Customer Reviews

Anna Karenina (Cliffs Notes)

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Anna Karenina is such a long book, with so much content set in a different time and place, that a companion such as these notes is very helpful. The chapter summaries were adequate or better.

One of the details I appreciated was to point out technical aspects and literary techniques of Tolstoy's writing, such as basic foreshadowing and symbolism.

Perhaps some readers might find the analysis obvious or not sophisticated enough. I am not a regular student of serious literature and thus enjoy what may be fairly straightforward observations, in case I missed the point. For example, one of the early chapters had this comment, "This moment keynotes the inconsistencies between personal ideals and personal behavior, a problem which Levin (and Tolstoy) struggles with and a problem which Stiva overlooks and rationalizes by his hedonism." I consider that useful and reasonable.

The analysis of the main characters and the presentation of the themes were a bit thin.

I don't expect perfection in these notes, because I would never buy them. Get the notes from the library and use them as you wish, either for serious contemplation or skimming or for some insight on particular points. Clearly this volume served that purpose for me.

These Cliffsnotes are terrible!! I do not know if they are the old version or what, but there are no distinctions with themes, symbolism, character insight, etc., the only thing there is for each group of chapters is: summary and commentary with no detail in the commentary!! I am an avid cliffsnotes buyer, but this particular book was very disappointing, down to the simple character descriptions.

This book is great. When I first saw this book I thought that it is boring because it's quite thick. Yet after reading this book I realized that one cannot judge a book based on its size. It's really a good book. It's about the Russian society. After reading this book I learned a great deal about the author. Leo Tolstoy is one of my favorite character. I think that "Anna Karenina" is one of his best works. The liked all the characters especially Levin. A strong relationship grows up between Levin and his peasants. After reading this book I have fallen in love with the countryside. The note helped a lot to understand the story. In the book some parts became hard for me to understand, so I used the note to understand. My point is that when I don't really get into some parts of a story at that time it becomes really hard for me to follow the story. It also become boring to me. The note really helps me out at that time. It makes a boring story very interesting.