Anna Karenina Readalong, 2023

Bloody hell that lunch would feed me and my family for a week! Is this because it's a special occasion as the two friends haven't seen each other for a while or is this a standard lunch for the posh people in Russia?

I love how Levin persists in making out he is an actual farmer because he has an estate in the country, I bet her never gets his hands dirty. Also he's getting all emotional again. Tears in the restaurant.

Part 1, Chapter 10

•	When Oblonsky and Levin arrive at the restaurant, everyone knows Oblonsky and is happy to see him, wait staff included.

•	The waiter fawns over Oblonsky and Levin, and Oblonsky goes through a complicated process of ordering a huge meal: oysters, vegetable soup, turbot, roast beef, stewed fruit, and lots of alcohol.
•	

Oblonsky orders in plain Russian, without using the fancy French that their waiter normally uses. (French is trendy at the moment, and is used everywhere in high Russian society. The name of the restaurant, Angleterre, means "England" in French.)
•
• The situation is uncomfortable for Levin, who would be fine eating bread and cheese.
• Levin doesn't want to talk about his love for Kitty in a restaurant he doesn't like. He's afraid the bad vibes of the restaurant will give the relationship bad karma.
• Instead, Levin talks about how the city (Moscow) and how the ways people behave in the city make him uncomfortable.

•	Finally the two men start talking, in a roundabout way, about why Levin has come to Moscow.

•	Oblonsky tells Levin that his wife, Dolly, has foresight about marriages, and that she likes Levin. Dolly thinks that Levin will marry Kitty.

•	Levin is excited at this piece of news, but he reveals that he has a terrible inner turmoil. He mentions undisclosed "past sins" and doesn't feel pure enough for a nice girl like Kitty.

Men, misinterpreting women being kind as them being interested since the 1800s**

Definitely agree with this!

However I also found Levin likeable in this chapter and enjoyed the description of the zoological gardens.

I liked Levin in chapter 9, but he seems a lot younger than he is. Kitty's fluctuating mood shows how young she is, too. I enjoyed the skating and the description of the gardens etc

Men, misinterpreting women being kind as them being interested since the 1800s, and probably earlier. Despite this, and the whole Kitty is too young and is not interchangeable with her sisters, I still like Levin and enjoyed the skating too. I had an inward sigh when Stephen turn up though.

Part 1 Chapter 9

•	Levin finds Kitty skating, and is immediately in awe of everyone at the pond who gets to be in the presence of a goddess.
•	Nicholas Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin (not to be confused with Nicholas, Levin's older brother), says hello to Levin, hailing him as a champion skater and telling him to get some skates.
•	Kitty comes over on unsteady skates, and asks Levin a few simple questions. Levin is totally flustered.
•	
•	Kitty compliments him by noting that everyone still talks about him as a champion skater.
•	She suggests that the two of them skate together.
•	Levin goes to rent some skates.
•	Levin and Kitty go skating, and Kitty says that she could learn to be a better skater with Levin, because for some reason she trusts him.
•	Levin replies that he trusts himself when she is with him.
•	But this comment is a little too much for Kitty. She signals "back off" by wrinkling her forehead.
•	Levin asks if she's okay. Kitty says she's fine and asks if Levin has seen Mademoiselle Linon yet.
•	Levin says no, and Kitty tells him to go over and say hello.
•	Levin worries that he's getting annoyed at Kitty, but he goes over and says hello to Mlle. Linon, who is a Frenchwoman and has apparently known Levin and the Shcherbatsky girls for quite some time.
•	Kitty and Levin chat some more, but it's clear that Kitty is being deliberately sweet and friendly—as opposed to being sweet and friendly without thinking about it.
•	She asks if winters are boring in the country. Levin, who continues to be irritated by Kitty's change in attitude, says that it would depend on her.
•	
•	Levin vents his frustration with Kitty by doing athletic skating moves.
•	Kitty feels Levin is wonderful in a brotherly sort of way, and she also feels guilty that she may be flirting with him. But she's having such fun with him that she's probably not going to stop.
•	Kitty meets up with her mother, and Levin joins them both.
•	Kitty's mother informs Levin in a very chilly way that they are at home on Thursdays (read: that's the time when people are supposed to visit the Shcherbatskys).
•	Kitty wants to make up for her mother's chilliness, so she smiles at Levin and says, "Au revoir!" (as in, she'll see him again).
•	Oblonsky comes to take Levin to dinner; he decides on the restaurant Angleterre because he owes more money there and thinks it's wrong to avoid one's debts.
•	Levin is so excited about Kitty's "au revoir" that his mind isn't on anything else.

Well, I enjoyed the flirting by macho skating and trying to look like the young 'uns technique. Levin is an awfully anxious chap, isn't he?? He doesn't seem very worldly for a 32 year old.

A couple of things I found interesting on a second reading:

• Stepan wears a uniform for his office job, presumably like a military style thing - must look this up and see what civil service uniforms were like.
• Stepan and Darya have only been married nine years at the book's opening and he has been unable to see her as desirable for the last six so the poor woman got three years before being too haggard to hold his attention. She would have been 27 at that point.

I reread the first 8 chapters yesterday and the 9th today. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Kitty. It's very readable so far.

Thank you @Thon

Part 1 Chapter 8

•	Levin and his brother chat, but it's clear that the two men have very different interests and tastes.
•	Koznyshev, for example, thinks that District Councils (also called zemstvos) are important, and Levin does not.
•	Koznyshev wants Russia's zemstvos to bring freedom through representation to the countryside, but he feels that Russians are incapable of committing themselves to this kind of governance because they are too complacent and pleased over their failures. (These are Koznyshev's words, not ours!)
•	
•	Then Koznyshev tells Levin that their older brother Nicholas (a.k.a. Nikolai) is back again.
•	Nicholas wasted all his fortune, and he's not on good terms with his brothers or with Russian society.
•	Koznyshev got a note from Nicholas, asking his brothers to leave him alone.
•	Levin decides that he should see Nicholas.
•	But before he does, he goes off to find Kitty.

That's interesting, Thon, the Bartlett translation is definitely more idiomatic!

I heard that Pevear/Volokhonsky translated more literally, and I actually wanted a more literal translation, so I went for theirs. I also enjoyed their translation of War and Peace, so thought I would stick with them. I don't think there's any French in Anna K (though I could be wrong).

StColumb, thanks for your comments interpreting the characters through a historical lens! Very thought-provoking. As individuals, I'm currently drawn more to Levin than to Stepan, because Stepan seems both more sure of himself and more shallow.

Clearly Levin's desire for Kitty is largely based on fantasy and projection, but that's true of a lot of us when we fall in love I think. On the other hand, men projecting their fantasies onto women is a particular gender dynamic and often a very sexist one! Am keen to see how it all unfolds.

Please can I join?

@Thon thank you for the comparison between bartlett and p&v - it was good timing as i wanted to catch up before reading the full thread but was wondering which translation to buy. I've bought the former for my kindle.

Will catch up and join the group properly in a few days.

I am caught up! And enjoying it thus far

I pasted the P&V twice in my last post 🙄- my preferred Bartlett is below:

'And noticing the shaft of light seeping in at the side of one of the cloth blinds, he jauntily threw his feet down from the sofa, felt about with them for the gold morocco slippers...'

I was the same until I compared the first chapters in Kindle samples. I decided on the Bartlett as I preferred her lyrical style. It seemed to flow better and capture the emotion more. Her description of a 'shaft of light' rather than P&V's 'strip of light', and his feet feeling about for the slippers:

'And, noticing a strip of light that had broken through the side of one of the heavy blinds, he cheerfully dropped his feet from the sofa, felt for the slippers trimmed with gold morocco...'

I just preferred it to P&V's:

'And, noticing a strip of light that had broken through the side of one of the heavy blinds, he cheerfully dropped his feet from the sofa, felt for the slippers trimmed with gold morocco...'

Good ole Tolstoy... Levin is the perfect age to be searching for a spouse and yet Dolly, who must be a similar age if not younger given Stepan is 35, is old, washed out and past her best!

Hoping that the titular Anna turns out to be a lot more interesting and fleshed out than the majority of his female characters.

Can I join? I’ve just downloaded it on Kindle and read chapters 1-8 to catch up!

Not sure what version I’ve got as just downloaded the first that came up but some of the names are definitely anglicised.

I still can't decide which translation to get (am still on the Kindle samples!) Can anyone tell me whether there are long passages in French in AK like in W & P?

I love the sound of the Clothbound Classic subscription, and have a few already. I love my kindle, but there's something about a beautiful, physical book that makes my heart soar.

☺️👍

I love Shmoop for chapters like this.

Thanks Desdamona.

Part 1 Chapter 7

•	Koznyshev (the famous writer) is actually Levin's half-brother.
•	Levin has been staying with Koznyshev while in Moscow, and after he gets home, he wanted to ask his brother's advice about proposing to Kitty.
•	Koznyshev is having a debate with a philosophy professor over whether or not there's a difference between psychic and physiological phenomena in human behavior—and if yes, where that split is.
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•	In other words, Koznyshev disagrees with the idea that everything we can know of the world comes from our senses. He seems to be arguing for some kind of innate, preexisting notion of being.
•	The professor, on the other hand, argues that consciousness is the result of your sensory impressions. In other words, he argues that who you are emerges as a result of what you see, touch, taste, and so on.
•	Koznyshev acknowledges his brother, introduces him to the professor, and then the two continue their debate.
•	Levin, listening to this debate, is frustrated: he feels that they are both missing the point. He asks: if our bodies die, then, is there nothing left of us? Levin is asking about the immortality of the soul, which neither Koznyshev or the professor seem to care about.
•	The professor dismisses Levin's question as something that can never be known.
•	Levin waits for the professor to leave.

Everyone needs a clothbound classics subscription! Burts are great because if you already have any you can tell them what you have so you dont end up with duplicates (I'm not an employee I promise just a happy customer )