Anna Karenina Readalong, 2023

I was in the Footnotes & Tangents W&P group last year and got a tad obsessed.. 🤣

Thank you for the kind words @MotherOfCatBoy.
You've read both threads - that's some dedication right there 💪.
I agree with your comments AK is a tragic and flawed character.

Hello, I came across this thread late but have read and loved W&P and AK so have read both of the read along threads start to finish, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Thank you so much to @StColumbofNavron@DesdamonasHandkerchief and everyone for the content. I will be looking for other readalongs with you in real time!

When I read AK I thought her downfall was partly structural because of society at the time - that definitely plays a part - but also brought on herself. There’s an interesting turning point in the middle of the book where she survives the crisis of childbirth and is forgiven by Karenein and he is even willing to give her a divorce. We don’t often see this in 19thC novels and Tolstoy really explored the So what happens now? She and Vronsky skip off to Italy and it all goes downhill from there. I think there are two reasons - the first, a really serious one, that she never gets over the loss of Seroyzha. The second, because she never develops a stable, secure sense of self from which to build a new life. Vronsky offers her the hospital on his estate to run but she can’t stick to anything. If she had kept her head down, turned herself to an “occupation” and waited, she might eventually have reconciled with her son when he was older, but she spirals into dependence (on Vronsky and morphine). She’s got no spiritual or mental core on which to draw. Hence the contrast with Levin I suppose who does find his way. TLDR it’s not just the patriarchy it’s her character too.

I was not reading along and it's a wonderful book, but I can't help thinking why didn't she give her head a wobble?

Thanks for all the thanks guys.
For those doing it enjoy your Madame Bovary read along.
Hopefully see you on other threads/another read along in the future x

Yes that was definitely a low point of this read (says me who skim-read the last section).

Overall this readalong has been a pleasure, thanks again to @DesdamonasHandkerchief and @StColumbofNavron for facilitating, appreciate it

There was hardly a mention of her in part eight apart from Old Mother Vronsky's spiteful grumbling.

I thought that was quite strange, really! I definitely expected more reaction from our 'main cast' and that was sorely lacking! What did ole Karenin feel? How about her poor little boy? I think more of that sorry of thing and less of Levin navel-gazing would've finished the book of a treat..

Ah okay. Dysfunctional is the wrong word. It wasn't conservative.

‘Is the idea that because Anna and Vronsky came from dysfunctional backgrounds that they couldn't live happy fulfilled lives as adults?’

I think the intro I read was suggesting something like this but I think it was suggesting ‘ambitious’ (possibly in the ‘new money’ sense?) backgrounds rather than what we’d consider ‘dysfunctional’. I didn’t pick up on this at the time.

Hi SanFran! 👋 Good to see you :) We will be moving onto Madame Bovary next.

I felt quite sorry for Vronsky towards the end. I think he tried to get through to Anna as best he could but she shut him out along with everyone else.

Is the idea that because Anna and Vronsky came from dysfunctional backgrounds that they couldn't live happy fulfilled lives as adults? This explains the emphasis on Levin and Kitty at the end of the book as a couple who succeeded in marriage. It felt that Anna's story died with her in death. There was hardly a mention of her in part eight apart from Old Mother Vronsky's spiteful grumbling.

*cocky... not cocktails 😆

I am so sorry... coming in at the end but I did readalong with you all and finished it last night.

What a cracking book - I enjoyed it way more than I expected to and again, to my surprise, preferred it to War & Peace which I loved the first time I read it.

I couldn't believe Anna died - that came out of nowhere, well sort of. I need to scroll back a ways to read all your thoughts on that but for me, I'd kind of had enough of her by then 😳She was jealous and needy and self-absorbed - I really went off her. That said, her life turned out so very different from what she originally hoped for and Vronsky was who he always was - quite shallow, cocktails, self-assured privileged young man. I don't know - their whole relationship deteriorated quite significantly (although I felt really bad for him at the railway station!)

I liked Levin even though he also became a bit self-absorbed towards the end but his life seemed happy - him and Kitty seemed to be a great match and I liked his mad dash through the storm towards the end.

I may have more thoughts but this is just a brain dump between meetings and will pop back on later to see what everyone else thought.

But just to say - I know I've not been very active on this thread but thank you all so much for starting this, keeping it going and I would definitely not have finished this without you all in the background! I know there was talk of picking up one last Tolstoy for the remainder of the year but I may bow out of that... although I am definitely going to 'do' Les Mis next year!

Thanks StColumb, I had missed that about Anna being brought up by an aunt and Vronsky only having his mother. I wonder if I would be more sympathetic to Vronsky on a reread. As it was I was focused on how to divide sympathy between Anna and Karenin for much of the book.

I’ve just gone back and read the introduction of my edition. It says we infer that ‘Vronsky, like Anna herself, has had a family background more worldly and ambitious than affectionate.. in the country he is self-consciously and rather pathetically playing at ‘happy family life’’.

I didn’t pick up on any of that I don’t think, especially about Anna (and Stiva). Though Vronsky’s mother’s callousness is striking later. I don’t remember having much sympathy for Vronsky when they are staying in the country, just a dread that he wasn’t up to following through what he’d started. I didn’t catch the inference that Anna’s background had been lacking, though we don’t meet her parents as we do Kitty’s, or the Rostovs in W&P, where we get a sense of the warmth of those families.

any thoughts?

Joining in with the thanks to StColumb and Desdaemona I enjoyed AK much more than W&P. I found the characters more convincing, particularly the women, & overall the whole novel felt much more nuanced. While Levin was annoying, he was also very realistic.

Interesting that you feel differently about Anna being older & a mother @JamesGiantPledge1 I can't help reading her as someone struggling with her mental health from early in the book - her attempts to remove herself from Vronsky early on (which he frustrates by following her), & a self-destructive spiral into the relationship which feels outside of her control.

I agree that Levin's conversion (and often Levin himself) was rather tiresome, and I was a bit disappointed not to get more resolution on Kitty / Stepan's relationship. But perhaps that's the point, that often in life muddling along in imperfect circumstances is the best we can do, rather than acting in grand gestures.

Lol Piggy...Terrible to get your hopes up there 🤣

I got momentarily excited by the thunderstorm but - alas! - like a disaster episode of Home and Away, no characters actually perished.

To continue the metaphor, what a damp squib.

And I repeat the thanks to OP and des for all their work!

I agree @CornishLizard - I wanted to read how Anna’s death affected those around her and how they rationalised their own part in her story. What I got was Lenin thinking about himself and how to be a good person. However I am so pleased to have read the book again. When I first read it when I was about 19 I was all for Anna but now, 35 years later and a mother myself, I was far more torn. I really enjoyed the feminist slant people raised as well.

I will be Madame Bovary-ing.

I had got a few chapters behind so just caught up. Just to echo the thanks to StColumb and Desdemona - I’ve never previously managed more than a few pages of AK so to have finished it feels like an achievement, and it’s been greatly enriched by the read along. Thanks to everyone for the companionship and insights.

I hope I will come back to both this and W&P but it might be quite some time.

Must admit I’ve skimmed much of part 8. I too was hoping for more about how AK’s death impacted others. All that soul-searching from Levin yet he never seems to think ‘if I don’t care about my wife’s sister’s husband’s sister’s despair and death am I not a monster’. By putting Levin’s section at the end it feels like he’s given top billing over Anna.

looking forward to Bovary’ing with some of you!

It's very satisfying to have reached the end of Anna Karenina. A very big thank you to StColumb and Desdamona for organising this and keeping us on track. The daily chapters and end of part summaries were so useful for place-marking and to think about themes, a lot of which would have gone over my head.

I liked the conclusion and how Levin came to a resolution about the role of God and religion in his life. It seemed reasonable to me. I kept going between liking Levin and finding him annoying, but he was a nuanced character with all his good points and his failings as a human being. I found the Anna/Vronsky/Karenin affair very compelling reading and when I will think of the book, it's part seven with the incredible description of Anna's tortured state of mind that I will remember most and her tragic death. As cassandre has said, when you look at it from a feminist point of view, it's such a powerful statement.

I suppose time will tell if I will go back to read either W+P or AK again.* I'll see! I feel there's always so much more to read but it's also good to back and appreciate it again on subsequent readings. I'm not sure if I can say which of the two books I preferred. I loved the huge canvass of W+P. I thought it was amazing and I even liked the war scenes. I liked Pierre as a character, probably more than Levin. I remember how he went off to have a look at what was going on and bumbled off, and ended up fighting in the war. So Pierre. AK had a more intimate feel, a smaller setting. A bit more to do with domesticity and marriage and affairs of the heart, societal conventions and pressure to conform. Both were good anyhow and I'm glad to have read them. Thanks to everyone for the company, chat and insights! See some of you for Madame Bovary! *

Yes, thanks StColumb for organising and Desdemona for the summaries. I would never have got through it without this readalong. I’ve enjoyed this a bit more than War and Peace but can’t say I’m likely to ever reread either of them! Pleased I have read them though. I’m also giving Madame Bovary a miss but might see you all on a future readalong.

Thank you @StColumbofNavron for organising this and @DesdamonasHandkerchief for posting the summaries - they've been really useful for keeping me on track.

I like the analysis of part 8, especially the comments about the various marriages / relationships in the book and why they are flawed or successful, and the bit about the "incredible appeal of Anna as a character". But I'm disappointed we didn't return to Karenin in part 8, as I'd have been interested to find out how he reacted to Anna's death. Did he feel any guilt? Probably not - just as Vronsky didn't.