This has been a trip, let me tell you. However, I have to say that the end is a bit anti-climactic. Anna herself, and the entire situation surrounding her death is barely discussed. It is said (through a secondary character, even!) that her baby daughter went to be raised by her husband, and her lover went off to the war with a regiment. Oh, la. How... non-interesting. The rest of the book is mostly full of Levin's seemingly interminable musings on the nature of God and religion.
Now, I'm up for a philosophical argument as much as the next person, however, some of the arguments that he makes just don't make a whole lot of sense to me. Perhaps I was just wanting to be done with the book and not read philosophy in the last few pages. I do know that I was very much longing for an answer to some of my questions about Anna. Perhaps I didn't want them to make sense because I wanted something else. Who knows.
All in all, I really did like this book. It explored some interesting themes, not to mention just plain had an interesting plot. As an author, however, Tolstoy did frustrate me more than a bit. His sense of timing and coherence when it came to characters and plots was confusing sometimes. I would be thinking that a good amount of time had passed, and then someone was still pregnant. What the heck? Not to mention, at one point, he simply stops mentioning Anna's daughter in the middle of an important scene that has to do with her future. I didn't know for -chapters- that the girl was even still alive. That would take maybe one sentance, to have the coherence that I would have liked. Still, the book was enjoyable and I was glad to have read it.
From here, I'm taking a couple days' break and reading something else, and then off to the land of War and Peace! Look for a new book tomorrow!
Days: 360
Books: 99 (!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I just finished the book a second ago and had myself wondered why we were being dragged through Levin's soliloquys. Is it possible that Tolstoy was using Levi's musings to express an alternate fate for those confronting the uncertainty and generic strife of life and love? Perhaps he wanted to show us a person who was just as conflicted as Anna but who managed to rise above selfishness, pettiness, and the awkward realities of one's own life and to forcibly infuse meaning into his life. Levin faced the void (and even contemplated suicide) and found meaning in his own concept of God. He acknowledged and accepted that though the Good fell outside the earthly chain of cause and effect, he would still argue, feel lonely sometimes, etc. Essentially, he saw that life could be both divine and meaningful and [im]perfectly human at the same time. Anna faced the same void, though hers was brought on by her obsession with her situation. Though she had love in Vronsky (and potentially a daughter), she failed to anchor herself in something greater than her own fleeting situation, and because of that succumbed to crippling anxiety and self-doubt. I'd continue on, but this isn't what they pay me for. Back to work!
ReplyDelete