoy deals with some epistemology questions (as he had done so throughout the whole thing), the only difference is that these questions come at last to some consoling maturity

I use the word maturity for i consider the obsessiveness of pursuit in these questions is detrimental (for long periods of time that is). It is an adolescents hope for answers where no answers can be given. To ask the question of 'what is the meaning of life?' is to not even ask a question - it is a non-question. How can one know the meaning of it all? - to have an answer or meaning to that of life is to in fact restrict it, and would place it in a quantifiable box, thus defeating its purpose with irony. There is no one purpose, only individual purpose found with each of ourselves - we decide what we are to do. That doesn't mean to say that we should not seek truth - but you can only find truth in what has passed, and so, we should seek truth in our origins (history) to determine our futures. Only a faith in something beyond the empirical can give us comfort in our futures. I do not have faith, and don't think i ever will. The problem is, is that i have too many doubts; doubts about where i come from, who i am and where i may be going. Religion is not built on the supply of questions, but the fulfillment of answers. It is the comfort blanket to give people some sort of life guide, as well as supply hope for what happens when we do in fact die - afterlife, resurrection, reincarnation etc... These are fantastic in the sense that they are so motivated towards hope, but the problem for me is clear - and that is faith. The thing is, it is like a loop - to have faith, you need faith. So how does one get faith??

Anyway, i started rambling, and really this should be split into several topics, i have skimmed the very vernacular surface of all of this, and where has it got me? Nowhere.

Starting to read that massive block of pages 'war and peace' now! - Being a slow reader, this will be all together a long stretch of time to take me to the end. I'm sure it will be an amazing journey though...