Krishna
We had reviewed War and Peace earlier. This is a second book by Tolstoy we are reviewing. First a few words about the author himself. Did you know that Leo Tolstoy’s original birth name was Yanaya Polyana? His life is interesting. He had fifteen children in seventeen years (yes, with one wife). Later in life, he turned a revolutionary (in writing and thought). It is interesting that he railed against private property on two counts. His antogonism to private property became the state theme when about a century later, Russia turned communist. Second, for all his railings, he himself was a very wealthy man and managed his vast estates for many years.
In addition, he also wrote against the ‘demands of the flesh’. This from a man, as we have seen, who had fifteen children! He was hounded by the state for his views and died in a railway station while fleeing from the government.
This book too, like War and Peace deals with Russians, their society with Counts and Princes and their privileged life juxtaposed with their ordinary emotions of love, despair etc. However I found in this story two things very different from the other, apart from the obvious one that there is no war background in this one (though at the end, there is a mention of a small war in the Caucuses against the Turks). One is that there is a brilliant description of a woman’s slow descent into jealousy and psychological depression that reads true and almost as moving as any contemporary prose. The second is where Levin, a central character questions the meaning of life and accidentally discovers his version of it which sounds, to Indian ears at least, so close to one of the Hindi pathways to reach salvation, called Karma Yoga.
I hear that this appeared serialized in periodicals at that time. However, unlike modern authors, there are no cliffhangers at the end of every chapter to keep you coming back. (Unlike for example, Dan Brown who ends every chapter with a ‘He faced a disaster’ kind of situation, only to calmly continue that ‘He forgot to pack his razor’ kind of explanation at the start of the next chapter. )
Now for the story: We are introduced to the Oblonsky household at a difficult time for the family. The husband, Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky or Stiva, was caught out in an affair with his former governess, Miss Roland, by his wife Dolly. His sister Anna Karinenna is about to arrive from Moscow.
Levin, a friend of Oblonsky, is in love with Dolly’s sister Kitty and is afraid that she, with her aristocratic and royal bloodline, will not care for an ordinary (if rich) man like himself. True to his belief, Kitty seems to spurn his interest in her. She has Levin and a rival who is Count Vrosky for her affections. Her father prefers Levin and the mother Vrosky. In the days of arranged marriages in Russia, these things matter a great deal.
After spurning him, and falling in love with the Count who has no serious intentions towards her, she finds that he has fallen for the sister of Oblonsky, and now feels dejected. She pines for Vronsky.
Levin meets his drunkard and bum brother who lives with a rescued prostitute and dreams of communism. (What an irony, knowing what happened to Tolstoy’s own Russia in 1917, several years later). When he returns, Anna dna Vronsky meet again and he manages to invite himself to Anna’s house in front of her husband.
Anna Karenena cannot forget Vronsky either even after going back home and he keeps finding opportunities to run into her. In the meanwhile Oblonsky meets Levin who was spurned by Katy after she pined for Vronsky. He is grumpy to learn that he was spurned in favour of Vronsky.
Anna discovers that she is pregnant with Vronsky’s child. She is in a big dilemma. Karenin does not even want to acknowledge that Anna is cheating on him. In the races, Vronsky rides his new horse Frou-Frou and at the point of winning the whole thing, breaks its back “by a wrong posture while jockeying”. Really?
Anna finally tells her husband the truth, that she is carrying Vronsky’s child.
Meanwhile Kitty falls into admiration about the goody two shoes Varenka, who seems to be doing everything nice for everyone.
In the meanwhile Levin revels in manual work and in spite of his hurt about Kitty’s rejection, just one look when she was passing in a carriage confirms to him that his love is still there.
Karenin decides not to give Anna the divorce she seeks. She tells Vronsky and is very disappointed by his reaction.
Levin finds that he enjoys toiling with the labourers in the fields. And decides to institute worker participation in the profits, hoping to revolutionize the world. But when he meets Kitty again and patches up, the world seems brighter and his happiness overflows.
Meanwhile Karenin is determined to divorce Anna but when she almost dies from childbirth, he has a change of heart. He is graceful to Vronsky who feels so guilty that he tries to kill himself. Both recover. She just moves in with him later. They travel all over Europe, meet some Russian expatriates (a painter, a thinker) and then go back to Russia,
Levin marries Kitty. Finds out that married life is very different from what he imagined. When they visit Levin’s sick brother, Kitty takes over the dying brother’s care efficiently until he dies. She also discovers that she is pregnant.
Karenin meanwhile is devastated and is consoled by Countess who finds herself in love with him. When the countess refuses permission for Anna to visit Anna’s own son, she sneaks in and is discovered by Karenin in his house. The servants are in a tizzy.
Meanwhile Anna decides to go publicly to a play, defying custom, and the whole society is scandalized.
Levin goes hunting with Oblonsky and another friend of Kitty’s and initially he has no luck. Then he finds birds galore. Kitty is also now pregnant. Levin gets jelous of a new visitor who flirts with Kitty and sends him away. Dolly goes and meets Karenina and finds out how happy she is, really.
Dolly goes to visit Anna and Vronsky seeks her help to convince Anna to ask for a divorce so that the current daughter and future children can be properly his. But when Dolly proposes to Anna, she learns that Anna cannot have any more children and is afraid that if she gets the divorce she will never see her son Shirozha again. As she puts it, it appears that she can have only Shiroza or Vronsky but not both.
The book has a shocking ending (but not at the very end) which, I am told caused the publisher to refuse to publish the remaining pieces of the story!
Nice read. Don’t agree with some famous people who call this ‘the greatest story ever written’ but it is not a bad read at all.
6/10
– – Krishna (Feb 2019)