Reviews with content warning for Death - Anna Karenina

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Reviews tagging 'Death'

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Louise Maude

75 reviews

sami_bassett's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

My final review of Anna Karenina is merely a contemptuous smile and my recurring thought that this would be significantly improved by cutting it in half, at least.

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carolinebl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I can’t believe the cover is of a train track; that’s out of line. Poor Anna.

Tolstoy’s characters are remarkably complex. For nearly 900 pages we are absorbed into the inner workings of their lives, the mundane and the scandalous.

I appreciate the note of hope after such a depressing ending for others. I do wish we could have seen more of other perspectives, though Levin’s brought the story to a firm conclusion.

I see why this is lauded as the great work of realist fiction; I won’t forget this story. Unhappy families are still unhappy, but I’m glad we have more choices now.

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skinshela's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Beautifully written story about Russian nobility in the 19th century, specifically the lives of Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin as foils of each other. Tolstoy conveys strong themes of morality, life and death, class, gender and love. From a modern Western context, many of the conflicts in the story can seem quite unnecessary but with an open mind the characters; their feelings and reactions to the events throughout the book is quite touching. I really recommend this for sure!!

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celery's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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tiny_reader_bri's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I vowed that before 2024, I would finish Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. And after an arduous journey (817 pages 😭), I finally did.

I went into the book thinking it’d be about a passionate love affair that would withstand the test of time, but it was so much darker than that. Anna Karenina is such a fascinating character. I pitied, admired, and disliked her for some of the things she said and decisions she made. She gets ostracized from society after being unfaithful to her husband and engaging in an illicit affair with the proud Count Vronsky. Like Anna, I found him hard to like, but I pitied him nonetheless. Anna was incredibly troubled, often described an archetype of the “fallen woman,” in the sense that she lost God’s grace. There was some underlying misogyny towards Anna and the other female characters. I’m sure it was intentional. At least, I hope it was.

Anna’s fate still haunts me a little bit, but I felt it looming before it happened.

The second protagonist, Levin, is slightly more likable. He certainly has his share of flaws and spends most of the book questioning the purpose of life and tends to seek this out by use of logic. Levin loves to think and that often keeps him from embracing spirituality and faith. That description sounds eerily familiar…

Levin and Anna have many similarities, but how they conduct themselves is different.

Where Levin is able to have a healthy, loving relationship with his wife (Kitty), Anna and Vronsky are the equivalent of a dumpster fire. Maybe Tolstoy wanted to convey the difference between love and lust or truly loving someone vs loving the idea of them.

When I finished it, I didn’t know what to think. The ending felt anticlimactic to me, and I was disappointed because I invested so much time into it. But after spending some time away from it, I’ve decided I like it. It’s undeniable that Tolstoy is an incredible storyteller. He got a bit long-winded from time to time, but I learned that in his time, writers were paid according to their book’s word count. He wanted every penny. Can’t blame him, though.

I wouldn’t say Anna Karenina is a new favorite of mine, but I don’t regret reading it. I feel indifferent to the story, like after I read Wuthering Heights the first time.

I suppose the heart of the novel points back to the epigraph: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” thus, the main characters get the ending they “deserve.”

It’ll probably be 10 years before I read it again and I’m sure I’ll read it with different eyes.

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