Anna Karenina may be the greatest single novel ever written; it may also be just plainly and sublimely good. Regardless, there is no doubt that Anna Karenina (generally considered Tolstoy's finest novel) is a sublime achievement. Anna, miserable in a loveless marriage, succumbs to the desire for the dashing Vronsky. That sort of thing didn't stand one in good stead in...
Read moreAnna Karenina may be the greatest single novel ever written; it may also be just plainly and sublimely good. Regardless, there is no doubt that Anna Karenina (generally considered Tolstoy's finest novel) is a sublime achievement. Anna, miserable in a loveless marriage, succumbs to the desire for the dashing Vronsky. That sort of thing didn't stand one in good stead in 19th-century Russia; bad goes to worse, and the end Anna comes to is the stuff of legend. Tolstoy seamlessly captures a weaves a tapestry of Russian society -- as Matthew Arnold wrote in his celebrated essay on Tolstoy, ''We are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art; we are to take it as a piece of life.'' ''One of the greatest love stories in world literature.'' -- Vladimir Nabokov
