March and April 2015: Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

Post date: Apr 21, 2015 3:23:27 AM

Quite a large group made it to Deebie’s on April 15 for our discussion of Anna Karenina, and I believe most who attended had finished, as we had postponed from March to give everybody a second chance.

In fact, the meeting started off with a discussion of recent police shootings, since Catherine was there, and Deebie’s daughter had recently been involved in some protest actions. We touched on training methods, how Catherine’s department (Piedmont) deals with complaints/concerns from the public (in one recent case, their chief set up a meeting with the citizen and the officer in question together), how body cameras have worked out (they love them).

We did then move on to Anna Karenina, with a typically wandering discussion of various aspects of the book. The discouraging plight of women, and general dearth of intellectual equality between partners in the novel was discussed, and Karen proposed that perhaps the idea of women as intellectual equals in a romantic relationship was not really “invented” until the Bloomsbury Group. Later we thought of Shakespeare (who certainly has a few couples where the woman is the equal of the man), and decided it was just Tolstoy who was so down on females. As Deebie put it when we pondered what was Tolstoy’s main point in the book? “Don’t be born a woman!”

We agreed that Tolstoy did a great job of painting scenes so you really felt you could see the setting and the people. A favorite of several people was Kitty’s birthing, as Levin is running around and around. (Although we did baulk a bit at Tolstoy blithely saying they stayed in Moscow too long because she was two months past her expected delivery date!)

We were divided on the subject of the political and social discussions, with some of us finding them hard going while others were interested.

Janet (who missed the meeting) later wrote:

I thought that the political and social parts of Anna K, especially the social ones, were very important because Anna was a victim of them.  I wondered if Levin was Tolstoy himself -- did you touch on that?  I know Tolstoy was very involved in reform of land ownership and the position of the serfs.  And poor Mrs. Tolstoy!  She had 13 children, but was still able to help her husband with the publication of his books.  I'm not exactly sure what she did. Typing?  Editing?  Tolstoy had 14 children, one by a serf before he married.  Wikipedia said that he told his fiancée before they were married about his wild romantic escapades, and she was not too pleased!

I was also really interested in Anna's relationship with her children.  Seryozha was pretty much a cipher before Anna ran off with Vronsky, and not much developed even after that.  And Anna disliked the daughter she had by Vronsky.  Interesting that Karenin loved this child -- bonded with her when she was a newborn as she was recovering from a serious illness.  

In fact, we did have a discussion about Levin being Tolstoy, and about Tolstoy baring all to his intended prior to his marriage, and about Anna's relationship (or lack thereof) with her children.