Anna Karenina

For the past couple of months, I have been reading one of the absolute classics of 19th century literature: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. In English, although it is a Russian novel, because a) my Russian isn't that good, and b) careful Googling told me that this was the best recent translation of the novel. It's 800+ pages, and it took me a while, also because I read three Dutch non-fiction books in between (none of which is really worth mentioning). It took a while not because it was difficult, or boring, but because it was simply very very long. I can take my time reading a novel because I think it is especially beautiful, and I want to give it the attention it deserves, and I can take my time because there isn't any way of getting through it quicker. This was a case of the latter.

Anyway, Anna Karenina. I had not seen the film nor did I know anything about this story, except for the fact that it was about someone called Anna Karenina (whom I pictured somewhat like Keira Knightley, probably because of the film trailer). Neither was really true. I mean, there is a character called Anna Karenina in the novel, and she does play a pretty big part, but then there are dozens of other characters who also play pretty big parts. And Anna influences them, in a way, but not all of them, and some characters never really meet her at all. She is pretty radical in her actions and thoughts, but so are some of the others. So although she is supposed to be the heroine, you could just as well have called the thing "Konstantin Levin" or "Pre-revolution upper class Russians" (although Tolstoy of course didn't know about the revolution at the time of writing). But I can see why he went with Anna Karenina, and I don't mind the title, but it kind of gives you the wrong expectations. Also, from the description, she looks nothing like Keira Knightley.

On a side note; Russian names are really impossible. I mean, the women I can somehow grasp, because they are Anna and Kitty and Dolly; nice, logical names. They do have three or four other names, and nicknames (Kitty and Dolly are short for Ekaterina Alexandrova Sherbatsky and Daria Alexandrova Oblonsky), but at least you can keep them apart. But the men! There were two who I just referred to in my head as AA and SA, and every time the perspective switched to one of them, I had to remind myself whether they were Anna's or Dolly's husband. When they were in the same room, or even worse; talking to each other, I really couldn't keep up who was who. And in some cases, I didn't realise that two separate names actually belonged to the same character until I was a couple of chapters down the line. They should really sort that out.

So what is the novel about? Life, in general. People living their lives. People thinking about their lives, how they live them, and what they can and want to change. The main events of life; birth, love, marriage, death, and in the case of the Russian aristocracy: drinking, gambling, horse racing, and a lot of debt. Not much really happens, that is to say, no invasions or wars or life-changing events, except for those mentioned above. And the really life-changing stuff that does happen is described in a few lines, almost off-hand, like 'oh yes, and then he died'. 

The thing that gets most attention is what the characters think about all these events. And they think a lot. Some of it is just Tolstoys own political propaganda, but most are really universal human thoughts and emotions; the stuff that keeps people up at night, or the way people think about each other. The decisions that they make, and what they think of those decisions, and how they justify things to themselves. Most of it is recognisable, sometimes almost scarily so. Whether he writes about a man going to court his future wife, a woman thinking about her new-born child, or a man sitting with his dying brother; these characters come to life, they are real people, with real thoughts and emotions. It took me a while to get through, but this was not because of those sweeping, strongly emotional passages; sometimes 30+ pages (description only, no dialogue) would whisk by as I was carried along on someone's musings.

So I can see why this novel survived and became one of the classics; it is about the fundamental human emotions and experiences. There is a lot of stuff in between, some of which would be edited out if the thing would be written now, but that's the nineteenth century novel for you. Between the lines and main events, you can find what makes humans human. And since Russia 1878, that hasn't changed all that much.