Yes, that's right, I'm reading Russian literature again. I finally got to the end of Anna Karenina. Boy, howdy! That is a depressing story. I shouldn't have to put spoiler warnings out for a book that's about 150 years old or something, but here goes.
There be spoilers ahead!
You'd think this is the story of Anna who leaves her husband for an army officer named Vronsky and the resulting mess. But it isn't! It's actually the story of Levin and his search for the meaning of life!
Okay, so the two are intertwined and the book is named after Anna, but I'm going to stand by my assertion. Anna's story, along with Vronsky and other more minor characters, serve as illustrations for Levin about the futility of certain modes of life. Throughout the book he is conflicted and confused about how he should act and upon what basis he can ground his life and decisions and resolves them at the end by realizing that the dictates of his conscience and the requirements of Christianity are the only way to resolve the dilemmas he faces. It's not stated as succinctly as Micah manages, but he concludes that good life is to be just, merciful and humbly follow God.
The prose is magnificent, the story is engaging and the characters are all wonderfully realized. Tolstoy may have ended up a weirdo with bizarre specific beliefs (I dunno, I've heard rumours), but that man could write a magnificent novel. War and Peace was incredible as well. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Chekov... it makes me wonder about the second-rank writers if the first-rank is so impressive.
Read it; it'll rip your guts up with the sadness and it'll blow your mind with the quality of the writing. I had to read it in sections because after a while I just couldn't take any more of the story and I had to put it down and go read something more cheerful for a week or two. But it's well worth getting all the way through.
No comments:
Post a Comment