Anna Karenina

In span of the last two and a half months of commuting to and from school on the bus I have managed to read the great Russian novel, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in its entirety.

How is that Anna Karenina became my “bus” book?  Well at the beginning of the January I discovered the Kindle App for my iPhone.  I ended up downloading a bunch of the “classics” that Amazon was offering for free and Anna Karenina was one of them.  I had heard of mention of the book but to be honest I didn’t know much about the plot line.

Believe it or not Anna Karenina was the perfect “bus” book.  The story has no real climax or peaks.  This made it great to read on the bus because you could easily start and stop reading without feeling like you were yearning to find out what happens next and without really needing to have what already happened fresh in your mind.  Another thing is that it carries on for 1170 pages in more or less the same tone and pace.  This is why most people find it difficult to finish because they get bored.  So the fact that I would read it half hour snippets twice a day made it manageable.

I don’t really want to do a full summary of the book.  This isn’t a school book report.  Instead I’m just going to make a few comments.

Never have I been glad when one of the main characters in a novel commits suicide.  That is never, until I read this one.  Anna, for whom the book is named, kills herself near the end.  I am slightly ashamed to admit it but I was overwhelmingly relieved when she died.  She was annoying me to no end.  After leaving her husband for her lover Vronsky she totally changed.  She gradually became completely insecure, bitter, and mean.  Her insecurity got to the point where she started to cause fights because she doubted Vronsky’s love for her.  It was ridiculous because it was so obvious that he loved her more than anything.  He gave up everything to be with her.  He even shot himself once when she had broken it off with him earlier in the book because he was so in love that he didn’t want to live without her.

One of the things I liked about this book was that it followed the lives of many characters.  I really enjoy books where the lives of many characters are intertwined and the story is told from various points of view. My favourite couple in this book was Levin and Kitty.  I was rooting for them from the beginning.

I think that is all I have to say about Anna Karenina.  I’m glad I read it.  Now I have to find a new “bus” book.