Tolstoy

As with the idea that you are either an Austen or a Bronte fan, so goes the idea with the great Russian authors of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. With his epic nature and Victorian-era sensibility, I fall in the Tolstoy camp.

Anna Karenina is a mammoth novel, one not to be picked up by the casual reader. While its title suggests that Anna Karenina is the main character, she is only one half of the book's focus with Levin the other protagonist seeking to figure out his life, romantic inclinations, and past in a classified, judgmental Russia. His part can sometimes be boring - a lot of info regarding agricultural in nineteenth century Russia - but he brings forth a juxtaposition to the upper-class societal world Anna populates. Back to Anna, she is married to a boring man with a young son when she falls in love with Vronsky, a seductive military man. Her decisions regarding her child, her husband, and her lover become the dramatic parts of the text, leading to the train motif that occurs at the beginning and end of the novel. When I used to teach characterization, I would use the first train chapter as an example and would analogize these characters to volcanoes: most maintaining dormancy to stay in societal favor while some would erupt, causing mass chaos.

I first read Anna Karenina as an independent novel analysis during my second semester of college. I chose it because the movie version was coming out (there is a theme to why I read stuff). I remember reading the book for the first time in April, sitting under the crab apple tree blooming with its pretty pink petals and looking up to see a pure blue sky above. At (almost) nineteen reading about Anna and her want of love and freedom, I completely rooted for her and wanted her to dump her husband and all. The last time I read the novel, in my late thirties, I couldn't believe the selfishness of a mother choosing lust over her child. Perhaps that is what great literature should be - something that changes just as we do over the course of our lives.

Anna Karenina is my third favorite novel, so I highly recommend it to those of you who are ready for epic Russian literature. If you're not ready for that commitment yet, at least you know the gist of the plot and, if you show up to a Scholar Quiz practice, can appreciate the "Chug a Chug a Choo Choo" that the team does whenever a question arises about the novel.

I also find a modern version of the novel, What Ever Happened to Anna K by Irina Reyn, a fascinating update to the same situation. It's not as long and developed as the Russian text it emulates, but it brings all of the same choices to light.