Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

After a week of prolonged reading, today I finished this book. I just want to write down about this book before the freshness of the story that lingers in my mind withers out. I was very keen to read this book, mainly because some of my earlier attempt to read Russian literature (books of Dostoevsky) turned to be more serious reading than I had imagined. In fact, it does some phenomenal things to my mind, which I had never experienced before and made me suppose that Russian novels are more profound and meaningful. “Anna Karenina” reinforced my hypothesis again.

Anna Karenina written by Leo Tolstoy is a novel about a most beautiful, sensual women “Anna” who falls in love with an enchanting, handsome Prince “Vronsky” after been married to “Karenin”. This infidelity of Anna causes series of emotional entanglement and inner conflicts between these three characters, which is the essence of the story. Besides that, there is another remarkable character in the book “Levin”, by whom Leo Tolstoy endeavored to enlighten his philosophical quest to the readers. The story revolves around these four major characters (Anna, Karenin, Vronsky, and Levin).

There are so many things to be appreciated about this book. Foremost is the characterization of Anna, Karenin, Vronsky and Levin. The human emotions between various relationships.(Husband and wife, Mother and a son, between brothers, between sisters etc…).The authors view on various issues on Russian society.
At last, the various complicated feelings like infedility, retribution, envy, pride, solitude, humiliation, fear of being disgraced are painfully written. Certainly Leo Tolstoy is a Genius!!!

In spite of all the interesting stuff in the book, one could not help feeling that book is slow paced. Some parts are impossibly dragged and quite insignificant to the story. Nevertheless, it is worth reading.