Richard's Book Club #22
-"Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy (April 10th thru May 10th)
http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0143035002/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1050675-9155822?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179109974&sr=8-1
My two-and-a-half cents:
Considered the greatest novel ever written, I had to read this bad boy before I died. Lemme tell ya... it was damn good. Anything that starts with a misquotation from the Bible saying "Vengeance is mine; I will repay", and you know it's on.
Trying to summarize this book is like trying to fuck two chicks at the same time: it's damn near impossible. In short, it's about two stories running parallel to each other: one of them is about this guy named Levin who's philosophical and lonely and the other about this chick named Anna who's beautiful and lonely. He falls in love with this girl named Kitty, can't have her at first because of this guy named Vronsky but he blows her aside for Anna, and she finally marries Levin and live (somewhat) happily ever after. Anna, on the other hand, is already set up with a rich dude and a kid, doesn't love the guy, falls in love with Vronsky, and then things fall apart. In the end, to quote Amazon.com, "I don't want to give away the ending, but I will say that 19th-century Russia doesn't take well to that sort of thing."
But none of this shit matters. The reason why it's so difficult to summarize is because there's so much going on. Tolstoy packs love, hate, jealousy, depression, fulfillment, redemption, philosophy, etc etc etc... into a coherent storyline and still has time to mender off into horse races and séances (i.e. shit that doesn't matter). Even if the killer plot and heartfelt characters don't interest ya, the book is chalked full of references to mid-to-late 19th century Russian history and beyond that'll make you wonder how one guy could know so fuckin' much and be able to implement them properly into the story.
This is "the" book for a book club. If I had anyone else reading the books I read (I don't), I could spend endless nights rambling about the choices the characters made and the impact of certain events and the raw emotion running throughout the novel and on and on and on...
There's a reason they say this is the single greatest novel ever written. You should find out. BTW: get the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky. I haven't read the other translations (obviously), but I know that this one is damn good.
Recommended: Yes.
Killer Quote: (Levin's wife Kitty taking care of his dying brother Nikolai) "She had in her that excitement and quickness of judgment that appear in men before a battle, a struggle, in dangerous and decisive moments of life, those moments when once and for all a man shows his worth and that his whole past has not been in vain but has been a preparation for those moments."
Next: "Guide to Getting It On" by Paul Joannides (I really dunno why I keep putting this up... it's gonna take me forever)