I feel the need to clarify - when I said about Madame Karenina "may she never darken my doorstep again" - well I did mean it, but I wouldn't say that the book didn't have any enjoyable parts. I feel like making a list of the things I loved. If you've read the book you might enjoy the reminders, if you plan to read it, the next section is spoilers, and if you're the other 90% of humanity you can just spare yourself this post. Here we go:
The whole beginning where Levin loses Kitty to Vronsky and Kitty loses Vronsky to Anna is funny and moving and an interesting insight into the way people used to interact in those years.
Karenin the husband is a great character throughout the book.
I love the way the book deals with how everyone else's affairs except Anna and Vronsky's are light-hearted little games that revive the spirit and often serve to promote the social status of the couple.
Levin's struggles with metaphysics, if they weren't so draaawwwwn ouuuuut would've been very enjoyable. For sure the part where he joins the peasants in cutting the grass, even as it is six or seven chapters long, managed to move me deeply. After that, the chalk proposal is one of my favorite love scenes ever.
The part where Lavin's brother is dying and Kitty takes care of him is maybe my favorite part, but Tolstoy manages again to drag it out for much longer than necessary.
The character of Varenka, in her influence on Kitty in the times when Kitty thinks she might remain an old maid, and later on when there's a pathetic attempt to get her engaged to Sergey Ivanovitch, is for me one of the most thought-provoking and memorable parts of the book.
There's the episode where Dolly is jealous of Anna's life, and disgusted with her own state of constant pregnancy and humiliation, including a peasant girl she meets that tells her ‘I had a girl baby, but God set me free; I buried her last Lent’ - in her misery, Dolly even manages to be jealous of that girl for a while.
Another thing I loved was the horrible succubus woman that latches herself to Karenin, culminating in the great seance scene they force on Stiva.
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About the movie: it was pretty weak, but well cast - Sean Bean as Vronsky (naked, yummy!) and Sophie Marceau as Anna, Alfred Molina as Levin (weird) and the always pleasantly annoying Mia Kirshner as Kitty. The actor who played Karenin, James Fox, was as good as Karenin is in the book.
The whole beginning where Levin loses Kitty to Vronsky and Kitty loses Vronsky to Anna is funny and moving and an interesting insight into the way people used to interact in those years.
Karenin the husband is a great character throughout the book.
I love the way the book deals with how everyone else's affairs except Anna and Vronsky's are light-hearted little games that revive the spirit and often serve to promote the social status of the couple.
Levin's struggles with metaphysics, if they weren't so draaawwwwn ouuuuut would've been very enjoyable. For sure the part where he joins the peasants in cutting the grass, even as it is six or seven chapters long, managed to move me deeply. After that, the chalk proposal is one of my favorite love scenes ever.
The part where Lavin's brother is dying and Kitty takes care of him is maybe my favorite part, but Tolstoy manages again to drag it out for much longer than necessary.
The character of Varenka, in her influence on Kitty in the times when Kitty thinks she might remain an old maid, and later on when there's a pathetic attempt to get her engaged to Sergey Ivanovitch, is for me one of the most thought-provoking and memorable parts of the book.
There's the episode where Dolly is jealous of Anna's life, and disgusted with her own state of constant pregnancy and humiliation, including a peasant girl she meets that tells her ‘I had a girl baby, but God set me free; I buried her last Lent’ - in her misery, Dolly even manages to be jealous of that girl for a while.
Another thing I loved was the horrible succubus woman that latches herself to Karenin, culminating in the great seance scene they force on Stiva.
--
About the movie: it was pretty weak, but well cast - Sean Bean as Vronsky (naked, yummy!) and Sophie Marceau as Anna, Alfred Molina as Levin (weird) and the always pleasantly annoying Mia Kirshner as Kitty. The actor who played Karenin, James Fox, was as good as Karenin is in the book.
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