Anna Karenina Readalong, 2023

[StColumbofNavron]

Following the success of W&P in 2022, we’ve decided to stick with Tolstoy for 2023 and read Anna Karenina, one chapter per day.

For newbies: we simply read one chapter a day and discussion is allowed with a broader chat at the end of each section. Tolstoy’s chapters are nice and short, flicking through average length is about 4 pages.

I have used the Penguin Classics (2001, 2003) trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for the breakdown below. More on editions below.

There are 249 chapters in this edition and the book is in 8 parts taking us to 14 September with a break of a day between each book. Hopefully, irrespective of the edition you pick the finishing of each ‘book’ will hopefully align.

Book 1, ch. 1-34 (1 Jan-3 Feb)
BREAK, 4 Feb
Book 2, ch. 1-35 (5 Feb-11 Mar)
BREAK, 12 March
Book 3, ch. 1-32 (13 Mar-13 Apr)
BREAK, 14 Apr
Book 4, ch. 1-23 (15 Apr-7 May)
BREAK, 8 May
Book 5, ch. 1-33 (9 May-10 Jun)
BREAK, 11 Jun
Book 6, ch. 1-32 (12 Jun-14 Jul)
BREAK, 15 Jul
Book 7, ch. 1-31 (16 Jul-15 Aug)
BREAK, 16 Aug
Book 8, ch. 1-29 (17 Aug-14 Sept)

Some info on different translations and editions in the links below. Maud, Aylmer and Pevear and Volonkhonsky all present once again.

Wikipedia here
Tolstoy Therapy
New York Times
Some thoughts on Pevear and Volonkhonsky contenting the Russian Lit market

For reasons best known to me (largely foolish) I decided look up and work it all out on my phone instead of laptop, so apologies for any inaccuracies, typos etc. I am certain I have forgotten something, got my numbering wrong somewhere, but hopefully broadly correct.

All that remains is to say welcome back to those who are remaining committed to Tolstoy, thank you to those who organised and helped the last read run smoothly and welcome, do come in to those joining.

p.s. I would love to see the covers of your books.

Thanks for the summary, agree with others about Karenin, I became more sympathetic to him towards the end of this section. Seemed like an impossible situation at times. I wonder what the second half of the book will bring.

09/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 1

•	Princess Shcherbatsky has agreed to hold the wedding between Levin and Kitty before Lent (which, incidentally, does not start on Ash Wednesday, as it does in the Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Lent begins on "Clean Monday," the Monday of the seventh week before Easter.
&bull;	On the condition that Kitty&#039;s <span class="italic">trousseau</span> (read: things a bride needs, kind of like the stuff people get from a marriage registry today&mdash;linens and dishes and so on) is divided into a large part and a small part.
&bull;	The small part will be ready in time for the wedding, and the large part will be sent later. The bride and groom plan to depart for the country directly after the wedding.
&bull;	
&bull;	Levin remains on cloud nine. He does anything anyone tells him to do, because he&#039;s just so ecstatic.
&bull;	In order to get married, Levin has to take the sacrament of communion. He feels awkward about this, since he is ambivalent about religion. He doesn&#039;t <span class="italic">not</span> believe in religion, but he doesn&#039;t believe in it either. (By the way, taking communion in the Eastern Orthodox church involves a fairly strict sequence of prayer, confession, and fasting.)
&bull;	It strikes Levin as wrong to swear his faith in a religion he&#039;s not into right when he&#039;s feeling on top of the world.
&bull;	At the end of the process, Levin tells the kind old priest that he has doubts about all the teachings of the Church, and that sometimes he even has doubts about the existence of God.
&bull;	The priest remains unruffled.
&bull;	Afterward, Levin is happy that he didn&#039;t have to tell any lies through the course of his confession &mdash;and that it&#039;s over with.

10/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 2

•	On the day of the wedding, Levin is not allowed to see his bride.
•	Instead, he celebrates with his brother, Koznyshev, a college friend named Katavasov, and his best man, Chirikov.
•	The dinner is lots of fun—the jokes and conversation are lively.
•	Soon the men start giving Levin a hard time about the upcoming loss of his liberty, a concept that Levin doesn't understand, because he finds complete happiness in loving Kitty.
•	
•	After the guys leave, Levin starts to freak out that Kitty doesn't love him and that she's just marrying him in order to get married.
•	He goes and finds her. She's sorting out old dresses to give away to those in need.
•	She assures him of her love, and five minutes later everything is fine.
•	Kitty's mother comes into the room and sends Levin home.
•	Levin is late preparing for the wedding. He orders Kuzma, his servant, to lay out his clothes.

11/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 3

•	The church is crowded and beautiful. Everyone looks wonderful, as do the decorations. Each time the door opens everyone expects to see the bride and groom.
•	As time goes on with no sign of the bride and groom, the best man finally goes to see what has happened.
•	Kitty has been ready for a while, awaiting news of her groom.
•	
•	Levin has been pacing back and forth in his room with Oblonsky, who keeps reassuring Levin.
•	Here's what happened: Levin is lacking a clean shirt. Kuzma ran off to the railroad to open up one of Levin's trunks and grab a new shirt.
•	Levin is despairing that the trunk will already have been loaded, and that Kitty is thinking dreadful thoughts, given the conversation they just had.
•	Kuzma runs back with the shirt.

I'm enjoying the wedding chapters. The btide and groom are so earnest and sweet. It's typical that there was a hitch with the forgotten shirt. Some things never change!

If this was Hardy, those would all be terrible omens. Am hoping for Kitty's sake that they aren't.

I hope it works out! We need one couple to be happy!

12/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 4

•	Even though everyone says that Kitty has gotten plainer, to Levin she had never looked so beautiful.

•	The issue with the shirt is forgiven, and the wedding goes splendidly. The couple is so distracted by their emotional happiness that they mess up a few times, but it's no big deal. They truly feel like two individuals united as one.

•	Kitty doesn't hear a word of the service, as a powerful feeling has taken control of her. This feeling is the sense of leaving behind her old life and embarking on a new one; without even knowing him that well, Levin has become the most important person in her life.

Though I'm conflicted on whether I like Levin or not, I'm still glad he 'got the girl'!

13/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 5

•	All the women in the congregation keep gossiping, as they ague over whether Levin is worth Kitty or not. They remark that Kitty is not looking as lovely as she once did, but even so, she's better than Levin.
•	Dolly is deeply moved as she recalls other weddings where young women renounce their past and enter into a mysterious future. Even Anna was once a pure, blushing bride—though Dolly has now heard details of a presumed divorce in the Karenin family.
•	
•	The women continue gossiping about fashion, wedding details, and the married couple.

I'm really annoyed with myself for having fallen behind with the fascinating chat here! I agree that part 4 was fab. I was kind of overwhelmed and amazed as I didn't anticipate those plot developments at all: Anna almost dying post-childbirth, her delirious request for forgiveness, Karenin's extension of forgiveness, which makes him a sympathetic character again, and then Vronsky's shooting himself with a pistol. Crikey. I totally wasn't expecting all that and didn't really know what to make of it!

The contrasting stories of Anna and Levin are very interesting. I liked the Shmoop summary, but I think that summary kind of glossed over gender difference. Surely Anna has less agency than Levin simply because she's a woman?

It's interesting that Tolstoy leaves the behaviour of Anna's character so open to interpretation. On the one hand, he clearly sees marriage as an important moral commitment and one that should not be violated, but on the other hand, he's sympathetic to Anna not feeling remotely attracted to her husband, and portrays that very convincingly. It's definitely not just a didactic message about adultery being bad. Hmm.

If ever there were an argument for no-fault divorce, this novel is it! It's just so wrong that divorce isn't possible in 19th c Russian culture unless one party is willing to admit wrongdoing.

I agree with all the comments about Vronsky being less sympathetic than Anna and Karenin.

I'm also very taken with the Kitty/Levin romance. They're so sweet. The chapters where the marriage ceremony is described in such detail are an amazing record of social history.

Thanks for this info, CornishLizard, how fascinating. Tolstoy's poor wife...

I wonder how Tolstoy would have felt if his wife had had a similar history of sexual activity to disclose 🙄

I was reading on another thread (not in books) that Tolstoy's wife was miserable in their marriage. She had 13 children and tried to miscarry. Reading that really put me off Tolstoy.

I loved the gossiping women ('do you see your one in the purple?!). I felt sorry for Dolly looking back on her wedding day which would have been only a few years previously.

That puts me off Tolstoy too, Fuzzy. The physical toll on women's bodies of having given birth so many times is hard to imagine. I've had two DC and that has changed my body, I can't imagine 13.

Yes, the gossiping women are great. To be honest, Kitty and Levin making mistakes reminded me of my own wedding day almost 30 years ago, DH and I were so nervous and during the ring exchange we just didn't know what to do with our hands 😁

But in fact I dislike the template of the fairytale wedding day. Sometimes marriages work out and sometimes they don't.

I come from a conservative American background, where people marry young and everyone invests in the fairytale myth. People often end up divorcing and remarrying multiple times. It's made me very sceptical of an idealistic view of marriage. It's very Disney-esque, that kind of version of marriage. You're not meant to sleep together before you're married. I think it puts a huge amount of pressure on young couples, and then a burden of guilt if the couple turns out not to be compatible after they're married.

It's part of what turned me into a feminist, I didn't want to spend a lifetime like my mother, unhappily married. Ironically I married young and my own marriage has lasted so far, knock on wood. But it's taken a lot of work and compromise and therapy. It hasn't been a Disney story.

Completely agree, cassandre. I can't stand the fairy-tale idealisation of the wedding day either. I love a quirky wedding.

I was talking to my mother this week about the marriage breakdown of a family member and I got so annoyed with her when she suggested that my cousin should have stayed married, how immature she was and that she had made her bed etc.. She's not very old either, only in her early seventies, but because it's what her generation did when the church was very influential, that it should still be the done thing today. Nonsense.

14/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 6

•	At the beginning of the second part of the wedding service, a pink cloth is laid out, on which the couple is supposed to step. Superstition holds that whoever steps on the mat first will be the head of the household.
•	No one can tell if Levin stepped on it first, or if they both stepped at the same time.
•	The couple remains absolutely radiant throughout all the prayers.
•	
•	After supper, the newlyweds leave for the country.

Yes cassandre, reading this reminded me of my wedding day too!

Sorry if I am intruding here, but if anyone is listening to the Radio 4 dramatisation, do they know the name of the piano music framing it?

15/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 7

•	For three months, Anna and Vronsky have been traveling around Europe.
•	They have arrived in a small Italian town where they intend to settle down for a while.
&bull;	Vronsky is chatting with the headwaiter about renting a <span class="italic">palazzo</span> when Vronsky sees an old friend named Golenishchev, who had heard that Vronsky was in town.
&bull;	Although they had parted on bad terms the last time they were together, Vronsky and Golenishchev get along fine now. Vronsky in particular is excited to have someone else to interrupt the monotony of his life.
&bull;	
&bull;	In order to hide what he&#039;s saying from the servants, Vronsky speaks in French and tells Golenishchev that he is traveling with Madame Karenina. Based on Golenishchev&#039;s reaction, Vronsky concludes that he can introduce his friend to Anna because he &quot;takes it the right way.&quot;
&bull;	People who &quot;take it the right way&quot; are politely indifferent to the obvious relationship between Anna and Vronsky. They don&#039;t mention it at all.
&bull;	This is the case when Vronsky introduces Golenishchev to Anna.
&bull;	Golenishchev is taken with Anna&#039;s beauty and the simplicity with which she accepts her situation.
&bull;	Golenishchev mentions that there&#039;s a fine painting by Tintoretto in the <span class="italic">palazzo</span> that Vronsky is about to rent. The three decide to go over and take a look. Anna goes inside to get a hat.
&bull;	Vronsky and Golenishchev talk about Golenishchev&#039;s book, about which, to Vronsky&#039;s discomfort, Golenishchev becomes excited. Vronsky disapproves of Golenishchev, who comes from a good family, placing himself on the same level as common, low-class scholars. Vronsky sympathizes with Golenishchev&#039;s obvious unhappiness, but finds Golenishchev&#039;s feverish excitement on the subject of Russia&#039;s origins to be almost insane.
&bull;	
&bull;	Golenishchev doesn&#039;t even notice when Anna comes back into the room.
&bull;	After they come back from the <span class="italic">palazzo</span>, Anna notes that she&#039;s pleased the house has a little studio. To Anna&#039;s pleasure, Vronsky has started painting.

Oops! Forgot to post yesterdays chapter!

16/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 8

•	In her post-illness life, Anna feels wonderfully happy. She is sad about the situation with Karenin, but doesn't believe that she can change it.
•	Anna feels absolutely no shame or suffering, and her love for her son is transferred to her little girl, who, after all, is Vronsky's child.
•	Anna is happy to have Vronsky all to herself, all the time. Her love for him grows deeper, and her greatest fear becomes losing his love.
•	As for Vronsky, he's discovered that happiness doesn't bring total fulfillment. He's bored. There's sixteen hours a day to fill, and he and Anna aren't accepted in polite society. So Vronsky immerses himself in politics, books, and art in order to fill his days and pass the time.
•	
•	Vronsky is good at understanding and imitating art. For Vronsky, all art belongs to one school or another; he doesn't know how to paint from his own soul.
•	He's drawn mostly to the showy French school of art. He's started a portrait of Anna in this style, with her dressed in an Italian costume.
•	Everyone admires it.

17/05/23

Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 9

&bull;	The <span class="italic">palazzo</span> that Anna and Vronsky move in to helps Vronsky maintain his ideal of being a dashing young amateur artist who has abandoned the world and ambition in favor of the woman of his dreams. He succeeds in maintaining this role for himself.
&bull;	One morning when Golenishchev is visiting, the conversation turns to a Russian painter named Mikhailov, who lives and works in their town.
&bull;	Vronsky speculates that Mikhailov could do a portrait of Anna.
&bull;	Anna suggests that the painter instead do a portrait of Annie (their daughter).
&bull;	
&bull;	Anna looks out the window and sees Annie with her wet nurse, a beautiful Italian woman who makes Anna jealous because Vronsky once complimented the woman&#039;s beauty.
&bull;	Golenishchev looks down on Mikhailov for being poverty stricken and uneducated.
&bull;	They all decide to pay him a visit and take a look at his paintings.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Anna isn't right to worry about the beautiful Italian wet nurse and Vronsky's roving eye!

Hi @GameofPhones I didn't know there was a dramatisation going out of AK on Radio 4 so I can't help you with the music but thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Here's a link to the first episode if anyone is interested:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lj05

And this is their Anna

Thankyou for a friendly reply, DesdamonasHandkerchief. Actually I got confused, I had found an older dramatisation when I searched for the current one on Radio 4. I have since discovered that the lovely music there is the start of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. (I had guessed it would be Russian, but after a frustrating search eventually found it through the very useful Google sound search where you just play the music and click the microphone symbol.)

Excellent detective work Game 👍