Name: Anna Karenina
Author: Leo Tolstoy
ISBN: 9780198748847

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

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Author Description

At its simplest, Anna Karenina is a love story. It is a portrait of a beautiful and intelligent woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties - to her marriage and to the network of relationships and moral values that bind the society around her. The love affair of Anna and Vronsky is played out alongside the developing romance of Kitty and Levin, and in the character of Levin, closely based on Tolstoy himself, the search for happiness takes on a deeper philosophical significance.One of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Karenina combines penetrating psychological insight with an encyclopedic depiction of Russian life in the 1870s. The novel takes us from high society St Petersburg to the threshing fields on Levin's estate, with unforgettable scenes at a Moscow ballroom, the skating rink, a race course, a railway station. It creates an intricate labyrinth of connections that is profoundly satisfying, and deeply moving.Rosamund Bartlett's translation conveys Tolstoy's precision of meaning and emotional accuracy in an English version that is highly readable and stylistically faithful. Like her acclaimed biography of Tolstoy, it is vivid, nuanced, and compelling.

Menrva's Summary

THE PULSE

Anna Karenina’s illicit affair with Count Vronsky threatens to dismantle her social standing and domestic stability within the rigid structures of 19th-century Russian aristocracy. Anna, a woman of high social status, abandons her marriage and maternal obligations to pursue a passionate connection that isolates her from the moral expectations of her peers. The narrative operates through a dual-plot structure, contrasting Anna’s tragic trajectory with the spiritual and domestic development of Konstantin Levin. The world is defined by the stark divide between the urban artifice of St. Petersburg and Moscow and the agrarian realities of the Russian countryside, all presented through a third-person omniscient perspective that probes the internal lives of its expansive cast.

INSIDE THE PAGES

Dual-narrative structure contrasting urban and rural life
Extensive exploration of 19th-century Russian social mores
Philosophical inquiry into the nature of happiness and faith
Detailed depictions of agricultural labor and estate management
Psychological realism in character motivation and internal monologue
Symbolic use of railway stations and horse racing as narrative markers
Examination of the legal and social constraints on women in marriage
Integration of autobiographical elements through the character of Levin

THE COLLECTIVE ECHO

Readers frequently highlight the novel’s ability to balance intimate character studies with a broad, panoramic view of an entire society. Discussion often centers on the parallel between Anna’s destructive passion and Levin’s search for meaning, which many critics view as the moral anchor of the text. The pacing is noted for its deliberate, methodical progression, allowing for deep immersion into the daily lives and philosophical dilemmas of the protagonists. Scholars and casual readers alike emphasize the precision of Tolstoy’s prose, which captures the nuances of human behavior with clinical accuracy. The work remains a primary subject of debate regarding the intersection of personal desire and social duty.

Page Count:
896

Publication Date:
2016-06-01

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

ISBN-10:
0198748841

ISBN-13:
9780198748847

Romance

Realism

Married People

FICTION Historical

Historical

classic

Russian