is 'anna karenina' the best novel ever or not?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I've not read the greatest novel yet I'm pretty sure of that, in some ways I think we are always searching for it anyway. I want to read the likes of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov and some of the others mentioned here but I haven't the time to devote myself to works of that length with Uni, work and the rest of it yet. Of what I have read I would go with Crime and Punishment, Madam Bovary, or Wuthering Heights, probably Wuthering Heights, surprised that it has not been mentioned yet.

Edit to that: I think the best British novel certainly would be Wuthering Heights or at the very top of the list if not. The likes of Hardy deserve to be up there, certainly with Jude and Tess I wouldn't under-estimate Shelley's Frankenstein either, then of course there is Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Woolf and Joyce to name the more obvious contenders but I would personally place Wuthering Heights as the best British novel above those.

[kasie]

Like other posters, I have the feeling that the search for the best novel ever is something like travelling towards a mirage in the desert - each new book holds out its seductive promise but you never quite reach it. The journey is (usually) worth it though!

AK is one of my favourite novels - I primly disapproved of Anna when I was young but age and experience has mellowed my attitude towards her, though I still cannot comprehend her decision regarding her child (whoops, nearly a spoiler there!) I love the character of Levin, a great, gentle bear of a man - the scene where he proposes to Kitty is one of literature's great love scenes. I even like the countryside scenes.

But, OP, no amount of other people's opinions should make your mind up for you - you really must decide for yourself. If you haven't the time to read it now, and it is a long book, then put it aside until you do have the time or the inclination to use that amount of time in that way, then decide for yourself if it is the greatest or among the greatest novels ever written.

[stlukesguild]

I find myself, in a great number of ways, agreeing with MortalTerror (gasp!). Well not quite in total. I most certainly would place Don Quixote near the pinnacle on my personal list of greatest novels... along with Sterne's Tristam Shandy and Proust's In Search of Lost Time... which I know MT has suggested is far too poetic and uneventful... but still magnificent... but yes... Madame Bovary is almost as near perfect a novel as I have come across. I find that for all the baggage or even imperfections, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time, and certainly Don Quixote strike me a greater works of art... but not more perfect. Flaubert seemingly polished this novel to the sort of level of perfection that one finds in poetry... but rarely sustained for the course of an entire novel. Nabokov achieved something similar with Lolita, and Dickens comes as close as he ever will with the Tale of Two Cities... and yes, The Great Gatsby is also such a polished work.

[PeterL]

No, Anna Karenina is not the best novel ever.

[Bumbeli]

It's a really great book, but I really don't think it is the best novel ever. There are quite a few novels I'd like to read I got recommended very often, but of those I have read, Brothers Karamazov is the greatest.

[Quark]

I'm guess by evening read's question in the opening post "is it really the most valuable book ever?" that they are looking for a book that is a great experience or has some meaningful substance. These would be things of value. Evening read probably isn't asking about personal favorites or technically perfect novels. Obviously, I don't know what the original poster meant entirely, but the word "valuable" points to something extrinsically important. I would say Anna Karenina certainly fits that description, and it does so more than many of the other suggestions that have been made. Madame Bovary is an engrossing story with its charms, but one doesn't take much away from it. The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, and some others mentioned come closer perhaps, but I think Anna Karenina would be better read first since its more entertaining that Dostoevsky and easier to get through than Moby Dick.

In any case, though, if anyone asks whether a particular novel is the best, greatest, or any other superlative, almost everyone will respond with some variant of:

No, Anna Karenina is not the best novel ever.

The sheer volume of great works (I have bookcases of novels I would consider great) means that almost no one is going to agree on anything like this.

[mayneverhave]

It's a really great book, but I really don't think it is the best novel ever. There are quite a few novels I'd like to read I got recommended very often, but of those I have read, Brothers Karamazov is the greatest.

Dostoevsky, and especially The Brothers Karamazov, seem to have a fantastic reputation on these forums - as made evident by both Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov placing in the top 3 of our 100 greatest novels list.

The Brothers Karamazov is certainly great, but I think it is the epitome of the "loose baggy monster". I notice that Dostoevsky tends to be slipshod and writes without a great deal of polish. It's hard to say its the greatest for this reason. Certainly very good, but far from perfection.

[Dr. Hill]

I wholly disagree with you. Dostoevsky has never wrote messily. Not once. He's about as precise and perfect a writer as one gets. Every sentence is there for a reason.

[Saladin]

The Brothers Karamazov is absolute perfection. I concur what Dr.Hill wrote.

[Quark]

I notice that Dostoevsky tends to be slipshod and writes without a great deal of polish. It's hard to say its the greatest for this reason. Certainly very good, but far from perfection.

He's about as precise and perfect a writer as one gets.

All this talk of polish and perfection might be beside the point for two reasons. First, the original post asks

is it really the most valuable book ever? if you dont think its 'anna karenina', then what book do you think its THE ONE

Evening read wants something that has value which I would take to be more like meaning or entertainment than craft. The charge that a novel lacks polish probably doesn't carry much force when the question is about value. Of course, if the book is so poorly put together then it would affect the experience reading it and obscure its meaning, but neither Anna Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov suffer from this. This is my second point: these stories were composed with imprecision in mind. Tolstoy was interested in the minuetae of everyday life, and thought that "real" life was lived in undramatic moments. His novels include prosaic chapters because Tolstoy thought that those were the important moments. Anna, meanwhile, lives only the "polished" or "perfect" moments and suffers. Dostoevsky had similar intentions in The Brothers Karamazov. He wanted to show how many actions could occur from one motivation, and that simple, linear narratives about our lives are incomplete without registering all these possible actions. Remember the scene where Dmitri is interrogated:

"But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a
weapon?"

"What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off."

"What for, if you had no object?"

Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at "the boy" and
smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more
ashamed at having told "such people" the story of his jealousy so
sincerely and spontaneously.

"Bother the pestle!" broke from him suddenly.

"But still-"

"Oh, to keep off dogs... Oh, because it was dark.... In case
anything turned up."

"But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you
when you went out, since you're afraid of the dark?" . . .

"Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What
does one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for.
I snatched it up and ran- that's all. "

Dmitri has any number of answers for the police, but his interrogators can't understand how this is possible. They miss the point that Dostoevsky is trying to make. They're believe that this is simply a murder mystery where one culprit has one motive which leads to one action. Dostoevsky is trying to break that expectation, and to show this requires more pages. A perfect, polished who-done-it tale might come in lighter, but it wouldn't have the value of The Brothers Karamazov.

[Dr. Hill]

The Brothers Karamazov has a habit of taking everything to the next level, and deepening even the most seemingly arbitrary events. It is an absolute work of genius. While my favorite novel will probably always be Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov is a more philosophical piece of literature.

[JBI]

I wholly disagree with you. Dostoevsky has never wrote messily. Not once. He's about as precise and perfect a writer as one gets. Every sentence is there for a reason.

I trust you read him in Russian, right? If not, then you cannot comment on his sloppiness, as you are reading an interpretation, while somewhat of a consensus agrees that his prose improves somewhat in translation. The greatest prose writer of his time, I would argue, in terms of language, would have to be Turgenev, from what I understand of Russian critical consensus.

[Dr. Hill]

Ok..sorry?

[wessexgirl]

Ok..sorry?

What for? You are entitled to your opinions.

[mortalterror]

The Brothers Karamazov has a habit of taking everything to the next level, and deepening even the most seemingly arbitrary events. It is an absolute work of genius. While my favorite novel will probably always be Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov is a more philosophical piece of literature.

Dostoyevski get's a lot of credit, undo credit I think, for being so philosophical with his novels. As I told my Russian literature class in college, "If you want a viable philosophy, read the philosophers. Don't read novelists. That's not their strength and it's not their job." Personally, I think that Hemingway is just as philosophical as Dostoyevski or Sartre, but his philosophy doesn't wear it's intellect on it's sleeve. It's very understated like the rest of his writing. What Dostoyevski does is "Look at me!" writing "Oh, I'm making a big point here!" writing, very labored, very obvious, dare I say an artless kind of writing. Stoicism has it's roots in a world nearly two thousand years old. Existentialism is novel. I will not say contemporary because Stoicism is still very much with us. Existentialism is novel in the way that Postmodernism is novel, in that it is new, it is impractical, it is strange, and retains the charm of things which can be put to almost no practical use. It appeals to youths and frivolous people, those who fancy themselves as artists and minds, those poor deluded "creative souls."

People who are drawn to Dostoyevski's writing are often drawn to his philosophy for many of the same reasons. It's big, unwieldy, complicated and strange. They cannot handle the subtleties of conventional morality, or conventional art, and so are always seeking after the exotic. They must have big novels, gigantic things that press upon the reader their importance, or they are not impressed. They must have melodrama and murders to titillate them; or and this is also true, they must have no action at all. The intemperate live in one extreme or another because ambiguity and moderation are too much for them. I do not find it strange at all that the same people who love Dostoyevski should also love Joyce, and Proust. They praise gibberish and run on sentences. They make a cult of the weird and unwieldy. But I guess that is a discussion for another time.