My review of Anna Karenina
These are some of my thoughts on the novel Anna Karenina. Since this is a long book, my thoughts on it are also a bit long...
The style of Tolstoy's writing reminded be a bit of "Sentimental Education". As with Flaubert, Tolstoy seems to be telling 2 stories at once: a doomed love story but also a time-capsule of the people and ideas of his time. Flaubert described the France of his time, as a backdrop to the main story, and Tolstoy described the Russia of his time, as a backdrop to his main story. I think both authors wanted to be both a journalist and a novelist at the same time.
Gustav Flaubert and Tolstoy both lived at the same time. Flaubert loved Tolstoy's writings so much, that he apparently called him "The Shakespeare of Russia". I think this may be a bit over-stated...
While reading Anna, I sometimes felt like I was reading two books, woven into one. This is OK, since I enjoyed learning what life was like in Russia at this time. During some of the events, like the political election near the end, I think the character of Levin probably represented Tolstoy himself, since he describes the attitudes and political opinions very specifically. I think the character of Levin was probably meant to represent Tolstoy himself within the novel.
I liked how the novel mirrored several details, with similar events happening at both the beginning and at the end of the book, serving as a sort of frame that contained the middle of the book. Such as, the story opens with a man dying by being run over by a train, and the book ends with Anna being run over by a train. The story begins with Levin entering into a marriage that becomes strong, and throughout the book Anna is in a marriage that falls apart. The book begins with the Oblonsky's wife forgiving her husband for having an affair with their governess, but it ends with Anna not being able to forgive Vronsky for his imagined unfaithfulness to her. Anna looses her status in society and spends time living in the country but doesn't like it, while Levin gains stature in society, yet he prefers living in the country and farming.
The characters of Anna and Levin are almost exact opposites of each other, and their stories in the book develop in almost exactly opposite ways. Their stories cross over each other in the middle of the story, as one rises in society and the other falls from society. I only realized after finishing the book that Levin was equally the main character of the novel as was Anna, but he was her exact opposite, like 2 sides of a mirror.
I had to read the last few chapters of the book twice, with Levin's thoughts about God and living a selfless life, to make sure I understood this right. I thought Tolstoy could have ended the story at the death of Anna. I didn't realize the story continued after her death with Levin's spiritual resolutions.
Since I think Levin represented Tolstoy, I suspect Levin's religious conclusions reflected Tolstoy's own embracing of the Orthodox Church in real life. I thought it was an unusual way to end such a tragic story: the doomed romance that follows the heart into tragedy, being mirrored by the passionate religious quest that ends in fulfillment. Anna and Levin are like 2 sides of a mirror.
The main part of the story is, clearly, Anna and her inner life. The story very powerfully follows Anna's need for passion and love, and how she follows her heart in order to fulfill this need. I felt her unhappiness in her marriage very strongly. I understood her reasons in following Vronsky, even though she knew she was doing something dangerous. She had to follow her heart, even though her mind warned her of the dangers.
This focus on her heart and her emotional needs reminded me of Blaise Pascal's observation: "The heart has reasons of which the mind knows nothing." Sometimes the mind and the heart don't even communicate with each other.
Even though Anna violates the norms of her society, she is a sympathetic character, and I understood and approved of her decision to leave her unfulfilling life and to follow passion. But she clearly looses control of herself near the end of her life.
I was impressed by Tolstoy's description of her near the end of her life, with her constantly changing thoughts, where she imagines how Vronsky has lost his love for her, and she gets angry at things she imagines he might say. She looses all rational thinking, she doesn't even realize where she is near the end, and following her disjointed thoughts right to the point of her suicide was very powerful, and I felt very sad when her end came. I thought the description of her final moments was very poetic, describing it as a candle going out forever.
The book could have focused only on Anna, without any of the other characters like Levin and the Oblonskys, and the book would still have been very powerful. Tolstoy very clearly understood the heart's need for passion and feelings and emotions, and how a life without these feelings is like a living death. I felt very strongly all of Anna's emotions, from her sweeping romance with Vronsky to the pain of seeing her son but knowing she can no longer be part of his life. In her marriage she has very little passion, either positive or negative.
But after her decision to leave, she experiences many strong passions, both intense joy and intense emotional pain. I think that if you live a life of zero passion, if you then find a way of feeling either positive or negative passions that either of these feelings are better than zero passion. Feeling either joy or sadness is better than feeling zero feelings. I found these details of Anna's life to be very powerful, and a book just about her life alone would have been a very powerful book.
But the book obviously has more than one plot in mind. The passion of Anna is framed against several other sub-plots.
I think the novel has several themes, not just one. I think the main theme is that the heart has to be fulfilled in order for a person to truly live. But it can also lead you astray if you follow it blindly. All of Anna's reasons for following her heart are understandable, but she doesn't allow her mind to "steer" her heart at key decisions, and she ends up drifting into a place she never intended, cut off from her son, from society, and from her own self-respect.
The earlier French writer Blaise Pascal recognized the different motives of the heart and mind, and that the 2 often use their own unique "reasons", which have nothing to do with each other. The mind can know that an action is dangerous, but the heart pursues that action for its own independent reasons. But he also pointed out that the 2 need to be linked. Left to themselves, either the heart or the mind can easily mislead us. The heart needs to be fulfilled, or else life isn't worth living. But the heart's passions can be strong and unpredictable, as Anna discovers near the end when she gets off the train and doesn't even know where she is.
Regarding Levin's religious resolution at the end, after her death, I didn't expect this, and I had to read this part of the book twice, to make sure I understood it right. I thought it was interesting for two reasons. First, that the key to his questions comes from a peasant, and secondly that he finds his answer in the mystery of altruism.
Humans are the only creatures who seem to have this idea: that there is a "right" way, and a "good" way to act, even if it goes against our self-interest. This makes no sense, if you look at the way all animals in nature live. Sacrificing your own needs for an abstract ideal is a contradiction. No other creature in the world has a set of ideals that is in conflict with its own instincts. Animals follow their instincts, and nothing else. Why are human animals different in this way?
A spider or a monkey or a lion doesn't seem to worry about right and wrong when it comes to killing another animal. If another animal threatens its needs, it often reacts by killing the other animal. Does a spider think about altruism when it eats a fly? Does it worry about right and wrong, and if it should love the fly? No, if a spider worried about altruism it would starve to death. For an animal to give priority to its own needs is very rational. This is the "law of nature". Selfless love, in conflict with our own natural instincts, is not rational. It has nothing to do with "reason".
Why should humans act any differently? If I get angry at someone, why can't I hit them? Why should I not follow my automatic instincts, like a spider does? God made these instincts in both me and in the spider. Why should the spider follow his instincts made by God, but I should not follow my own instincts also made by God? I makes no reasonable sense.
Levin says this near the end of the book:
"Was it through reason that I arrived at the necessity of loving my neighbor and not throttling (killing) him? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law which demands that everyone who hinders the satisfaction of my desires should be throttled. That is the conclusion of reason. Reason could not discover love for the other, because it's unreasonable."
In other words, reason explains how all animals live and survive. Reason explains the instinct for survival and struggling for existence, including killing. But reason does not explain why humans worry about love, and "right" or "wrong". Reason can never explain altruism. Love is not rational. Love lives "outside" of our reason, like the heart does.
It is not rational to tell a spider to not eat a fly. It is not reasonable to tell the spider to love the fly. It's not rational to tell a lion to not kill a zebra, that he should love the zebra. Likewise, if one person threatens the desires of another person, it should not be rational to tell that person to not kill him, that he should love him. All animals, and all humans, should live by their instincts. All instincts are natural, and reasonable.
This was one of the basic ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, who lived at the same time as Tolstoy. Nietzsche said that humans should be allowed to live by their instincts, just like the animals do. He said that altruism, and ethics, and worrying about right and wrong and love and forgiveness is unnatural, and that it is actually a form of weakness.
He called our concern for right and wrong "a morality of slaves". Slaves are weak, and masters are strong. If a slave whispers in their master's ear that the instinct for strength is not always right, this will make the master weaker. It would be like a fly whispering into the ear of the spider. The spider would start to doubt itself, and it would be less strong. Altruism and morals and ethics are nothing more than the weak trying to control the strong. We should ignore these things and follow our instincts, he said.
This was an idea that Tolstoy would have known about during his life, since many other writers at this time agreed with it and developed it further. He lived in the age of "Romanticism", where all art and music and writing appealed to the emotions and the heart and the instincts, not to the mind or to reason. He lived in an age of instinct, where passion and natural instincts were the most important things to focus all of our energies on.
Many people at this time said that the mind should not "get in the way of the heart", and that all of art and life should be followed by our emotions and our heart and our instincts. And Nietzsche said that if your instinct is to use your strength to control the weak, then no altruism should get in the way of our natural instincts. God made all of our instincts, and both the fly and the human should be free to exercise those instincts without worrying about abstract ideals. Both the fly and the human should be free to "throttle" anyone who threatens them, if this is their instinct.
But Levin realizes that while these ideas of altruism are unreasonable, according to the laws of nature, nevertheless they exist in all humans, everywhere in the world. These ideas of right and wrong are basically the same everywhere, in every person on earth. How could every human on earth accidentally have the same unreasonable ideas in their minds, all at the same time? Their source has to be from somewhere other than our own minds. They cannot come from humans, nor from looking at animals and nature. All of the world and animals follow reason. But not these other ideas that conflict with our instincts. So where do they come from?
He decides that they must be given to us from God. These ideas don't exist in the natural world of animals, and it would make no sense for animals if they had them. He also decides that it's unlikely that all humans everywhere on earth could invent the exact same ideas at the same time, throughout all of history, as some kind of conspiracy. So where do these ideas come from? They can only come from God, Levin decides.
Nietzsche said that these ideas of right and wrong were invented by the Church to suppress our natural instincts, and that if we destroyed the Church all humans could be free to live by our natural instincts. (This is why the Church has never liked him...!) But Levin looked at the whole world - not just the Church - and he saw that all of humanity understands altruism the same way, even non-Christians. The basic ideas of right and wrong are the same everywhere on earth. The Church cannot control every human, everywhere on earth, all at the same time. So these ideas cannot have been invented by any one institution.
No animal knows about altruism, and since altruism is not rational there's no way that all humans everywhere on earth would be able to invent the same ideas all at the same time, just by using their reason. So Levin decides that this proves there is a God. He decides that this fact is the "miracle" he has always been looking for, and he decides to accept religious faith in God and the Church.
I liked how the key to Levin's question comes from a simple peasant, and not from a wise priest. The answer provided by the peasant focused on living one's life focused on something greater than one's own self. We have to focus on the "greater good". Being focused on the greater good is what frees us to live in harmony with God and our purpose. We have to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and bigger than our instincts. We cannot just "feed our bellies" (feed our instincts), as he says.
I wonder if this conclusion of Levin's was a final comment on Anna's choices. Was she feeding her emotional "belly" - her instincts - in her need for passion? If she had chosen to live a loveless life, simply out of duty and altruism, would this have been the "right" thing to do?
I think Tolstoy probably used Anna's life to show that instincts for love and passion are understandable and normal, but if you ignore altruism and follow your heart blindly you can lead yourself into serious trouble. I think that Anna did the "right" thing by following her heart, but she let herself drift too far in her passions that she lost the ability to think straight. Feeding your belly, or your emotional belly, is not always wrong, but it has to be done with caution.
Finally, I liked how Levin looks at his friends and can't figure out why he is troubled by all of these questions, but none of his friends seem to be. He sees his friends "feeding their bellies", but he is bothered by questions about God. Why are none of his friends also troubled about this?
This is a question I found very familiar in myself! I have long realized that I think about these kinds of things a lot more than many of my friends do. Some do, but most do not. Many people don't worry about God, and they are content to "feed their bellies", and they are probably more at peace than I am. Or, at least, they feel less troubled, like a sleeping cat. Many people never think any deeper than their "bellies", as Tolstoy describes it. But I do.
Even fellow Christians have asked me why I think about some things too much. If God is true, and we need to love him, why take the "long road" to this conclusion by thinking too much? Why not just take the "short road" to this conclusion and simply accept it, without questions?
I understand this, and I respect this. But I feel that thinking, Philosophy, Art, and these kinds of things are similar to Pilates. Exercising with Pilates won't make you live forever in perfect health, and you can be healthy without exercise. But Pilates will keep your body strong and healthy, and you can remain active and more healthy through life for a long time. The same idea applies to Philosophy and thinking and Art and Religion. They are like Pilates for the mind. Thinking a lot helps make a strong and healthy brain. So the "long road" to God is sometimes the stronger road to God, like Pilates is a "longer" road to health than the "shorter" road of never exercising.
The most important part of Levin's answer to his questions is when he realizes that he will not reach any answer by endless thinking. Faith in God is a non-rational experience. All great thinkers who have reached faith in God have described the experience as one of a simple decision, with no intellectual detail involved at all. They will think their way towards the decision to follow God, but the actual experience of approaching God is defined by surrender and emotion, not with the mind, but with the heart.
I have never heard of anyone who has thought their way intellectually to God. When they finally approach God, it is a mystical and emotional experience. Feeling with the heart replaces thinking with the mind during this turning-point in life. Then, later, they will use their thinking again to make sense of this experience after the fact. It is a process of thinking, followed by opening of the heart and feelings to God, then it is resumed by thinking again.
At one point Levin mentions that, prior to believing in God, he has read several philosophers: Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. I noticed that most of these writers were German, probably because much of the history of ideas has taken place in the German language. I have read all of these writers, and I have always found Schopenhauer to be the most interesting, and also the funniest in some ways.
Just as a slight tangent, in my favorite Woody Allen movie, "Stardust Memories", in the scene where Woody first meets Charlotte Rampling, she is sitting in a chair on the beach reading a book by Schopenhauer. Woody asks her if she understands what she's reading and she says "No, not really, but I can fake my way through most anything".
I think this was Woody's comment on much of philosophy, that many people read it but few people really understand what they're reading. People need to stimulate their mind, but philosophy isn't really an effective path all the way towards God. It is much more useful as a tool to understand the experience of God and our lives, but only after a person has already chosen faith, or no faith, in God.
Anyway, I was struck by Tolstoy's understanding of the limits of rational thinking when it comes to religious questions. You can train your mind by reading German philosophy, and your brain will become strong, but it won't lead you all the way to God. God is approached by a non-rational path, through the heart, and Tolstoy found that path in altruism. Ideas of altruism can't possibly come from inside of our own minds. It can only come from God. So he/Levin uses this as his reason to choose faith in God.
I recently rented the film version of Anna Karenina from 1935, starring Greta Garbo. I had never seen it before. It's only 90 minutes long and, as I expected, they trimmed the story down significantly. Characters like Levin and Kitty and the Oblonskys are only minor characters in this film, rarely seen. The story focuses on Anna's life, and the time she spends in Europe with Vronsky is shown in less than 5 minutes! The story ends with her suicide under the train, and it does not include Levin's religious questions that follow this in the novel.
But I think the film is worth seeing anyway. It's one of Garbo's most famous roles, and the story of Anna is the most important part of the book. So it makes sense to focus the film on this main part of the story.
Anyway, those are some of my observations of the book. Perhaps it's too detailed. But I think Tolstoy's own thoughts were also very detailed, mixed with love, feelings, passion, God, philosophy, and Pilates. Just like a big salad, with many ingredients...!
By the way, the first sentence of the book is very famous, and is very often quoted:
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
I have often been confused by this sentence whenever I have seen it. I've read an explanation that it means that "good" is usually singular, and it exists in a specific state without much variety, but that evil exists in a large variety of forms. "The good" exists on its own, whereas its opposite, bad or evil, takes many forms. I'm not sure that I agree that this is what Tolstoy meant by this sentence.
Does it mean that happiness is always similar, but unhappiness is defined by different varieties? If this is what it means, then I don't think I agree with it. I think happiness is also defined by different varieties, and is not always the same. Happiness exists in as many varieties as unhappiness does.
This sentence is very often quoted. I'm still not sure what it means...