Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy

Overview

Dive into the depths of passion, betrayal, and societal constraints with Leo Tolstoy's timeless masterpiece, "Anna Karenina." This richly woven narrative offers a profound exploration of love, infidelity, and the human condition against the backdrop of Russian aristocracy in the late 19th century.

At the heart of the novel is Anna Karenina, a beautiful and sophisticated woman trapped in a loveless marriage with Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a high-ranking government official. Anna's life takes a tumultuous turn when she meets the dashing and passionate Count Alexei Vronsky. Their intense and forbidden love affair sets off a chain of events that unravel Anna's life and challenge the societal norms of the time.

Tolstoy masterfully contrasts Anna's tumultuous story with the life of Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin, a landowner seeking meaning and fulfillment through his connection to the land and his love for the virtuous Kitty Shcherbatsky. Levin's philosophical musings on life, faith, and happiness provide a poignant counterbalance to Anna's tragic descent, offering readers a comprehensive view of human aspiration and despair.

The novel delves deeply into the themes of love and marriage, examining the institution's constraints and expectations. Through Anna and Vronsky's passionate affair and the parallel courtship and marriage of Levin and Kitty, Tolstoy presents a nuanced commentary on the complexities of romantic and familial relationships.

"Anna Karenina" also serves as a critical lens on Russian society, exploring the moral and social issues of the time. Tolstoy's vivid descriptions and rich characterizations bring to life the opulence of the aristocracy, the struggles of the peasantry, and the profound changes sweeping through Russian society.

Tolstoy's intricate narrative and psychological depth make "Anna Karenina" a profound study of the human soul. His exploration of the characters' inner lives, their motivations, fears, and desires, reveals universal truths about the nature of love, honor, and happiness.

Join Anna Karenina on her tragic journey of love and loss, and explore the contrasting paths of the novel's characters as they navigate the challenges of life and love in a rapidly changing world. "Anna Karenina" is a monumental work of literature that continues to resonate with readers, offering timeless insights into the human heart and the society it inhabits.

Experience the sweeping epic of "Anna Karenina," a novel that combines the personal and the political, the passionate and the philosophical, in a story that is as compelling today as it was when first published. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of love, duty, and the human spirit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781835528679
Publisher:	Magic Publisher
Publication date:	05/21/2024
Pages:	542
Sales rank:	710,083
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.09(d)

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian writer and social reformer, who is considered one of greatest novelists of all time. His was born to an aristocratic Russian family, and his first novel, Childhood (1852), was based on his youthful experiences. As a young man he fought in the Crimean War, an endurance that formed many of his radical moral and social beliefs and formed the basis of many of his works. Although his greatest novels are War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), his novellas, short stories, and philosophical works have held a profound influence throughout the world.

Date of Birth:

September 9, 1828

Date of Death:

November 20, 1910

Place of Birth:

Tula Province, Russia

Place of Death:

Astapovo, Russia

Education:

Privately educated by French and German tutors; attended the University of Kazan, 1844-47

Read an Excerpt

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Anna Karenina"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Leo Tolstoy.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note on the Text and Translation
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Leo Tolstoy
Principal Characters and Guide to Pronunciation
ANNA KARENINA
Explanatory Notes

What People are Saying About This

Caryl Emerson Caryl Emerson

"Tolstoy did not wish to please; he wished to correct, instruct, inspire, persuade.  And as Marian Schwartz notes, he “wholly intended to bend language to his will.”  In her astonishing new translation, she takes seriously Tolstoy’s disgust with smooth Russian literary style, setting a new standard in English for accuracy to Tolstoyan repetition, sentence density and balance, stripped-down vocabulary and enhanced moral weight. A rough, powerful, unromantic Anna that wakes the reader up and rings true."—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

Caryl Emerson

"Tolstoy did not wish to please; he wished to correct, instruct, inspire, persuade.  And as Marian Schwartz notes, he “wholly intended to bend language to his will.”  In her astonishing new translation, she takes seriously Tolstoy’s disgust with smooth Russian literary style, setting a new standard in English for accuracy to Tolstoyan repetition, sentence density and balance, stripped-down vocabulary and enhanced moral weight. A rough, powerful, unromantic Anna that wakes the reader up and rings true."—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

Reading Group Guide

1. When Anna Karenina was published, critics accused Tolstoy of writing a novel with too many characters, too complex a story line, and too many details. Henry James called Tolstoy's works "baggy monsters." In response, Tolstoy wrote of Anna Karenina "I am very proud of its architecture-its vaults are joined so that one cannot even notice where the keystone is." What do you make of Tolstoy's use of detail? Does it make for a more "realistic" novel?

2. The first line of Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, " can be interpreted a number of ways. What do you think Tolstoy means by this?

3. In your opinion, how well does Tolstoy, as a male writer, capture the perspectives of his female characters? Do you think Anna Karenina is the most appropriate title for the book? Is Tolstoy more critical of Anna for her adultery than he is of Oblonsky or of Vronsky?

4. What role does religion play in the novel? Compare Levin's spiritual state of mind at the beginning and the end of the novel. What parallels can you draw between Levin's search for happiness and Anna's descent into despair?

5. Why is it significant that Karenina lives in St. Petersburg, Oblonsky in Moscow, and Levin in the country? How are Moscow and St. Petersburg described by Tolstoy? What conclusions can you draw about the value assigned to place in the novel?

6. What are the different kinds of love that Anna, Vronsky, Levin, Kitty, Stiva, and Dolly seek? How do their desires change throughout the novel?

7. How do the ideals of love and marriage come into conflict inAnna Karenina? Using examples from the novel, what qualities do you think seem to make for a successful marriage? According to Tolstoy, is it more important to find love at all costs or to uphold the sanctity of marriage, even if it is a loveless one?

8. Ultimately, do you think Anna Karenina is a tragic novel or a hopeful one?

Editorial Reviews

Originally written in 1875, this is one of the most distinguished classic works of world literature. Several films, dramas, and ballets have been based on Tolstoi’s (as spelled in Spanish) intense, passionate love story. Ana, one of the most notable literary characters ever created, is married to a Russian minister but falls in love with Count Vronski, a rich and handsome young army officer. Against society’s norms, she abandons her husband and son, with dire results. In this excellent recording, the story is fully dramatized by a group of actors: Milagros del Valle is Ana, and FonoLibro’s Arquimedes Rivero is Vronski. Their voices are appropriate and devoid of regional accents. With background music and narration that shows the full emotional style of a radionovela (radio soap operas), this audio is an easy way to get to know this perennial classic. Recommended for bookstores and public libraries.—Dolores M. Koch, New York City

—Dolores M. Koch

Criticas

"The greatest novel ever written" is a superlative applied frequently to Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which first appeared in print in 1875. This world literature classic has inspired dozens of stage, movie, and ballet adaptation, the latest of which is the Universal Pictures September release film starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law. This official movie tie-in contains a fine translation by Louise Maude and Alymer Maude and the screenplay by Tom Stoppard. If you haven't read it yet; it's time.

"Oxford University Press recently added three of the most acclaimed czarist era novels to its Classics Hardback Collection: Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Each is a new translation prefaced lucidly by an acclaimed scholar in the field. Both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, though in increasingly different yet overlapping ways, stirred profound debates on pressing philosophical and spiritual questions, essentially, how to live, especially in a world of accelerating change." - The Shepherd Express

From the Publisher

The translation is the most accurate Tolstoy we have in English. Marian Schwartz has been a major force in bringing Russian literature into English for many years, but this is her masterpiece.”—Michael Holquist, author of Dostoevsky and the Novel

Michael Holquist

If there is a Tolstoyan out there who is interested in reading a translation that is exquisitely mindful of the book’s complex texture, or someone who has meant to get to Karenina but hasn’t yet got around to this particular pleasure, Schwartz’s tribute to Tolstoy’s craft and sensitivity should be at the top of the list.”—Jim Kates, Arts Fuse

Arts Fuse - Jim Kates

Longlisted for the 2015 American Literary Translators Asssociation, National Translation Prize in Prose. 

National Translation Awards - NTA

Ask anyone who has read it, and it will be among his or her favorite novels, if not at the top of the list. The reasons are many. But at the core is Tolstoy’s genius at creating a universal world we are allowed to enter: of engaging people in a vivid but highly structured society who reflect the emotions, thoughts, motives, unconscious drives, conflicting actions, mistakes, happiness, and sadness that is as close as we will ever come in literature to the totality of the human comedy (marriage) and the human tragedy (death).”

The Atlantic

One of the greatest love stories in world literature.”

Vladimir Nabokov

A sexy and engrossing read, this book tells the tale of one of the most enthralling love affairs in the history of literature.”

Oprah.com

Considered one of the pinnacles of world literature.”

Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature

The book floats in some charmed section of the lake of literary opinion…. Instead of a barrage of metaphors describing things in terms of other things that they resemble, Lev Tolstoy seeks the precise word for the thing itself. Instead of the solipsistic modern mode of events being experienced from the point of view of a single character, Tolstoy slips in and out of the consciousness of dozens of characters, major and minor.”

Guardian (London)

"Tolstoy did not wish to please; he wished to correct, instruct, inspire, persuade. And as Marian Schwartz notes, he “wholly intended to bend language to his will.” In her astonishing new translation, she takes seriously Tolstoy’s disgust with smooth Russian literary style, setting a new standard in English for accuracy to Tolstoyan repetition, sentence density and balance, stripped-down vocabulary and enhanced moral weight. A rough, powerful, unromantic Anna that wakes the reader up and rings true."—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

Caryl Emerson

Once again, the daunting elements of classic literature that might discourage a timid reader become irrelevant, thanks to a skilled narrator. ANNA KARENINA offers multiple plotlines, complex characterizations, sizable descriptions, and many, many Russian names. The active reading required by such a book is not exhausting in the audio format; in fact, Wanda McCaddon makes this literary cornerstone downright enjoyable. It’s not that she turns herself into every character or offers over-the-top drama. Instead, it is her consistency and sensitivity to the author’s tone that make this a wonderful listen. Her familiarity with the text and understanding of its nuances illuminate the work, making what might have seemed lofty, absolutely lively. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile