Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club)

Anna Karenina is a masterpiece! Tolstoy's writing style is unlike modern novels; rich in detail without being overly wordy. Amazingly while reading I felt as though I was a fly on the wall in the Russia he recreates- observing the characters and plot nearly as a participant. Tolstoy's character descriptions jump off the page, making the plot seem like the reader's reality.

Although the story is somewhat somber and the plot is fatalistic, it is a clear view into the social and moral obligations of the late 19th century. When protagonist, Anna Karenina decides to leave her husband Alexi Alexandrovich for another man and a new life, we are introduced to the unequal struggle men and women faced in law and society after being unfaithful. Although the theme is strong throughout we are not tied down to that single plot, we are also swept along in parallel stories of class struggles, political pressure and even the day to day tasks of local farmers.

Very enjoyable novel, I would even read it again!

I was excited when I first purchased this because I had heard such good things about it; that, and I LOVE literature and graduated with an English degree, so I thought this would be well worth the buy.

Boy, was I wrong. It turned out to be a huge book full of nothing, which drags on and on and on. I am confused by the people who love it. I just don't understand how?

The ending makes sense and you could see it coming as Anna wasn't happy for a very long time. Some parts I truly did enjoy reading, but those good parts were always interrupted and separated by lengthy boring reading that I just wanted to skip through to get to the good stuff again.

Not a very good read whatsoever in my opinion.

I always read classics among other things, I assume that they're classics for a reason so I picked up this book expecting a work of art. What I found was the longest, most tedious and most boring book I've ever read. By page 120 I already didn't care about what happened in the book. I kept reading it just to say I read Anna Karenina, but it was REALLY not worth it. I also ended up skipping pages of little side stories that added nothing to the plot or the book itself as well as endless repetitive descriptions of scenery.
Seriously, sit down and watch paint dry, you'll have more fun and it will go by a lot quicker.

As a collector of Great Books I was disappointed to find that this translation is not available in hard back. This is clearly the best translation and I would so love to own a hard cover version. For now I must settle for the disposable copy.

P&V's translation is really beyond praise: delicate, scrupulous, and rendered in English as smoothly propulsive as diving into a warm lap pool. Clearly, the problem is Tolstoy. In early drafts, he started out very judgmental against Anna, but flooded the final text with enough nuance that the reader makes his own decision, and mine is that she was another Princess Di: willful, spiteful, manipulative, humorless. We've all wanted to hurt those who reject us, but committing suicide to hurt Vronsky, who sacrificed his life loving her every day, is contemptible, so I had no sympathy for her. I did, however, sympathize with her husband, who had to clean up her childish mess, yet what Tolstoy did to him is also contemptible. He turns him into a religious prig in a way that completely contradicts foregoing character development. This is Tolstoy at his old puppet-master tricks, tricks that keep you from caring about any of his characters. Despite some masterful passages (like Dolly's monologue on her way to see Anna, going back and forth on whether to accept or condemn what Anna did, and relating those conflicts to her own womanhood), this long work, though impeccably written, never really pulls at your heart.