What Anna Karenina Made Me Do Next
by Charlotte Reads Classics
I am going to make a bold claim. I have an all time, number one favourite book. My top ten, top five books change all the time, but first place never does. Anna Karenina is my favourite book because I think it is the best book ever written.
This claim is particularly bold because of the following confession: I have only read it once. Several years ago.
Having been to see the new film earlier this week I have been thinking about how much I love it and how I really should read it again.
Russian literature is something I have not got a lot of experience of, yet all the Russian classics I have read I have really enjoyed. So, after reading this article about the top five books Russian writers on the Penguin Classics website, I have decided that next year I shall read something by each writer. The top five Penguin choose are:
- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
- The Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
- The Steppe and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
- The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
I reckon this should get me off to a good start in finding more Russian books and authors I’d like to try. I’ve studied The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov and have absolutely no memory of it at all, so that doesn’t count. I’ve read Lolita but would love to read another Nabokov too. I’m pretty sure Crime and Punishment is on my Classics Club list because I have my dad’s old copy floating around somewhere so that will take care of Dostoyevsky and after that – we’ll see.
I am putting this goal off until next year because I am determined to read the following by the end of the year:
- Anna Karenina because my favourite book deserves more than one reading.
- Clarissa because it needs my full attention and wasn’t supposed to take a year to read!
- Martin Chuzzlewit because I want to read this with o.
I am confident about having three definite good books to see the year out with. If I get time I’d love to read Les Miserables, but I think I’d struggle to read so many huge books in what now seems like not much time! Plus, I do need to leave some time free for some wintery books when the weather changes.
Here’s to favourites and spending time reacquainting yourself with them.
Charlotte Reads Classics 
For Russian literature, visit Guy’s blog, His Futile Preoccupations. (link in my blogroll, if needed)
I thought Anna Karenina was obnoxious but I totally understand how it can become someone’s favourite book.
Thanks, Emma, I’ll take a look! It really is an all time favourite, I just think its so all encompassing, but book blogging wouldn’t be half as interesting if all our tastes were the same.
I must confess that I have never read Anna Karenina. The book seemed frightening for a very long time, but that has worn off and now it is calling me from my bedside table. I think it’s going to be next year though, because I have far too many other books that I have to read right now for one reason or another.
Crime and Punishment and The Master and Margarita are on my Classics Club list too, so maybe I need to have a Russian season.
I enjoyed The Master and Margarita but it was quite strange – I think there was a lot more to it than what I picked up. I am glad that Anna Karenina is no longer frightening; other than the odd paragraph that turns into a lecture about russian politics, for the most part it is a real pleasure to read.
Anna Karenina is my standard pick for Best Novel, too.
That is an outstanding Russian list you got from the Penguin editor, even if some of his descriptions are puzzling. How Dead Souls evokes 18th century English novels is beyond me. As an aside, Dead Souls is my runaway pick for Best Novel of the First Half of the 19th Century.
The Gift is a stunning achievement. I am tempted to say wait to read until until after novel X or Y, but, eh, who cares. Nabokov was not an obscurantist. The novel explains itself.
It took me 9 months to read Clarissa. A year seems well within the margin of error.
Thanks Tom, definitely will keep Dead Souls on the to read list. I wasn’t sure about whether to read The Gift or Pale Fire – although, of course, I don’t need to limit myself to one or the other.
I havent read single Russian novel…at least, not completely. I was to have read Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary for college, but never got past the first few chapters for either. I hope to remedy this some time next year….
I think a lot of what you get from a book is when you read it, different books appeal at different times in your life. I hated Great Expectations when I had to study it, but when I read it again earlier this year (several years after the first time) I loved it.
I know what you mean. I’ve been experiencing that, myself, with quite a few reads. I think The Great Gatsby is my biggest example.
I am really thrilled to read that Anna Karenina is your favorite. Me and a handful of my friends will read it this coming October. Also, I will be on a Russian lit journey next year. My initial picks are The Brothers Karamazov, Doctor Zhivago, Pale Fire, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, etc. Happy reading!
Excellent, let me know what you think! I like the sound of your Russian lit picks, especially Pale Fire and Doctor Zhivago – I might add them to my list too! 🙂
Oh man, I LOVE Anna Karenina. I only read it last year, but I just adored it- it’s definitely got to be up there in favourite book territory! Also I’m pretty much the same- I’ve enjoyed basically all the Russian Lit I’ve read, but I really haven’t read that much! So I approve of your plan for the Russians 🙂
Thanks! Yes it occurred to me it was a much neglected area of reading – but one that I’d probably enjoy. Wouldn’t want to deprive myself of loads of excellent books now would I? 🙂
I loved Anna Karenina and I thought the film was absolutely stunning and original and fantastic, I loved its theatricality and the loud music and the dramatic scene changes. The waltzing was absolutely magical, so much happens in just one dance and yet such different emotions felt and expressed to the same music and dance. Amazing.
Speaking of Russian authors, I also really enjoyed Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot.
I completely agree – at first I couldn’t understand why they had chosen to set it in a theatre but once I watched a bit more I realised how creative it was. I loved the waltzing scene too – and the costumes! I’m sure I’ve seen The Idiot somewhere around the house so there is no excuse for trying that one too!
When it started and the office workers stamped in unison, I immediately asked my Uncle (a film & theatre designer) if it was the same person who made ‘Atonement’ because I remember the same thing with the nurses walking down a hospital corridor. He said yes and I remembered they’d told me he was very influenced by theatre having practically been raised in one, so no surprise he’s bringing even more bold theatrical elements into cinema much to the surprise of cinema-goers who’ve become used to the now accepted techniques of film.
Different yes, I thought it brought a really vibrant energy to the screen and kept the emotion with the actors and not with the audience for a change. I was happy to keep my tissues in my bag thanks to the vibrant music. Musics manipulation of audiences emotions has been so overdone, I was happy to watch at a slight distance and not go through all the emotional ups and downs and felt more entertained by it. We all had an interesting discussion of it afterwards though.
Did you like the film? I’ve read mixed reviews of it.
I started AK in February and read about 300 pages and just got overwhelmed by it all. I was enjoying it, though, so I really should go back to it.
I did, I think it was the perfect mix of being faithful to the story whilst doing something a little bit different. Visually it is great too, especially for the costumes!
Anna Karenina is my favourite novel too, which is why I won’t be seeing the new movie. I couldn’t bear to watch Keira Knightly constantly pouting as she plays herself, playing Anna, and Vronsky is SO not a blond boy. I may feel quite passionate about this issue. 🙂 I hope you enjoy your re-read when you get to it.
To be honest, Vronsky was the worst part of the film… I agree, he shouldn’t be a blonde, especially not such a badly dyed blonde 😉 The film was much better than I expected it to be but I understand about not watching films of your favourite books – I never saw Revolutionary Road because if it hadn’t been perfect it would have been too upsetting.
I’ve only read my favourite book once too, and the favourites in childhood same. Like you I’m thinking I really should read it again (Jane Eyre). I’ve not yet read Anna Karenina but the intention is to read it before Christmas. The film trailer looks brilliant and I want to read the book beforehand.
The film is great but of course books are always better 🙂 I have started to read it again now and I am loving it so I’d recommend indulging yourself in Jane Eyre. But I do think having a favourite based on one reading is a testament to how much impact one book can have.
Hello Charlotte, I’m a great fan of re-reading: there are certain books, I feel, that really do need to be lived with rather than read merely once, and Tolstoy’s novels are certainly amongst them. I’ve been regularly reading & re-reading both War and Peace and Anna Karenina for nearly 40 years now, and I can’t think of anything more rewarding. I’ve recently finished my latest re-reading of Anna Karenina, and I feel I need to give reading fiction a bit of a rest right now, as just about anything else will feel like a bit of an anti-climax.
I am a huge fan of Russian literature: 19th century Russia possibly produced the finest literary flowering of the last few centuries. Dostoyevsky & Tolstoy were both towering figures, but of very different temperaments. For many, Turgenev makes up a third: certainly, “Fathers and Sons” is quite magnificent. I love as well the short stories of Chekhov – and also of Gogol, although I do sometimes feel that I don’t really understand Gogol too well.
I think Russian literature of the 20th century is also of a very high standard, despite the oppression of Soviet Communism. Apart from Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” and Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”, I’d strongly recommend the short stories of Isaac Babel, and also the writings of Vasily Grossman and of Andrey Platonov in the superb translations by Robert Chandler. I am told that 20th century Russian poetry is also remarkable (Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, etc) but translation of poetry is problematic for various reasons.
Happy reading!
Himadri
Great comment! I am about half way through Anna Karenina now and I see what you mean about living with it rather than just reading it and it is even better than I remember.
Thank you for your recommendations, I see that Turgenev is an author to look out for and I have Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman on my bookshelf.
I am completely baffled by the fact that Tolstoy is not in the Top 5. Where is War & Peace? It’s one of the greatest novels of all time, Russian or otherwise!
I enjoyed Anna Karenina quite a bit, too, though it is a bit melodramatic. The Death of Ivan Ilych is also very good, particularly as a philosophical text (as a narrative, it is not stellar, but it is definitely “good”).
True – although perhaps this list purposefully didn’t include Tolstoy as a kind of broadening your horizons if you’ve only read Anna Karenina kind of thing. I like that The Death of Ivan Ilych should be read as a philosophical text – I was drawn to the parts of AK that were obviously Tolstoy on a bit of a soapbox and want to know more.