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Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (Landmarks of World Literature)

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"Every happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way". So begins a Russian work of fiction that has been a classic and reminder of human experience. Leo Tolstoy wrote poignant, classic masterpieces of Russian ouevre. Anna Karenina was drawn form Tolstoy's own personal experiences with love and he comments not only on the society of his age, but on the quality of human emotion, suffering and frailty. Anna Karenina is not his best work, "War and Peace" is. But Anna strikes a modern chord and is exceptional.

Anthony Thorlby's version is still Tolstoy's, but he adds commentary that is suited for our modern social structure. Anna Karenina is herself a symbol of repressed womanhood, a product of her male-dominated society, a modern woman at heart, ahead of her time. She is married to a wealthy and influential man, but loves the dashing, handsome officer Lensky. She engages in adultery and even has his child. The tempestuous love affair is wrecked with guilt, pain, torture and exquisite tragedy. In contrast, there is the innocent, loving and simplistic romance between Kitty and her lover (who is actually a parody of Tolstoy).

Set in Imperial 19th century Russia, around the time of the Crimean War, the novel takes us to that society, becoming Westernized, full of rich culture but decaying in morals and crumbling from its center due to the fact that humans are fallible, that we cannot be conditioned to do other than our natural selves. Anna Karenina, as we all know from our college days, killed herself under a train, ending the pain that had been brewing as a romantic storm since she first met her destiny with Lensky. The moving tale is worth reading and recognizing as a masterpiece of Russian literature.