❤️ loved this book because...
This was the third time I read Anna Karenina, and once again I was blown away! Legend has it that Tolstoy started out writing the novel as a cautionary tale against adultery, but ended up falling love with Anna. Certainly she is a compelling and sympathetic character, and her ill-fated romance with Count Vronsky is vividly portrayed. Reading the novel this time around led me to be even more upset about the way that she has no option once she has thrown her lot with him. I won't tell you what happens, because that might spoil the intrigue for you.
And the novel also contains far more--an implicit critique of the weak attempts of reform in Russian society, depiction of Tolstoy's search for the way to live an upright life, and its brilliant first sentence: All families are alike, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. That alone is enough to keep you thinking for days.
As for the writing style: some translations are better than others, but the details Tolstoy chooses to describe his characters and their actions shine through all of them. One of my favourites is the way Tolstoy portrays Vronsky's teeth--always beautiful and white until the end after he has "ruined" Anna when he is wracked by toothache.
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Loved Most
🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Immersion -
Writing style
❤️ Loved it -
Pace
🐕 Good, steady pace
14 authors picked Anna Karenina as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
In 1872 the mistress of a neighbouring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy's home. This gave Tolstoy the starting point he needed for composing what many believe to be the greatest novel ever written.
In writing Anna Karenina he moved away from the vast historical sweep of War and Peace to tell, with extraordinary understanding, the story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself. Anna's tragedy is interwoven with not only the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin but also the lives of many other characters. Rich in incident, powerful in characterization,…