Customer Reviews

Anna Karenina

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If it's an abridged version of the classic you seek, look no further than Alfred Molina's strong narration of the love story ANNA KARENINA. Libraries seeking strong abridged presentations on 3 cds will find it brims with emotion and history, capturing well the story of the strong-willed Anna and the romance which drives her life and the history of Russia itself.

Tolstoy is a master storyteller who can of bring the full sweep of human drama down to the moment-to-moment level. His characters live the history and you live it through their eyes and hearts. Vivid descriptions of the inner and outer lives of these aristocrats living in pre-revolutionary Russia animate his story, and help you to feel their manners, inhibitions, challenges, and passions. Anna is so deserving of love, so pure in her own love, yet even she cannot sustain the ideal. Her unjust ruin in the eyes of society, the loss of Vronsky's love, and the madness that loss inspires lead to an ending that is sad and unforgettable.

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is a well written book. Tolstoy is a master writer, and knows his content. It is a little difficult to get though the Russian philosophies, so all you Kindergarten readers out there, don't try it. The book deals mainly with a married women who is unfaithful, and the reprocussions of her choice upon her and the people around her. It also deals with the Russian aristocrat turned farmboy, the only decent character in the entire novel, and his changing views of life. The book is written as one big soap opera with a killer ending, read it if you like that kind of stuff.

Tolstoy is the best Russian writer ever, and this is the best book ever written by anyone. Russian or American or British.. anyone!

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is undoubtedly one of the greatest works of literature ever written. It is by no means a "light book" or an "easy read." As the reader diligently reads through this voluminous, 800 plus page, novel they live and experience the struggles of the characters. The novel centers on the two contrasting yet interwoven plots of the honest, loving and faithful relationship of Princess Kitty and Constanine Levin contrasted against the socially and morally condemned adulterous love affair of Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. The novel's epigraph "Vengeance is mine, I shall repay; saith the Lord" alludes to the novel's theme of divine retribution, where the choices and actions made by the characters are either rewarded or punished by God. Anna Karenina is not a victim of fate or destiny but of her own selfishness and dishonesty to herself and others which leads to her eventual demise. Kitty and Levin are rewarded with happiness and a successful marriage because of their honesty and unselfish love. Anna Karenina delves not only into the human conscience but also into the conscience of Russian society; it is also full of symbolism for example Vronsky's tragic horse race, which symbolizes his part in Anna's destruction. As I read through all of the reviews I noticed that an important issue was neglected even from the review written by the publisher and that is that Levin is a partial autobiography by Tolstoy. Levin's strong inner conflicts, agnosticism and search for meaning in life was a reflection of Tolsoy's own beliefs. I wrote a term paper on Anna Karenina and through all the reading, research and time I put in paid off immensely and not just in terms of the grade. Although I at times resented Anna for her selfishness I could empathize with her struggle for independence which she never achieves. I cried when she killed herself yet hated her for this final act of selfness. This novel is a complex weaving of characters, emotions, and struggles but in the end the reader is rewarded by Tolstoy's pure genius.

This book on CD was just ok for me. The story was not what I expected but I'm happy I did get through it.

The most frustrating part of this book on CD was the audio. I had to be constantly fiddling with my player's bass and treble controls to even hear it with the volume turned as high as it would go. It would have been fine had I choose to listen to it in a very quiet room and not in my car while computing to work everyday. The audio was so poor I considered having to buy a top of the line stereo system for my car. In the end I choose to just strain my ears and keep my fan off or on very low to get through it.

The difficulty and frustration just trying to hear this story being read, for sure, influenced my appreciation of the writing of this book. I'm told it's a classic and I wanted to appreciate the story and writing and could now tell myself to read the book but won't. Now knowing the ending would taint the story from the beginning for me. A real disappointment I didn't enjoy this classic as I thought I would.

The novel "Anna Karnina" through a feminstic point of view makes me quite angrey.How come that a women cannot have an affair and a men can? Why do society look diffrently on women and men? and why did Vornsky had to be such a kreep?