About this title: Tolstoy's great novel, one of his last works of fiction, tells the story of a harmless flirtation that gradually develops into a destructive passion: the love affair between Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. Anna turns to Vronsky, a dashing military man, as a refuge from her passionless marriage to a pompous, chilly bureaucrat--a move that results ...
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Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780553210347ISBN:0553210343
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Store stamp inside cover. Text in English, Russian. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Fair. 0394309367 This book evidences typical use; prior owner has already marked some significant bits, a few accidental dog-ears; pages tanned with age. Its cover shows only minor shelf wear, one spine crease. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative. read more
Description: Fair. B001EYETRQ An acceptable reading copy that has a broken binding. The binding is broken between the front end paper and title page. There is no dust jacket. The boards are light green. Light wear on cover edges. No marks or highlighting in text. Pages sharp and clean. No remainder mark from publisher. Accurate Descriptions with Fast Shipping and Robust Packaging. GRN105H. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1960
ISBN-13:9780553210347ISBN:0553210343
Description: Very Good. 0553210343 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in very good condition, may have slight worn corners and varying degre..._ read more
Edition: Second Printing
Binding: Mass Market
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780553211719ISBN:0553211714
Description: Fair. 1981 Mass PB. Bantam Books. stated 2nd Printing, November 1981. 873 pgs. Prev owner name first page. Reader notes and just a touch of highlighting to about page 80 then unmarked. Binding solid. Covr with moderate shelf wear. Bottom front corener with several creases. Smudges on page edges. Tanning. Foxing inside covers. Very solid reader's copy. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780451528612ISBN:0451528611
Description: Acceptable. Cover creased and worn. Pages curled at the corners. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780553213461ISBN:0553213466
Description: Very Good. Minor cover wear and tear. Pages appear to be FREE of markings with age toning present. Minor corner wear and curl. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Description: Acceptable. Minor wear along cover edges, corners and spine, tiny creases on inside front cover, minor wear/aging on covers, inside covers/pages tanned, otherwise, clean and tight. 0553114190. read more
"I finished this last night, but didn't write a review then because I needed some time to think over the entire book and decide exactly what I wanted to say about it.
I'm going to start with a quick plot summary, because before I read this I didn't really know what Anna Karenina was actually about. So, in brief: Oblonsky has cheated on his wife Dolly but he convinces his sister Anna to talk to her and they don't get divorced; meanwhile Oblonsky's friend Levin is in love with Dolly's sister Kitty but she wants to marry Vronsky who is in love with Anna who is already married to Karenin but goes ahead and has an affair with Vronsky anyway so he rejects Kitty but it's okay because she marries Levin anyway and Levin has these two brothers and one is a drug addict and the other is a stuffy author and they don't do much but they're around a lot and then Anna leaves her husband but he won't give her a divorce and won't let her keep their son so she's very depressed about that and Dolly is the only one who will talk to her even though Oblonsky also works hard to convince Karenin to divorce Anna.
Everyone got that? It really could not be simpler.
Okay, on to the review part: I'm giving this book three stars because it seemed like the fairest rating, considering that some parts of this book deserved a five-star rating and some parts deserved one star. Everything with Anna and Vronsky was really interesting and amazing - I loved Anna so much, and I really wanted to be friends with her. She was lovely. Unfortunately, she and her lovah had to compete with Kitty and Levin, the other important couple of the story. And good god are they boring. Levin owns a farm, which means we get chapters upon chapters of nothing but him babbling on about farming techniques and how nobody does the job right and what he wants to do to improve his farm. Also, the book should have ended right after Anna killed herself, or at least ended by talking about how Vronsky was dealing with it. But that doesn't happen. In the last thirty-some pages of the book, Anna throws herself under a train, and for the rest of the book we get a little mention of how Vronsky has volunteered to fight in some war, but the rest of it is all about Levin and his farm and local politics and his spiritual crisis and OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE. Once I had read two chapters about Levin after Anna's death, I flipped through the rest of the book, saw that he was the sole focus of the rest of the story, and almost stopped reading. I could have, too, and I wouldn't have missed anything important."
"I was not able to read it since it was in the written in the Russian language. It is probably always best to read authors in their own language, but since I did not have time to learn Russian, I was not able to read it and placed it in the recycle bin."
"Per Michelle's request, a review! It has been a while since I've delved into any heavy literature, so when I saw AK on my branch library's shelves I thought, why not? I'd always intended to read it. And all the cold weather and snow and misery- a perfect book to read over the holidays! Unfortunately, for every passage that was one of those wonderful, wow, I'm right in the room with these characters, fascinating to have fictional characters from another land and time feel so real bits, there was a passage that felt like a lecture. And those passages went on and on and on. Now, thanks to this book, I know all about relations between the Russian aristocracy and the peasantry, agriculture advancements and concerns of the day, the "Slavic problem," various philosophies that are picked up and dropped by various characters. At times these parts could be enlightening, but often they were just dull. Watching Anna fall apart was interesting, but somehow not as devastating as I'd always heard it described. Maybe the plot suffers from being too well known? Anyway, I'm glad I read it! One of those things I can now cross off my list. But I'm not inspired to rush off and read War and Peace next week, that's for sure."
"I had only a small idea of what I would be reading when I picked up Anna - her death is famous and constantly referenced. However, I had no idea of what would lead her to that point, and I didn't know any of the other names of the characters. Though the lengthy volume looked daunting, as soon as I began to read I was enthralled by every page of this translation.
I loved Tolstoy's characters. For existing in the 1800s, I was fascinated by how entirely real they seemed. I think there's something to be said for Tolstoy's knowledge of the human mind. I figured Anna would be the ultimate sympathetic protagonist here, and she was to a certain extent. Her first appearance in the novel, to the eyes of Vronsky, was undoubtedly great. She enters fresh-faced and jubilant, and devolves through the book into a paranoid and depressed woman (and most of it foreshadowed in that first encounter between her and Vronsky on that train). I'd have to say my favourite character was Levin; I loved his constantly-working mind, and his utter adoration for Kitty. I was so excited during that scene when he proposes to her. And the other characters - Oblonsky, Alexei Alexandrovich, Kitty, Dolly, Vronksy, etc. - all well-developed.
Tolstoy had a way with scenes as well - the ballroom scene through Kitty's eyes when she sees Anna and Vronsky; the horse race; Levin side-by-side with the workers on his farm; Anna's sickness after giving birth; the death of Levin's brother; the birth of Kitty and Levin's son, etc. I remember each of them as vividly as if he painted them.
There was only one part that I felt dragged, and that was in the very last section. I read nearly 800 pages without tiring of the novel, and then struggled to get through the few pages of political and religious commentary. Of course, these few pages didn't ruin the book in the least, but perhaps my exhaustive reading caught up with me. I enjoyed Levin's ending thoughts, for sure.
I honestly never thought I would enjoy this book as much as I did; the volume is quite lengthy and my experience with Tolstoy was always with his shorter works (though I loved them as well). I have to add Anna to my favourite books, it left such an impression on me that now I stare at it over on the bed and wish there was more of it to read. It took a long time (since February 1st!), and the book and its characters were my constant companions in my travels. I can't wait to read it again -- when a few years have passed!"
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