Anna Karenina part.1

Anna Karenina. 1

Author

Tolstoy

Publisher

Minumsa | published 2009-09-04

Category

Novel

Book introduction

A masterpiece in which the thoughts and concerns of the great writer Tolstoy are gathered! Russia's great writer Tol...

How important is Levin's place in this novel? What I felt in Volume 1 is, hmm.. for one, since he's depicted as a character separate from 'Anna,' it seemed right to weight the importance of the two characters separately. That's because Anna and Levin don't know each other directly; you can only know them by crossing through other characters. Anna, to put it simply, is a person who worries in this book that she might commit 'adultery,' that she might lose her own convictions. For her, who was Alexei's wife and also has a child, 'adultery' would bring great waves to high society, would breathe ruin into her son's life, and would result in her realizing and bringing about for her husband too that her 'door to the abyss' has closed.

How should one think of Vronsky and Kitty? Vronsky, in a word, is a rotten man. In my values, men like this are the type that really need to disappear. If, seeing Kitty who had refused 'Levin's' proposal, he had to some extent decided on marriage, then he should not have danced the mazurka with Anna. He absolutely should not have. Shouldn't a person keep basic decency? But Vronsky, seeing Anna, dances while thinking of the flame surging in his heart. And Kitty had been waiting only to dance the mazurka with Vronsky. To reject the indirect request of such a beautifully adorned woman is to have committed an act contrary to etiquette. Did I speak too much based on conservative thinking? Then to put it a bit more in modern terms: he even held the engagement ceremony and then suddenly called it off and went to meet another woman? And that woman just happens to be married?? (What kind of act is this; does it mean I'm less attractive than that married woman, or what?) Kitty is a daughter who deeply regrets not listening to her father's words. Kitty is the younger sister of 'Dolly,' who married 'Anna's' older brother. Being the youngest, she receives the family's love, but at the same time she is the marriage prospect that must be wrapped up well last. Somehow, in the period that forms the backdrop of this story, the book conveys that 'marriage' is something where the 'family' is involved quite a lot, rather than simply doing it because you like someone. Here, socializing is not a 'hobby' but a necessity, so it's natural that Kitty's mother is anxious about bringing Kitty's marriage to fruition. After refusing Levin's proposal, and later, after being abandoned by Vronsky, realizing that her choice was wrong, that accepting Levin would have been right, and that her father was right - although Levin hasn't come back again, somehow it doesn't seem entirely impossible after Part 3.

Among the content I once read in 'Lectures on Russian Cultural History,' there was a part describing the difference between Moscow and Petersburg, where it wrote that Moscow gives off a more natural and instinctive atmosphere, while Petersburg was written as a city giving off a strongly artificial, urban, freshly-newly-made atmosphere. This is revealed intact in 'Anna Karenina' as well. Levin, who lives in Moscow, is a born 'farmer-type aristocrat' style who even tries to do the farming himself, while Prince Stepan and Vronsky are, quite literally, 'city' people. Alexei Alexandrovich is, how should I put it, someone who strongly gives off the feel of a senior public official. He's the kind of person who wants to do his work rationally and reasonably. (And he actually appears that way.)

Alexei Alexandrovich was not the jealous sort. By his conviction, jealousy was an act that insulted one's wife. He believed he had to have trust in his wife. As for why he had to have trust, that is, why he had to have absolute trust that his young wife would always love him, he had never once questioned. He had never experienced distrust. Because he had faith in his wife, and because he had resolved to himself that he must. Even now, jealousy was a shameful emotion and his conviction that he must trust his wife was unchanged, but he felt he had come face to face with something illogical and inexplicable, and did not know what to do.

Alexei Alexandrovich is shown in Volume 1 (Parts 1 and 2) as a person who lives, quite literally, for himself. This means, in other words, that the 20-year age gap tells us the mental distance between Anna and Alexei could only grow distant too, and that he (Alexei) cannot share any of Anna's emotions, and we come to learn that Anna, looking at Alexei (her husband), eventually comes to feel he is 'selfish' and a person who moves only for his own appearances. As Anna meets Vronsky and reveals another self within her to the world, existing not as Alexei's wife 'Anna' but as 'Anna Arkadyevna,' existing as a woman who falls in love with Vronsky, this is precisely what Alexei sees as an act that damages his own face and drives a knife into the family. Of course, if even I were to fall in love with a man I'd met one fine morning and try to end my relationship, I too would take revenge on the woman. (This is not a religious sublimation.) Alexei's 'revenge' was to remind her of the duty to maintain the household, to inform her that she must keep up social appearances, and to 'educate' her so that she would no longer conduct herself this way in high society. For Alexei, a 'divorce' from his wife was something he had never imagined; it had happened countless times around him, but he had a certain trust that it would not happen to him, and it's as if that trust was broken. Anna refuses to listen to Alexei's words and wants the end of the relationship, and behaves hypocritically so they appear to be on good terms, but it's beyond doubt that this rather reveals the invisible 'wall' between them.

Kitty looked at her friend with pride. Kitty was utterly captivated by Varenka's singing, by her voice, by her face. But above all she was charmed by Varenka's attitude of not thinking much of her own singing and being completely indifferent to people's praise. She seemed to simply ask, 'Should I sing more? Or shall I stop?'

'If it were me......' Kitty thought to herself. 'How I would have shown off! How delighted I'd be to see those people gathered below the window! But she has no interest in such things at all. She sang only out of the wish not to refuse her mother's request, the wish to please her mother. What on earth is inside her? The power to disregard everything and maintain composure in any situation - what on earth gives her this power? I want to find out that power and learn it from her.' Kitty fell into thought, gazing at her friend's calm face. The princess asked Varenka to sing one more song, and Varenka, standing upright beside the piano, lightly tapping the top of the piano in time with her thin, dark hands, sang another song just as fluently, clearly, and beautifully as before.

The character I would call 'ideal' in terms of the love and way of expressing oneself toward people that I had thought of was exactly this Varenka. You couldn't call her a character of great weight. But Varenka is, at least to 'Kitty,' one of the most significant characters. Watching Varenka, Kitty was able to rethink her own behavior, and through this she was able to 'recover.' After being abandoned by Vronsky, after once again being certain of the love for 'Levin' in her heart, she fell into a state of panic, and each day was agony. As she traveled to Germany and met a woman called 'Varenka,' she got an opportunity to rethink her own ways, her own thoughts and values. The reason I like this part is that I feel I had thought and loved much like 'Kitty.' It's an embarrassing thing to say, but the current me is unable to love in a religious sense the way Varenka does. (Varenka is shown to share love in a religious sense.) But if this were possible for me too - if living life by feeling that one is happy simply through the other person's happiness, without wishing for anything, posed no problem at all - then I would want to do so and am ready to. But I cannot, and so I hurt my girlfriend that way. I hurt her simply for the reason that it isn't the form I want. Even though I think that if I resembled even a tenth of Varenka I would do less of this bad behavior, it's truly bitter and regrettable that I can't.

I read Volume 1 faster than expected. There's a high chance I'll read Volume 2 even faster. No doubt 'momentum' has built up, and experiencing firsthand just how great Tolstoy is also plays a part. I see the greatest characteristic appearing in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as the 'diversity of protagonists,' because I think laying out the stories of multiple characters simultaneously is truly a remarkable thing. These writers are pulling it off, and I feel wonder at this point too. Thanks to the stories unfolded by two to three pairs of characters, I can't stop reading this book for even a moment. I'm also looking forward to Volume 2, which I'll read next.

Related post: Anna Karenina part.2