Anna Karenina

[Anonymous No.14732048]

How come you guys never talk about this book?

[Anonymous No.14732056]

because /lit/ doesn't read

[Anonymous No.14732064]

>>14732048
We do, you just missed the discussions. It’s a great book. Looking at all of the instances of dreams in the novel is quite interesting and demonstrates a prescient understanding of human psychology and guilt.

[Anonymous No.14732069]

>Not posting the vastly superior steampunk version

[Anonymous No.14732073]

>>14732064
Don't remember much dreams in it. I remember the storm scene on the train. What's the other examples?

[Anonymous No.14732124]

>>14732048
tolstoy is a hack and a pseud. the only russian worse than tolstoy is nobby. read literally anyone else.

[Anonymous No.14732149]

>>14732073
One major example is a dream Anna has where both her husband and Vronsky attempt to seduce her into a threesome, a ménage á trois of sorts, which would seemingly solve her problem of choosing, yet she is filled with immense disgust and horror when she realizes the men are okay with her carrying on with them both.

[Anonymous No.14732160]

>>14732149
Ah good point I now remember one where Anna pulls karanin out of her life like one does a rotten tooth

[Anonymous No.14732224]

>>14732048
>that poster
they really put her in front of a train kek

[Anonymous No.14732673]

Because anyone who has read War and Peace will agree Anna Karenina is monotonous drivel by comparison

[Anonymous No.14733224]

>“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”

[Anonymous No.14733273]

>>14732048
It's been on the top 100 consistently for the past few years. Saged.

[Anonymous No.14733453]

Madam Bovary > Anna Karenina

Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.14733456]

>>14733453
très basé

[Anonymous No.14734128]

>>14733453
how so?

[Anonymous No.14734620]

>>14733273
That's just because it's a classic. There's loads of books that aren't discussed on that list

[Anonymous No.14734628]

>>14734620
Like what? Name 1. The only thing I can think of is something like Tristam Shandy.

[Anonymous No.14734648]

>>14734628
Tristan Shandy

[Anonymous No.14734671]

>>14734628
All the books I'm listing are perennial /lit/ top 100s, and I've never seen a thread about any of them.
A Confederacy of Dunces
Catch-22
East of Eden
Heart of Darkness
The Grapes of Wrath
The Magic Mountain
The Man Without Qualities
The Master and Margarita
The Recognitions

[Anonymous No.14734680]

>>14734671
Check the archives. The only ones on that last that aren't regularly or semi-regularly talked about are Magic Mountain and Recognitions. Even then I've seen at least one thread on each of these in the 5 years or so I've been browsing lit.

[Anonymous No.14734685]

>>14732048
>can't ask why about love
Tolstoy does just that and gets answers

[Anonymous No.14734761]

I saw in a documentary that in his later years, Tolstoy hated his novels and would pretend he didn't even know what people were talking about when they them to him.
I always get a good laugh from imagining Tolstoy talking to someone and being like "An-na? Who is this An-na?"

[Anonymous No.14734790]

>>14732048
I have seen people saying "the real tragedy in Anna Karenina is that Russian society at the time made divorce hard, if not for that Anna would have the happy ending she deserved".

[Anonymous No.14734813]

>>14734790
I'm not sure Anna deserved a happy ending, that's not the sense I got from reading it. And I don't think divorce would have solved Anna's problems since they were intrinsic to her character.

[Anonymous No.14734833]

>>14734813
I agree with you. I'm more or less saying those people are idiots who didn't get the book.

[Anonymous No.14734929]

>>14734761
Wtf whyd he hate his own works?

Did he hate war and peace and the death of Ivan too?

[Anonymous No.14734932]

>>14734929
He basically became a radical anarcho-christian near the end of his life. I think the only work that he liked were his non-fiction stuff like the Calendar of Wisdom

[Anonymous No.14734942]

Guys does it get better? I red the 1st chapter and I find the story just unappealing...

[Anonymous No.14734947]

>>14734671
>The Master and Margarita
I've only read that after seeing tons of threads about it in /lit/

[Anonymous No.14734954]

I found it very dry and difficult to get into.

[Anonymous No.14735101]

I'm reading it right now, on page 40 or something, will let you know how good it is.

[Anonymous No.14735138]

>Be Alexei Alexandrovich, assiduous but lacking in social graces
>Highly respected in government service
>Try very hard to be good Christian
>Work hard for wife and son
>Wife cucks you with young dissolute officer

What the FUCK was Anna's problem bros? Is this Tolstoy's warning against the eternal f*moid?

[Anonymous No.14735145]

>>14735138
This was precisely the problem I had with it which is why I think Flaubert is better. Anna is made too evil by Alexei's virtue, Charles is a far better foil to Emma than Alexei to Anna.

[Anonymous No.14735147]

>>14735138
I even forgot the worst part Jesus Christ.

>Forgive her for all of it, to the point of being willing to raise your wife's daughter as your own
>She fucking leaves you again

One death wasn't enough

[Anonymous No.14735157]

>>14732048
it lacks humor.
>>14733453
captain obvious.
>>14734671
>The Master and Margarita
it already gets much more attention than it deserves.

[Anonymous No.14735217]

>>14735145
Maybe the betrayal story in Anna is worse than the one in Bovary.

But Anna has a whole number of intricate stories dealing with hundreds of aspects of life. The best and most important of them is not even Anna's, but that of Levin and his brothers, who represent three very different attempts at solving the meaning of existence.

Tolstoy, due to his detailed focus on each of his character's philosophy of life, surpasses Flaubert, who is much more concerned with social mores than with psychological reality, except when it comes to Emma: Charles, Monsieur Homais, Rodolphe etc. all tend towoards the caricatural, that is, platonic accumulations of modes of behavior which in real life find themselves spread out among many individuals - thus, Charles is the "cucked husband", hard-working, dumb, blind to any suspicion, even friends with the cuckers; Rodolphe Is the "noble seducer", the "Don Juan", who is beautiful, lives in a rich house, goes around seducing women, then leaves them amidst a storm of lies; Homais is the "man of science" and the "flatterer" of those in power, who has a compendium of Voltaire quotes in the place of his feelings. This is why the psychological network of M. Bovary has only one main center, while that of Tolstoy covers and entire world of highly divergent center points.

In terms of style, I agree that Madame Bovary is hard to surpass. I haven't read Tolstoy in Russian though, so I cannot comment.

[Anonymous No.14735229]

>>14735157
It is actually quite funny, but with due moderation. Being familiar only with late Tolstoy, I was quite surprised. That Oblonsky fellow provided me with quite a source of joyful smiles. The election scene is also funny, reminded me of Dickens.

[Anonymous No.14735276]

>>14734942
It gets better

[Anonymous No.14735277]

>>14735157
You have no sense of humor, this book is hilarious. I laughed aloud reading it, the opening scene alone is hysterical.

[Anonymous No.14735297]

>>14735157
Stiva is based af and funny

[Anonymous No.14735300]

>>14735138
I have seen many people unironically calling him the villain of the story.

>>14735145
What I like in Anna Karenina (the book) is the psychology of the characters. I can see myself in the skin of most of them (except for Anna and her brother) and they are not only archetypes. I have actually learned about myself reading some Levin chapters.