In a marriage filled with privilege and devoid of passion, Anna turns to Count Vronsky for love. I was surprised to learn that the novel initially centered primarily on Anna, her husband Alexei, and her lover Count Vronsky. Reading it in small pieces wasn't nearly as satisfying. I enjoyed it most when I had time to sink into large chunks of it. The interweaving of story and theme helped the novel maintain its pacing. However, within the constraints of the genre, Tolstoy writes a novel that both tells a story and explores deep themes - themes of life and death, faithfulness and adultery, tradition and modernization, wealth and class. According to the notes in the beginning of my book, the family novel was hopelessly out of fashion in the 1870s. At the time that Tolstoy wrote the novel, this was an odd choice.

On the surface, this is a family novel, interweaving the stories of seven characters who are related or connected by marriage. To me, the book is her narrative and closing it out with her last thoughts would have been a more appropriate conclusion to the story that bears her name. Those final chapters feel superfluous and disruptive to the symmetry of the story. I couldn’t help but feel the emotional impact of her death was lost by refocusing on Levin. I guess that’s the point, but I still struggled with them both.I hated the decision to continue the book after Anna’s death. That being said, I find it hard not to feel Vronsky and Anna are the architects of their own destruction. Anna is an immensely sympathetic character, her internal monologue is one of the most realistic representations of severe depression I’ve ever read. Levin was endlessly irritating and self-important. Excellent writing only carries me so far, particularly when I find it so difficult to connect with any of the characters in a serious way. I blazed through the first half and then slowly dragged my way through the rest. The narrative builds in an engaging and entertaining way with progressions that make sense and seem realistic, even at our historical remove.That being said: my goodness, this book was unwieldy. His prose is beautiful, giving you glimpses into the minds and feelings of his characters and creating settings that feel real and tangible. ** spoiler alert ** We all know Tolstoy could write.

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