Masterwork?

Let me put it very bluntly: if this book bore its real title, nobody would care to read it. "Anna Karenina" is a marketing ploy, a literary teaser for an age eager to read stories about tragic females. And Tolstoy knew it.

What should the book be called then? It should be renamed "Constantin Levin, the Inner Struggles of a Neurotic Russian Gentleman Farmer". And Constantin is in fact nothing more than a projection of the author himself: whereas there is so much that is hidden from us about Anna, including her whole past and the motives of her key decisions, we aren't spared any of Constantin's thoughts, emotions and actions, which include hunting parties that stretch through several chapters. Add endless conversations about farm management and the role of labor in Russian agriculture; add repetitive adolescent musings about Good and Evil, God and the Devil. One is sometimes reminded of Plato's dialogues, only without any trace of humor and style--Tolstoy writes the dullest prose in the history of literature.

This is not to say that there aren't lovely passages and endearing characters in the book (the Oblonsky family is quite likeable), but the price to pay for those rare moments of relief from the tedious descriptions of neurotic Constantin and his hunting parties, to say nothing of Anna's morbid jealousy and pride, is too heavy in my estimation.

Frankly, if you want to read a shorter novel about the tragic fate of a woman, read Hardy's Tess D'Urbervilles. And if you want to know Russia and its defunct aristocracy better, treat yourself to A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. You don't need to endure almost forty hours of boredom.

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