Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (1876)
About the book:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”
In 1872 the mistress of a neighbouring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy’s home. This gave Tolstoy the starting point he needed for composing what many believe to be the greatest novel ever written. In writing Anna Karenina he moved away from the vast historical sweep of War and Peace to tell, with extraordinary understanding, the story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself. Anna’s tragedy is interwoven with not only the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin but also the lives of many other characters. Rich in incident, powerful in characterization, the novel also expresses Tolstoy’s own moral vision. `The correct way of putting the question is the artist’s duty’, Chekhov once insisted, and Anna Karenina was the work he chose to make his point. It solves no problem, but it is deeply satisfying because all the questions are put correctly.
About the Author
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the Russian prose writer, was a Russian writer widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction.
Related Material:
Movies: The Last Station (2009) A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things. Starring Helen Mirren and James Macavoy
Anna Karenina (1997) Starring Sean Bean and Sophie Marceau
Please visit the forum to join in this book discussion. We will be taking our time with this one so we expect it to take four weeks plus to read and discuss.
