Anna Appears
Finishing Part I of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
I enjoyed our discussion about Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina last Wednesday for the Provo Great Books Club. We finished Part I, and we begin Part II this week.
I wondered aloud in our group why Tolstoy wrote about half of Part I before introducing his protagonist, the scintillating and beguiling Anna Karenina. There are probably many reasons for Tolstoy’s choice, but everyone in the group seemed to agree that it was an effective choice. Anna’s first appearance and her performance at the ball are impressive and memorable.
The opening scene that describes the tragic infidelity of Mr. Oblansky and the suffering of his wife Dolly, along with many other things, seems to foreshadow something in Anna’s future. Is the tragic train accident also a bad omen, as Anna herself believes?
In Part I, I was most interested in what Levin has to teach us about Tolstoy’s perspective and intent as an author. In my opinion, at least at this point in the novel, Levin stands out from the other characters as the most in touch with reality and the most able observer and critic of himself and of society. Perhaps he is most like Tolstoy. In contrast to Anna and Kitty and Vronsky and others who seem carried away by every romantic notion (something that reminds me of some of the characters in George Eliot’s mammoth Middlemarch), Levin seems to be the most practical person, admirable for his desire to conquer himself.
As Kitty fawns over Anna, as Vronsky chases Anna, and as Dolly recovers from her agony, Levin has now returned to the countryside and the simple joys of life. I’ve never read this novel before, but at this point I venture to guess that Levin completes his felicity by marrying Kitty, Anna and Vronsky marry after a whirlwind of passion, and then Anna makes a mess of things like Mr. Oblansky before her. I hope that I’m wrong about Anna making a mess of things, and I’m probably wrong about the other things too, but these are my guesses according to the character trajectories I see thus far and the foreshadowing that Tolstoy seems to provide.
Join us this Wednesday, February 5, 2025 in studying and discussing chapters 1-18 of Part II of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.