Anna Karenina is the first book I have read by Leo Tolstoy and I must bow down to the quality of his work. I amnoone to say it but the descriptive powers of Tolstoy and his keen observations are laudable. His stuff is that of geniuses. The story which he has chosen to depict covers vast range of human emotions and much about the Russian society.
It is mainly based on two major views of relationships, one that of extra marital and that of marital. Whereas Levin finds happiness in the married life that he thought he would never have, Anna Karenina finds the way to love with his beloved Vronsky but is never calmed in her mind and is forever tormented by the pangs of guilt and shame and abandon of the society which she one ruled. The author paints a beautiful picture of the Russian high society when there was monarchy in Russia. The gestures and the conducts and everything is so beautifully explained that one can clearly create a picture in his/her mind. The relationships are realistic and some situations very poignant. He ends his moving tale with a tragedy and so fittingly because there could have been no other ending for the lady Karenina, conflicted as she was between the real desires of her heart and the obligations that she had to fulfill for being called respectable in the society. It is a penetrating view on the pressure that the society exerts on one’s conducts, that how we are often driven by the concerns that others would express without listening to what we really want. Then Tolstoy also gives the angle of a view from a woman who is married but is not exactly fitted into the arrangement. How she has to kill her soul to be present for things she doesnt want to be in, how she has to endure every condemnation of the world if her heart desires that which is not acceptable according to certain rules. The way in which the novel is very touching. The depiction of conflict is amazing in Vronsky as in Anna. The love which is so passionate and which sometimes becomes burdening also is so close to life. The progress and the meanderings which are shown in the becoming and culmination of love evoke a respect for the author who has so finely understood it.
The whole book while being as thick it is, is surprisingly very engrossing. I believe, more so because for the first time I was reading about the history and culture of Russia, which I had till now always imagined as the communist empire and a sordid country where there is always snow and misery. But this book has changed it. I particularly was made happy to find their system of naming women and men, that adding of -ova or -aya – or ina to the surname of the father or the husband to form the name of the girl.
A reading I really relished and enjoyed while taking all my time to read it. I have bought and started with War and Peace too, which I think will find the same interest by me.
As I like it 