Customer Reviews

Dinner With Anna Karenina

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

 

 

Gloria Goldreich's "Dinner with Anna Karenina" is a wonderful novel about women's friendships and the power of literature to illuminate and transform lives. Six women members of a Manhattan book club meet regularly to share dinner and literary insights about novels ranging from Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" to Edith Wharton's "The Reef." The novel isn't so much an in depth critical review of the chosen novels, as it is a reminder of how great novels force readers to reflect on their own lives and relationships, and how novels and book clubs have the power to expand personal horizons and nurture and deepen friendships. The members of the book club are all intelligent, interesting, and believable women. Readers will feel a kinship with all of them, and will feel satisfied by the end of the novel at how their various situations are resolved. Frankly, I felt as though I were a seventh member of the group, and having at one time or another read all but one of their picks, I vicariously participated in their discussions. Although the novel ends exactly when it should, on the perfect note, I know I will miss these sympathetic characters who Goldreich so skillfully brings to life. This is a wise, moving, and memorable contemporary novel.

The six women who make up the book club meet monthly to discuss a chosen tale. Trish is married to Jason; Donna has two men in her life; Rina is a single mom; Jen is married to Ian, Elizabeth has Bert. However, all envy the sixth member Cynthia. She has a great job as marketing director of Nightingale's Boutique department Store; her sensitive husband Eric is a renowned documentary filmmaker; and they have two perfect twin children. Thus the other five are stunned when Cynthia informs them that she is divorcing Eric, but she refuses to provide reasons beyond that she cannot forgive him.

The other five speculate on what he did, but Cynthia remains stubborn refusing to divulge her secret. After a time of failed sleuthing, each of the other five begins to look inward at their own flawed relationships wondering what they can do to strengthen them. No one knows why the perfect marriage dissolved during their DINNER WITH ANNA KARENINA, but no one wants to follow suit.

Once again the great Gloria Goldreich provides a powerful relationship drama starring a wounded woman who feels so betrayed that she no longer trusts the man she loves. Readers will join the quintet trying to learn what he did and how can he atone for his transgression that destroyed their marriage. However, the key to this deep tale is the ensemble cast that comes across as differing individuals with varying needs, worrying about their own relationships with loved ones. Fans of powerful character studies will want to read this strong look at trust lost.

Harriet Klausner

I am a voracious reader and this has to be the all-time worst book ever written. If this author used one more adverb I was going to hurl. If you enjoy super mushy descriptions and extremely predictable cliche'd writing this is the book for you. If you are even a "semi" well-read person you will toss this book in the nearest trashcan. The irony of this whole disaster is it's about a woman's bookclub! If any of the women in this novel's bookclub had picked out this book for their reading I'm certain none of them would even have the stomach to finish it. Leo Tolstoy and the other author's novels mentioned in this book must be turning over in their graves...

I should have known better than to pick this one up, but at least now I can warn the rest of you. This book barely has a plot, the characters are flat and two-dimensional, and their secrets, when revealed, turn out to be not all that interesting after all. Even if reading a book about women using a book club as an excuse to talk about their troubles with relationships, children, etc., is your cup of tea, you can do better. If it's not, Dinner with Anna Karenina won't win you over. Stay away.

I couldn't even bring myself to finish this book. The characters aren't well developed or likable, the action is slow and predictable and the descriptions of the book club meetings are deadly dull.

I almost kept going just to read the bizarre descriptions of the women's clothing (do women really still wear capes, 'pantsuits', 'long denim skirts' and 'mink cloches'???)but in the end decided not to waste any more time.

There have been many books written over the last decade about women in book clubs. When I first saw that this was yet another, my reaction was "oh, bleah."

But I found myself strongly drawn in to this story of six New York women with six very different lives, linked together by their great love of reading. I could identify with that love and with their powerful emotions about books. But what was really fun about this particular story was that each time the group discussed a book, the reader was privy to the discussion!

I found it absolutely fascinating. They discussed books I had read, books I had not read. They discussed Sylvia Plath in detail, pro and con, ditto for Louisa Mae Alcott. The points of view were so interesting and so diverting that I felt I was part of the group, the seventh woman, sitting silently, partaking of their wonderful meals (lovingly described) and nodding my head in agreement.

Yes, there is a plot: The "perfect, has-it-all" group member, Cynthia, startles the rest of the women almost on page 1 with the announcement that she has separated from her husband. This story acts as a catalyst in introducing the other women, and the thread runs throughout the book. It didn't always work, hence the four stars instead of five, but I cried at the end, not a regular thing for me at all.

If you are a book lover, I think you might really like this gentle book that is, in the end, simply a discussion of much-loved literature.

i picked this book out of the library because they had 8 copies of it so i figured it was a real hit. i should have taken the hint, considering all 8 copies were still on the shelf! i was disappointed with the book's predictability. while reading it i got bored, and skipped 300 pages only to discover that nothing had changed and i had no trouble following through to the end of the book. there is no reading between the lines, i found. all the characters' personalities, conflicts, and strengths are spelled out as if in a pattern. i enjoy more in depth reading, and this book did not make me think. i have to say, occasionally there were some great adjectives and Goldreich has the gift of description.

This book is beyond a simple story with plots and characters. Goldreich is inspiring us, inviting us to reach into ourselves and learn, to cultivate our minds, our hearts, our families and our entire lives by allowing ourselves to connect and find common ground with others.

Other reviews here give you summations of this novel. Its impact is more important to me and something I hope to share with you. Finding a common ground with others and allowing yourself to connect and reconnect with those individuals over time is an extremely helpful way to "make it" through life.

I have been blessed with friendships of women, many times over my life, in many circumstances. There is a poem that I was given by one such group years ago that is circulating in my mind as I type this for you. I am going to attempt some of it here, for it is exactly what I mean to say...a poem called HeartFriends when it was given to me.

"How generous is God that he has given me these few and special people who are the true friends of my heart. How he must love me that he has let us find each other upon this crowded earth.

We are drawn to each other as if by some mystical force. We recognize each other at once. We are family of spirit, who understand each other instinctively.

There is no blood between us, no common family history. Yet there are no barriers of background or even age. Older, younger, richer, poorer...no matter, we speak the same language.

We have come together in a special moment of time and the sense of union we feel will last throughout eternity. How generous is God that he has given me these people I can call friends. Dear, good, life-enriching people who add flavor, value, and delight. I would be the poorer without them.

Yet surely, God's true concern for us, his/her children, is to lead us to these rare and special few. The ones who call out to us from the crowds, who hold fast to us through trials, triumphs and long separations.

The friends with whom the heart feels joyfully at home."

(Marjorie Holmes, author)

I am reminded of childhood friends, school groups, church groups, co workers, mothers and healers who became my comrades over time. We often began similarly, with some common element but otherwise strangers, drawn together and woven into each other's lives over time. It doesn't matter how you come to know and love your heartfriends, it matters that you do, and that they will in turn find enrichment from you that cannot be created separately.

Thank you, Gloria Goldreich, for describing and showing so many others what it is like to find Heartfriends, with flavor, value and delight.

Joni Caldwell

Not very well written, bad unrealistic dialogue and unrealistic character development,
but fun nonetheless. A decent beach or airplane read.

"Dinner with Anna Karenina" starts a little slow and appears somewhat cheesy at the beginning, but it grows into something more. Its characters are not perfect, and Gloria Goldreich manages to present them with their human faults and imperfect choices. While the collection of characters might not be the most believable (a poor graduate student and a rich, elegant manager as part of the same book club?), it is still a gripping read.