Book Review: Anna Karenina

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

10/10

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is the best book that I have read up until this point. What Leo Tolstoy did here was absolute genius. This is what I would call a writer’s book meaning that its level of writing is the type that most writers aspire to and definitely appreciate. Anna Karenina is a beautifully tragic story. It is a warning story with similar warning as Shakespeare’s, “Romeo and Juliet.”

My first introduction to Tolstoy was with War and Peace, which I had finished immediately before starting this one. I loved War and Peace and just for that story, Tolstoy could be considered the greatest writer of all time, but with Anna Karenina, he far exceeds himself as a writer and really shows the full potential to what fiction can be and achieve.

The story is tragic and mesmerizing. It blows my mind that this was written at the height of the Victorian Era when most provocative literature topics that Tolstoy tackled with grace and even ease such as taboo subjects of sex, marital infidelity, divorce, atheism, and suicide were being shunned and the authors that were daring enough to write about such things, and if they were usually did so under a pseudonym. Perhaps, Russia was different. It was still tied to France and to Europe, but apparently was not as influenced by the rest of the era, and that is a great thing.

I think one of the sub-subjects that I learned most about with Tolstoy’s writing of Anna Karenina was Russian serfdom, which the author goes into great detail about. The subject is very interesting because the reader can quickly see why Communism and Socialist ideals caught on so strongly not very long after with Lenin and eventually Stalin. The book gives a real historical window into pre-revolutionary Russia in a very rare and insightful way. The character Levin to whom it is rumored that Tolstoy based on himself talks a great deal about the politics of the day especially whether or not that the peasants were ready to be educated or if it would be wiser to keep them in their ignorance. I found these insights absolutely fascinating.

Tolstoy also breached other topics that are important for our day such as marital infidelity. A lot of lessons can be learned from this story. As I mentioned earlier, this story has shades of Romeo and Juliet in it. Tolstoy even though he criticizes the social norms of his day in Anna Karenina, he also states pretty clearly, “don’t be like this or you might end up the same way as Anna.”

The book is the most well-written story that I’ve read. Many people loved the Levin part of the story. His was a story of self-discovery, redemption, and of finding and accepting faith. I found it nice, but it was Anna’s story of unbridled passion and her utter unraveling both mentally and emotionally that I found the most powerful and captivating. I loved how much Tolstoy captured the minute details of her personality such as her obsession, paranoia, and absolute pettiness towards Vronsky. Never have I seen a character better portrayed than Anna Karenina.

This is such an amazing story from page one until the last one. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read this gem of a book.