Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: Fatal Passion

Book number 53 of 2024

It’s been a while since my last post, but I finally finished another massive read: Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.  I could say 2024 is the year I rekindled my love of Russian literature: I reread Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and discovered the beauty of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. Like War and Peace, I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina when I was much younger – 21 years old. At the time, I thought it was a pretty good story, but a little melodramatic. Now, with the benefit of having been happily married for 38 years with two wonderful daughters, I can appreciate Tolstoy’s mastery of the novel form as he chronicles the tragic arc of marital infidelity. I now understand so much better the psychological and emotional torture his protagonists put themselves and those around them through.

Anna Karenina is a perfect example of why I enjoy reading classics so much: they are time machines. While reading it, I was able to get a glimmer of what life was like in 19th century Russia – the lifestyles of the peasants; the mores and conventions of the upper class; how hard life was for women, regardless of class; how perilous childhood was – if one survived infancy, he or she could easily die from illness or accident; how slow and difficult getting from one place to another was; the elaborate rules of courtship, and on and on. Tolstoy vividly conveys his world through small details that resonate over decades. I really feel like I have experienced a visit to pre-revolutionary Russia.

The story begins with one of the greatest opening sentences in all of literature: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” We begin with Prince Stepan (Stiva) Oblonsky getting up one morning, bursting with good health and benevolent feelings for those around him. He is a government functionary who doesn’t really do anything, and he’s quite happy about it. He knows all the “right” people, he is considered quite a wit, and he has a bright future ahead of him. The only blot on his horizon is the fact that he has been having an affair with his children’s governess, and his wife has found out about it.

His best friend is Konstantin (Kostya) Levin, who is a man of simpler pleasures. He is a relatively successful landowner who is uncomfortable when he’s in the big city. He has come to Moscow to ask Kitty Shtcherbatskaya to marry him. Kitty is the sister of Stepan’s wife, Dolly. She is also in love with the dashing young military officer, Count Alexey Vronsky. He is an up-to-date man who considers wooing young noblewomen great sport:

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one’s children, earn one’s bread, and pay one’s debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people.

But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 2797-2802). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Stepan’s sister, Anna Karenina, is coming to visit him – with the ulterior motive of reconciling Stepan and Dolly. She is married to an very important statesman, Alexei Karenin, and they have an eight-year-old son, Sergei (Seryozha). Vronsky happens to see her as she arrives at the Oblonsky’s and immediately is smitten with her.

Levin proposes to Kitty, but she turns him down, thinking Vronsky is about to propose to her. However, at a ball later on Kitty sees how Vronsky can’t keep his eyes off of Anna, and she realizes to her shame that she has been discarded.

Anna enjoys the attention Vronsky gives her at the ball, but realizes she must remove herself from Moscow and return to her husband and son in Petersburg. On the train home, she runs into Vronsky (who had deliberately followed her), and, to her horror, is gratified and excited to see him. Once in Petersburg, Vronsky slowly and methodically insinuates himself into a circle of oh-so-advanced nobles and thinkers that includes Anna. Here’s a typical conversation:

But why was it you didn’t come to dinner?” she said, admiring him.

“I must tell you about that. I was busily employed, and doing what, do you suppose? I’ll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand… you’d never guess. I’ve been reconciling a husband with a man who’d insulted his wife. Yes, really!”

“Well, did you succeed?”

“Almost.”

“You really must tell me about it,” she said, getting up. “Come to me in the next entr’acte.”

“I can’t; I’m going to the French theater.”

 “From Nilsson?” Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson’s voice from any chorus girl’s.

“Can’t help it. I’ve an appointment there, all to do with my mission of peace.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’” said Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from someone. “Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it’s all about.”

And she sat down again.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 3121-3133). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

And so the die is cast for this classic tale of all-consuming passion and selfishness. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the reader knows things cannot possible end well, yet he or she can’t stop reading. Anna and Vronsky are doomed, yet you can’t look away.

Even after their affair has been consummated, and Vronsky has told Anna she means the world to him, he really can’t think of anyone except himself. After he loses a horse race due to a riding mistake he commits that causes his horse to fall, he handles his setback poorly:

“A — a — a!” groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. “Ah! what have I done!” he cried. “The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah! what have I done!”

A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his cap that had fallen off, walked away from the race course, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 4795-4800). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Levin is doing what he enjoys most: managing his estate and not worrying about city matters. He even joins his peasants as they mow a meadow:

Another row, and yet another row, followed — long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 5974-5978). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

All of this happens in the first quarter of the novel, meaning Tolstoy spends the majority of it exploring the effects of Anna’s and Vronsky’s adultery on those around them. One of Tolstoy’s most striking talents is his ability to describe and analyze the psychological motivations of his characters. As I read of Anna’s anguish as she slowly realized the impossible situation she had put herself in, I was able to sympathize with her more and more. Conversely, as Vronsky’s true character came to light, he became more and more repugnant. Anna’s husband, Alexei Alexandrovich, develops from a stiff and priggish man into a compassionate and sensitive one. Konstantin Levin undergoes many changes as he struggles to understand a reason for living and working. Kitty Shtcherbatskaya matures into a thoughtful and intelligent young woman, whose faith never wavers.

Anna Karenina is also a study in contrasts: the decadent moral relativism of upper class society in Petersburg vs. the more traditional morality of Moscow; the spendthrift lifestyle the cities encourage vs. the economies of country life; the useless and parasitical occupations of the governing class vs. the difficult but productive work of the peasants; and, overarching the entire novel, the deeply satisfying holy marriage of Levin and Kitty vs. the decaying and troubled relationship Anna and Vronsky try to convince themselves is a marriage.

Where Levin and Kitty devote themselves to their newborn child and delight in his every move, Anna barely acknowledges her and Vronsky’s daughter. When Dolly visits Anna and asks to see little Annie, Anna doesn’t even know that she has cut some new teeth. While Levin and Kitty spend their honeymoon learning how to fuse their separate lives into one, and they sometimes quarrel, there is never any doubt about their abiding love for each other. Because Anna and Vronsky’s relationship is not grounded in a true marriage, she succumbs to paranoid jealousy, to the point that she cannot comprehend reality. The end result is truly tragic.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina deserves its reputation as one of the greatest novels ever written. In it, he plumbs psychological depths to a degree most authors couldn’t dream of doing. Whether he is describing the feelings of a nobleman, a peasant, a woman, a dilletante, or an intellectual, every character is fully fleshed out and someone the reader can have empathy with. Even Vronksy is revealed to truly and faithfully love Anna. No one is all bad, and no one is all good. Much like real life!

Standard Ebooks has an excellent (and free) edition of Anna Karenina that you can download here.

Turgenev’s Fathers and Children – A Clash of Generations

Book number 46 of 2024

Continuing my exploration of classic Russian literature (you can read my review of Tolstoy’s War and Peace here), I decided to check out Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Children (also known as Fathers and Sons). A couple of years ago, I read Joseph Frank’s biography of my favorite Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and, according to Frank, Dostoyevsky was friends with Turgenev and had spoken well of Fathers and Sons.

The novel opens with middle-aged widower Nikoloai Petrovitch Kirsanov anxiously awaiting the arrival of his son, Arkady, who has graduated from the university in Petersburg. When Arkady finally arrives at the depot, he introduces a new friend of his, Yevgeny Vassilyitch Bazarov, whom he has invited to stay at their estate.

As their carriages arrive at the Kirsanov estate, it’s clear things are not doing well. Turgenev paints a picture of poverty and decay – emaciated cows, serfs driving pell-mell to gin bars, decrepit and dilapidated buildings. At the house, they are greeted by Nikolai’s brother, Pavel Petrovitch, who is a bit of an aristocratic dandy. He is glad to see Arkady, but Bazarov immediately rubs him the wrong way. The next morning, Pavel Petrovitch is not pleased to learn that Bazarov is a “nihilist”:

Pavel Petrovitch pulled his moustaches. “Well, and what is Mr. Bazarov himself?” he asked, deliberately.
“What is Bazarov?” Arkady smiled. “Would you like me, uncle, to tell you what he really is?”
“If you will be so good, nephew.”
“He’s a nihilist.”
“Eh?” inquired Nikolai Petrovitch, while Pavel Petrovitch lilted a knife in the air with a small piece of butter on its tip, and remained motionless.
“He’s a nihilist,” repeated Arkady.
“A nihilist,” said Nikolai Petrovitch. “That’s from the Latin, nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; the word must mean a man who … who accepts nothing?”
“Say, ‘who respects nothing,’ ” put in Pavel Petrovitch, and he set to work on the butter again.
“Who regards everything from the critical point of view,” observed Arkady.
“Isn’t that just the same thing?” inquired Pavel Petrovitch.
“No, it’s not the same thing. A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.”
“Well, and is that good?” interrupted Pavel Petrovitch.
“That depends, uncle. Some people it will do good to, but some people will suffer for it.”
“Indeed. Well, I see it’s not in our line. We are old-fashioned people; we imagine that without principles, taken as you say on faith, there’s no taking a step, no breathing. Vous avez changé tout cela. [You have changed all that.] God give you good health and the rank of a general, while we will be content to look on and admire, worthy … what was it?”
“Nihilists,” Arkady said, speaking very distinctly.
“Yes. There used to be Hegelists, and now there are nihilists. We shall see how you will exist in void, in vacuum; and now ring, please, brother Nikolai Petrovitch; it’s time I had my cocoa.”
Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Children (Kindle Locations 469-485). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.

There is also another family complication – Nikolai has brought a young woman, Fenitchka, into the house and she has borne him a son. Arkady, quite proud of his fashionable and up-to-date morals, assures his father that he thinks it is all perfectly wonderful.

One thing I appreciate about Turgenev is his dry sense of humor. Here he is describing a government official, Matvy Illyitch Kolyazin:

Matvy Ilyitch received Arkady with the good-nature, we might even call it playfulness, characteristic of the enlightened higher official. He was astonished, however, when he heard that the cousins he had invited had remained at home in the country. “Your father was always a queer fellow,” he remarked, playing with the tassels of his magnificent velvet dressing-gown, and suddenly turning to a young official in a discreetly buttoned-up uniform, he cried, with an air of concentrated attention, “What?” The young man, whose lips were glued together from prolonged silence, got up and looked in perplexity at his chief. But, having nonplussed his subordinate, Matvy Ilyitch paid him no further attention. Our higher officials are fond as a rule of nonplussing their subordinates; the methods to which they have recourse to attain that end are rather various.
Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Children (Kindle Locations 1076-1081). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.

At a ball, Arkady and Bazarov are introduced to a local young woman who is a wealthy widow, Anna Sergyevna Odintsov. They have an extended stay at her estate, where she lives with her younger sister, Katya, and their irascible aunt, a pompous old princess. Arkady fancies himself in love with Anna, but he is too young and naïve for her to really notice him. She is much more interested in Bazarov, and what makes him tick. He doesn’t derive any enjoyment from any art, whether it’s music, paintings, or novels. For his part, Bazarov finds Anna Sergyevna fascinating – she is an independent woman who competently runs an extensive estate. She is well educated and interested in learning more about botany, chemistry, and other physical sciences. She is always entirely placid and serene; nothing disturbs her equanimity.

Late one evening, Bazarov and Anna are conversing in her room. She tries to pierce his armor of indifference and rationalism, while he struggles to not express his feelings for her. He finally gives in and says he loves her, but he is like a cornered, furious animal, and Anna realizes she has pushed him too far and immediately regrets it.

Bazarov plans to leave to go to his family farm, and Arkady impulsively decides to join him. The Bazarovs are a lot of fun – his father, Vassily, is a retired doctor who struts around in his shabby old military uniform. His mother, Arina, is a devout and devoted mother who showers an embarrassed Yevgeny with affection. After just three days, he’s had enough and makes plans to return to Arkady’s family estate. At this point, Turgenev gives us a beautiful piece of writing that captures the heartbreak parents feel when they realize their children have outgrown them:

Vassily Ivanovitch, after a few more moments of hearty waving of his handkerchief on the steps, sank into a chair, and his head dropped on to his breast. “He has cast us off; he has forsaken us,” he faltered; “forsaken us; he was dull with us. Alone, alone!” he repeated several times. Then Arina Vlasyevna went up to him, and, leaning her grey head against his grey head, said, “There’s no help for it, Vasya! A son is a separate piece cut off. He’s like the falcon that flies home and flies away at his pleasure; while you and I are like funguses in the hollow of a tree, we sit side by side, and don’t move from our place. Only I am left you unchanged forever, as you for me.”

Vassily Ivanovitch took his hands from his face and clasped his wife, his friend, as warmly as he had never clasped in youth; she comforted him in his grief.

Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Children (Kindle Locations 2301-2307). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.

As time goes on, the friendship between Arkady and Bazarov cools, and the friction between Arkady’s uncle Pavel and Bazarov comes to a head. Bazarov knows he has no one to confide in, nowhere to go where he would be comfortable. He is in thrall to his nihilism, but it is a dead end. Arkady moves on, falling in love with Anna Sergyevna’s younger sister, Katya. 

Fathers and Children is one of the most beautifully written novels I’ve ever read. It’s also nice that it’s relatively short: 255 pages, which is nothing compared to most Russian literature! Turgenev is, to my ears, like Hemingway in the way he strips down his prose to the bare essentials. With a few descriptive phrases, Turgenev conveys the atmosphere of a scene completely. For example, here’s the scene he paints of Bazarov when he finally returns to his home:

Bazarov leaned out of the coach, while Arkady thrust his head out behind his companion’s back, and caught sight on the steps of the little manor-house of a tall, thinnish man with dishevelled hair, and a thin hawk nose, dressed in an old military coat not buttoned up. He was standing, his legs wide apart, smoking a long pipe and screwing up his eyes to keep the sun out of them.
The horses stopped.
“Arrived at last,” said Bazarov’s father, still going on smoking though the pipe was fairly dancing up and down between his fingers. “Come, get out; get out; let me hug you.”
He began embracing his son … “Enyusha, Enyusha,” was heard a trembling woman’s voice. The door was flung open, and in the doorway was seen a plump, short, little old woman in a white cap and a short striped jacket. She moaned, staggered, and would certainly have fallen, had not Bazarov supported her. Her plump little hands were instantly twined round his neck, her head was pressed to his breast, and there was a complete hush. The only sound heard was her broken sobs.

Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Children (Kindle Locations 1889-1896). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition

The overarching theme of Fathers and Children is the inability of different generations to understand each other. Arkady’s father is “progressive”, in that he has emancipated his peasants, but he doesn’t understand the nihilism of Arkady and Bazarov. Bazarov has no patience with his parents, and he can’t wait to leave home as soon as he arrives there. Even though these are characters from mid-nineteenth century Russia, we in 21st century America must deal with the same issues. How can the older generation pass on its values to the next, while still allowing its eagerly rebellious children to make mistakes, learn from them, and grow? It’s an eternal question with no easy answer.

The ebook version of Fathers and Children that I read is available for free at Standard Ebooks. You can download it here.