Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

by Leo Tolstoy (Author), Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator) "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way..." (more)
Key Phrases: venomous gentleman, provincial marshal, barely noticeable smile, Stepan Arkadyich, Alexei Alexandrovich, Sergei Ivanovich (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Some people say Anna Karenina is the single greatest novel ever written, which makes about as much sense to me as trying to determine the world's greatest color. But there is no doubt that Anna Karenina, generally considered Tolstoy's best book, is definitely one ripping great read. Anna, miserable in her loveless marriage, does the barely thinkable and succumbs to her desires for the dashing Vronsky. I don't want to give away the ending, but I will say that 19th-century Russia doesn't take well to that sort of thing.

Product Description
Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness. While previous versions have softened the robust, and sometimes shocking, quality of Tolstoy's writing, Pevear and Volokhonsky have produced a translation true to his powerful voice. This award-winning team's authoritative edition also includes an illuminating introduction and explanatory notes. Beautiful, vigorous, and eminently readable, this Anna Karenina will be the definitive text for generations to come.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 864 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143035002
• ISBN-13: 978-0143035008
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (181 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,104 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #1 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Foreign Language Fiction > Russian
  #1 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Russian
  #2 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( T ) > Tolstoy, Leo

• This is item 51 in The Oprah's Book Club Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 170 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful mosaic of interlinked stories ..., June 1, 2004

By	Bel Alcat "bel_78" (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Anna Karenina" (1873-7) is a book that could be compared to a beautiful mosaic of interlinked stories. Thanks to Tolstoy's book, we get to know characters who sometimes seem so real that we cannot help but living with them the series of events that are recounted in this book.

Who are the main characters?. Well, we might begin by telling something about Anna Karenina, the woman who gives this book its title. Anna is someone who has found some satisfaction in a marriage to a husband she doesn't love. Her life isn't exciting, but she is comfortable, and has a son that means everything to her. Her world will be shaken when a nobleman, Count Vronsky, falls in love with her. He pursuits Anna until he convinces her to become his lover, indulging in an adulterous affair. But... will he go on loving her, even after she risks all for him?. And did she do the right thing, by following her heart without thinking about the consequences of her actions?.

There are many more characters, but I would like to highlight one of them: Levin. Levin is a rather eccentric gentleman farmer, who worries about things like the meaning of life, and allows the reader to share with him the kind of doubts that many have had, but few voice. He ends up finding happiness, but his path is not easy, especially because he is prone to reflect on issues that cause him anguish. His story is linked at the beginning of the book to that of Anna and Vronsky because the woman he loves, Kitty Shcherbatskaya, thinks she loves Vronsky. However, as the story advances, you will probably end up comparing Anna and Vronsky's relationship to that of Kitty and Levin. One is all drama, and passion; the other, calm and contentment. Which one is better?. And according to whom?.

I want to point out how well Tolstoy depicted 19th century Russian society, especially the differences between social classes and how much hypocrisy permeated the moral codes of polite society. If you pay close attention you will notice that several themes also to be found in other classics are recurrent in "Anna Karenina". One of them is fate, and some of the others are the omnipresence of death, the meaning of life, and the power of faith. There are many more things I would like to say about this book, but I think you will do better if you start to read "Anna Karenina" right now, instead of spending more of your time reading a long review such as this one :)

On the whole, I highly recommend this book. It is one of those few books that don't allow you to remain indifferent. You might hate it or love it, but it will necessarily make you think about several important subjects, whilst reading a good story.

Belen Alcat

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest Novel Ever Written, July 5, 2004

By A Customer

I read this book in 1993, and I still remember the experience. It has been called the greatest novel ever written and I agree.

It is a very long book: I read a few chapters a day over a long period of time. Over time the feeling developed that the characters, and Tolstoy himself (in Levin), were people I knew -- people with whom I spent some time each day. The philosophy was mind-expanding; I'm sure my views were affected.
For me, the important thing in reading this book was not to try to "get through" it, but to "visit" it as I would visit congenial neighbors. When I finished, I felt loneliness over loss of contact with the characters.
I'm going to read it again some day.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent and Tragic, June 5, 2004

By	Anne Rice "Anne Rice, Author" (Little Paradise, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One of the greatest novels of all time. Once you read it straight through and experience its immensity and depth, you can keep it around and dip into it when you need to be reminded that a work of art -- novel, play, film, what have you -- can give you not only continued enjoyment but profound truths. Tolstoy is one of the few writers I've ever read -- indeed possibly the only writer I've ever read -- who really treats men and women equally. Now in later life he wrote many provocative things about gender, but at the time he wrote Anna Karenina, he saw the soul inside a human with unlimited generosity. Note his loving attention to the emotions and suffering of the young adolescent Kitty Scherbatsky who becomes in fact a heroine of the work, and how he takes her every bit as seriously as he takes any male character in the book. If you go on to War and Peace, you'll find the same inquiry into the depths of the soul in total resregard of masculine/feminine identity. It has been said that Tolstoy raised the novel to the level of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. I believe that he did. I believe he did because, being Russian, receiving the novel as something of an imported form from England and/or France, he did not have any prejudice towards it as some sort of "domestic" or "popular" form. In other words, no one told him the novel couldn't be great. And he made it great. Read this book, even if you have to carry it around with you for a while. I recommend the old translation by Constance Garnett, but there are other ones.