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

[bazarov]

The novel promises so much yet delivers so little.

Really? Why?

[Gladys]

I had expected Tolstoy’s would return to wavering Karenin, honest Vronsky, or at least to the unpredictable Kitty, rather than end with the born again egotist, Levin. Anna's change in personality from Jekyll to Hide seems implausible unless one blames the opium.

[MarkBastable]

He wouldn't teach a Russian Lit. class if he didn't like Dostoevskii.

My point was that I'd expect a teacher of literature to be able to spell 'undue'.

Call me old-fashioned.

[Olga4real]

oppinions please. cant have my own oppinion since i havent read it yet, but ive heard so much about this book... is it really the most valuable book ever? if you dont think its 'anna karenina', then what book do you think its THE ONE?

I think that the best novel ever writeen by Tolstoy is 'War and Peace'. I like this author, but I prefer Dostoevsky.
However for me the best novel is 'Master and Margarita'.
For every one there is his or her own best, for one it is a comix, for other it is 'Crime and Punishment'

[medusa_woman]

Definitely a loose baggy monster. I think it's popularity is that it's attractive to many people. A fun read on the surface -- a soap opera really. I wonder what Oprah's readers got out of it last year? But there's so much depth to it. Dark at times -- though nowhere near Dostoyevsky. A social commentary on the times. Marvelously fleshed out real, flawed characters. Every time Oblonsky appeared, I wanted to jump into the pages and eat and converse with him. I could have done without the ending -- most of the stuff after "THE SCENE". The title leads one to believe that it should end at that point. But the parallel story of Levin is concluded and used by Tolstoy to show his views. I guess he's entitled to it. However, it was done well and much less preachy than the ending of Sinclair's Jungle, where he preached and rambled on about the virtues of socialism.

[Nabokov_love]

I know my post is a little late, but I actually just finished readng 'Anna Karenina' last week and must say that although it is an excellent piece of literature, I am unsure as whether it could be classified as the 'most valuable book ever'.
In retrospect it would probably actually have to be a religious text that would fall under the 'most important' header, but as far as just books you MUST read before dying, I would vote for something by Nabokov or Henry Miller even. But in all honesty I think that to choose one book as the most important would be very difficult if not impossible. Every book has its own values, errors and lessons to offer.

yet read it! If you haven't already by now

[Kevets]

I read that book over a summer and in no uncertain terms it stands as the worst book I ever read. He goes on for 16 pages about managing a farm and the peasants who distrusted him even though he, a gentleman, sat and ate his lunch with them. And that description of him cutting the field with a scythe. Drown me.

I can agree with the first part - the details of Russian farm council politics were definitely skim-worthy at best. Reminded me of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, where you could skip two pages of species names.

But the scything section is actually called out in the new book The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and I agree with that author that this is a wonderful bit of writing. I sometimes lose myself in moments of effort (or if I'm very lucky, guitar playing) and these are some of the best moments of my life. Levin thought the water he drank from the sharpening box, complete with rust and grass clippings, some of the best water he ever had. And that struck me.

The other thing I admire about this book is the capturing of the chaos of internal thoughts. And in fact Levin struggling with trying to understand (or even give a fig) about the aforementioned council politics made those parts almost enjoyable.

[MorpheusSandman]

Lots of really great discussion in this thread.

While I'm not extremely well versed in classic literature (and that automatically limits and lessens the value of my opinion), War & Peace is the best I've read. It's one those works of art that seems to contain the whole of humanity within itself. Every major, minor, relevant, and irrelevant theme ever related to mankind. It's so incredibly inclusive, so gorgeously written, simple and at the same time complex, a mammoth book full of small moments and small people, a book about grand, macro themes expressed through the smallest events, a book that can evoke the most elaborate metaphors or the most simplest poetry in a few words.

So I'd say W&P, but that may definitely change the more I read.

[Babak Movahed]

I wouldn't call it the best novel of all time but without a doubt it has to be top 10. The main reason I felt that the novel isn't the best is because Tolstoy would go into such precise details for parts of the text that didn't require that much lenghty description. None the less I liked it a lot but the best novel of all time in my opinion has got to be "Crime and Punishment" it's just one of those works that changes your view on life.

[JhKreisler]

Well,
You probably never heard of one Willem Elsschot? He's assumed to be one of the greatest (and if not the greatest) Belgian writer. (You probably never heard of one Belgium too? ; ) ) If you find the novel "Het dwaallicht" (translated as: "Will o' the Wisp") in one of your libraries, certainly take a moment to read this one. It's only about 56pages, so it won't take you long, but you'll enjoy from the first word to the last. It's enjoyable in its simplicity, it's a masterwork in its simplicity, and that is that. Nothing more left to say about this one.

[Desolation]

Just finished Anna Karenina yesterday, after having it sit under my pillow for about a year, so I thought I'd try to add a bit to this very old discussion.

Anna Karenina is a terribly mundane story, with horrid characters that one must struggle to connect with or care about...but Tolstoy makes us care. He makes us care quite a lot, in fact. Even when one is bored to tears by Levin's farm...and Levin's farm is discussed at great length without ever being interesting...Tolstoy will find a way to hook them back in. I didn't make it very far through War and Peace, and I've never read Pushkin, I also preferred Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov; but I would definitely say that Anna Karenina has a legitimate claim to the title of "Best Novel Ever."

[kelby_lake]

Compared to Madame Bovary, Tolstoy's books are little more than loose baggy monsters.

Isn't that what Henry James called War and Peace?

[kelby_lake]

I think even people who love the novel will admit that they found the agricultural passages tedious at times, but we're not familiar with that type of life- of course we'd find them boring, just as most people find the architecture passages in The Hunchback of Notre Dame boring.

Personally I love the novel and I became attached to pretty much all the characters. Of course most people expect the Anna/Vronsky affair to be the vast majority of the novel because that's the juicy stuff but I think the Lenin passages provide a nice contrast. As a study of adultery, Anna Karenina is brilliant, and it definitely has a claim to greatness.

[mande2013]

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.

So...? I think "exoticism" is part of art's draw in general. I think people seek out what might be described as 'culture' to 'awaken' themselves from the mundane nature of daily life on most Western societies. So I just don't see how seeking out Proust or Dostoevsky for the reasons you describe is necessarily a bad thing. Are you can accuse people of seeking out the 'exotic' when they take a trip to Colombia or Morocco or wherever? Your attitude just seems like rank and file anti-snob snobbery, if only here, as I'm sure you're an intelligent guy in general.

[Red Terror]

I don't think Eugene Onegin classifies as a novel; it is narrative poetry. Also, I read a list from Time magazine which took a survey of American writers to ask what is the greatest book of literature of all time. Here is the list:

http://content.time.com/time/arts/ar...578073,00.html