Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Just For The Fun of It Anna Karenina - Tolstoy

To get a discussion going, let me pose a question. As we've read already, there is a lot of adultery going on by the married women in this novel. We see it happening in Anna's own social circle. What are the key differences about Anna's infidelity vs Betsy Tverskoy's that has made things worse?

To get a discussion going, let me pose a question. As we've read already, there is a lot of adultery going on by the married women in this novel. We see it happening in Anna's own social circle. What are the key differences about Anna's infidelity vs Betsy Tverskoy's that has made things worse?

Anna’s in love. She never did love her old husband. Betsy is just playing around. It’s likely her husband is also unfaithful. This is the main theme that I see in the story so far: Tolstoy advocating the desistance of the practice of arranged marriage. I actually don’t know the “famous” ending. So I may be in for a surprise.

...or perhaps Betsy’s rank as a princess gives her a special privilege that allows her indiscretions to be overlooked.

I actually haven’t gotten to the part where we learn Anna’s marriage was arranged, but now I know. How do we know Betsy is not in love? We certainly don’t hear much about her affair. If Tolstoy has included both affairs, I guess the book would have been 1600 pages, lol.

However, I think it was inferred in the very beginning.

The old princess herself had married thirty years ago, with her aunt as matchmaker. The fiancé, of whom everything was known beforehand, came, saw the bride, and was seen himself; the matchmaking aunt found out and conveyed the impression made on both sides; the impression was good; then on the appointed day the expected proposal was made to her parents and accepted. Everything happened very easily and simply. At least it seemed so to the princess. But with her own daughters she had experienced how this seemingly ordinary thing-giving away her daughters in marriage-was neither easy nor simple. So many fears had been lived through, so many thoughts thought, so much money spent, so many confrontations with her husband when the older two, Darya and Natalya, were being married! Now, as the youngest one was brought out, she lived through the same fears, the same doubts, and had still greater quarrels with her husband than over the older ones. The old prince, like all fathers, was especially scrupulous about the honour and purity of his daughters; he was unreasonably jealous over them, and especially over Kitty, who was his favourite, and at every step made scenes with his wife for compromising their daughter. The princess had already grown used to it with the first two daughters, but now she felt that the prince’s scrupulousness had more grounds. She saw that much had changed lately in the ways of society, that the duties of a mother had become even more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty’s age formed some sort of groups, attended some sort of courses, freely associated with men, drove around by themselves, many no longer curtsied, and, worse still, they were all firmly convinced that choosing a husband was their own and not their parents’ business. ‘Nowadays girls are not given in marriage as they used to be,’ all these young girls, and even all the old people, thought and said. But how a girl was to be given in marriage nowadays the princess could not find out from anyone. The French custom-for the parents to decide the children’s fate-was not accepted, and was even condemned. The English custom-giving the girl complete freedom-was also not accepted and was impossible in Russian society. The Russian custom of matchmaking was regarded as something outrageous and was laughed at by everyone, the princess included. But how a girl was to get married or be given in marriage, no one knew. Everyone with whom the princess happened to discuss it told her one and the same thing: ‘Good gracious, in our day it’s time to abandon this antiquity. It’s young people who get married, not their parents; that means the young people should be left to arrange it as they can.’ It was fine for those who had no daughters to talk that way; but the princess understood that in making friends her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who would not want to marry or who was not right as a husband. And however much the princess was assured that in our time young people themselves must settle their fate, she was unable to believe it, as she would have been unable to believe that in anyone’s time the best toys for five-year-old children would be loaded pistols. And therefore the princess worried more about Kitty than she had about her older daughters.

Then I apologize. However, I think it was inferred in the very beginning.

Reading through Tolstoy’s lengthy descriptions of events reminds me of why I like Hemingway.

Quote of the day

. Is "The Count of MC" much of the same? Maybe we could reread "The Sun also Rises" instead.


At least 30 years ago I read Thomas Wolfe's "The Bonfires of the Vanities". I still have the hardcover. I mean to read it again. But on the Kindle.

I wanted to talk about that scene in Chapter 11 where Vronsky and Anna finally, after a whole year, have sex. Vronsky seriously had the patience of a saint there (and that year beforehand!). All that build up and then she rains on his parade with all that self-loathing afterwards.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why she had the guilt. It brings back some personal memories of me in a similar situation. No amount of reassurance could quell the loss of what was now gone (the chase) and the realization that I had just made myself truly vulnerable. Today, it seems women don't care about that as much. They just move on to the next guy. It seriously seems empty to me, but maybe it's better to view it that way so there's less of a chance of hurt feelings. On the other hand, maybe it just drives those feelings deeper so no one sees them.

What if Anna had been like that? I mean, would her and Vronsky have been happier? And/or would their love have been cheapened by it?

Your thoughts?

I haven't read either of them. I just got a sample of Pain. Looks like a good change of pace from AK and W&P.

Quote of the day

Has anyone else read Marcel Proust's 4,200+ page novel, In Search of Lost Time? It is my favorite novel of all and I've read it several times from front to back.

Nothing Tolstoy, Wolfe, Dumas, or Pinchon have ever written can ever surpass Proust's in the long description department.

There is a sentence in Volume Four, Sodom and Gomorrah, which is 958 words long!

This is a very specific literary device he is using and its use is intentional. He will juxtapose super long sentences and descriptions against short sentences of even only 2 words, for effect, like have a note with a tenuto next to a staccato!