I'm on Part VI and I don't get the appeal of this book. I can tell Tolstoy is building toward something, but I can't tell what. And to the book's credit, it often has me asking "what will happen next" but I never really find the "next" thing very intriguing. I must be getting filtered, right? There is a payoff, right?
>>25227823Is that a butt?
You are probably getting filtered. There's no "payoff" in the form of a big, grand finale. It's not that kind of book. The enjoyment of Anna Karenina is seeing the characters change throughout the story, particularly Vronsky and Levin, and to some extent Kitty.
>>25227842By payoff I don't mean plot twist or anything like that. Am I already supposed to understand the contrasting between Anna and Levin or does this become more clear after the ending
>>25227830its a tangerine
>>25227823I have never found books written by aristocrats to be worth reading. The sole exception is Julius Caesars memoirs, bc he is at least talking about how he was just a man committing genocide for power and lulz. When aristocrats come up with deep thoughts or passionate narratives, you know you're in for a whole lotta cope and nonsense. Look at Plato.
>>25227920>i'm smart and i belong here
>>25227941I never said I was smart but I certainly belong here. Tolstoy is shit, and even said so himself at the end of his life. A saving grace.
Women get what they fucking deserve. (Its based)>>25227842Well, theres 1
>>25227823There is a payoff, I don't even like the book that much but part 7 is brilliant.Part 8 on the other hand was a mistake. Ayn Rand-tier.
you must be a woman
>>25227823The appeal is in the meticulously detailed world that Tolstoy builds and where he places his ever-changing characters and where the magic of his writing allows them to develop themselves and reach their own conclusions without it feeling like they're being written to. Strictly speaking it is "building" towards Tolstoy showing you the development of his philosophy on life through the character of Levin, but unlike someone like Ayn Rand (already mentioned ITT), or like Hugo or even Dostoevsky (not to disparage them, just a different style), it doesn't feel didactic, but feels more like him inviting you to think about it yourself. Obviously the psychological realism in Part 7 doesn't have many equals, but if you've already read, what, 600 pages, and aren't enjoying it yet, then maybe shelve it for now and try again some other time. I'm not saying this in a mean-spirited way, but the lifeblood of the book lies in its quiet moments, and if you don't understand them and their beauty then you most likely aren't yet ready to. It's not the book.
He creates a simulation of Russian society of that time using words, it's like a miniature slice of life simulator built by using words.This alone should suck you in, and to your credit it did. You must also know how patriarchal and rigid the society was to understand Anna herself, this is not England where should become a governess and a painter and find an outlet in that way.
>>25228774Tolstoy is absolutely more didactic to me than Dostoevsky. Read Bakhtin.
I personally thought Levin and Anna meeting was the climax of the book, the two main characters with opposite approaches on family life. And seeing Levin, despite all of his growth throughout the book, fall to Anna's charms is a cathartic experience.
if you actually can't appreciate how well the book is written compared to other books you read just from the first page, then books are definitely not for you, we need to gatekeep them from people like you
>>25227920What do you prefer, books written by peasants? Seriously though, why? This just sounds like the tired "rich people don't understand reality" cliché, or worse, that romanticized idea that authors need to suffer (poverty) to have insight. It doesn't work like that. If hardship automatically produced depth, every miserable person would be a great writer, which obviously isn't the case. Anna Karenina is one of the sharpest psychological portraits ever put on the page, and Tolstoy has some of the most precise prose you'll find. He also wasn't exactly sheltered, he went to war and had plenty to say about it. Reducing all of that to "aristocrat cope" just shows you're not engaging with the work at all and defaulting to lazy ideological nonsense. But this is just me guessing. Unless it's an even more arbitrary reason?
>>25229016Sorry, I didn't mean to reply to your post, so I deleted it.
>>25227823Not gonna lie, no there is not really a payoff in the traditional "plot" sense (other than the famous scene which I'm sure you know about already) though I guess in a "moral" sense there is since the story very clearly is moralizing in character. But it's not some big climax or anything like that. I did not really enjoy Anna Karenina as much as I did War & Peace or really any of Tolstoy's shorter novels (The Kreutzer Sonata, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Hadji Murat, The Cossacks). There are definitely passages of supreme brilliance and Tolstoy's efficacy at painting rich psychological character portraits is still in evidence but I just didn't really like any of the characters (for comparison I loved Pierre, Andre, and Natasha in W&P) or connect with the story as I did with War & Peace. I know that's the point and it's a "cautionary" tale of sorts but it just wasn't for me I'm sad to say. Still count Tolstoy as one of my all time favorite writers but yeah, I feel you, I found it to be a bit meandering, especially the whole Italy adventure and the hunting scene in the tail end. I'll try it again in 10 years and maybe see if my opinion has changed. Ironically I really liked the farming scenes as a Harvest Moon/Rune Factory enjoyer.
>>25227830Even better, bare knees.
>>25228828Why are Tolstoy threads always full of these hyperbolic statements? How does not caring much about:>Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.Stop me in any way from enjoying:>Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,— the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar,— the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.
>>25228817It's such a haunting scene. Nabokov wrote extensively about how carefully Tolstoy crafted the narrative so that they avoid each other throughout the entirety of the novel despite always being in the same orbit>>25229060I get where you're coming from, re: something like the hunting scene being meandering to read, but that was the point he was trying to illustrate (think Flaubert slowing down the narrative to show how boring the Bovary's provincial life is) and the writing is so beautiful that it's still a joy to read. >that fucking dog POV
>>25228743women love this book, zoinker
>>25228811That's true in a lot of his historical war fiction but I'm not getting that vibe from AK
With the exceptions of Maria Bolkonskoya and Anna Karenina, I don't think Tolstoy is very good at writing women. Natasha Rostova was good too, just not my favorite.
>>25229011Yeah I do prefer those. It's just my opinion. Strange how much this caused you to cry. And revelatory of why I dont like aristocratic literature. Look at how fucking entitled you are. Demanding I like and see the value in something.
>>25227823Payoff is Levin's development
>>25227920>I'm a retardThanks for the heads-up
>>25229566What is good literature written by peasants? Not saying I disagree btw, just am not aware of any
>>25229615Ulysses>I should be reading Ulysses, and fabricating my case for and against. I have read 200 pages so far—not a third; and have been amused, stimulated, charmed, interested, by the first two or three chapters—to the end of the cemetery scene; and then puzzled, bored, irritated and disillusioned by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. Tom, great Tom, thinks this is on a par with War and Peace! An illiterate, underbred book, it seems to me; the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked flesh, why have the raw? But I think if you are anaemic, as Tom is, there is glory in blood. Being fairly normal myself I am soon ready for the classics again. I may revise this later. I do not compromise my critical sagacity. I plant a stick in the ground to mark page 200.
>>25229621Okay now THIS is based
>>25229621What? Joyce wasn't a peasant, he had a benefactor and CIA friends. Knew you were gonna be totally disingenuous
>>25229621Anon gave you an example. But I dont necessarily mean literal peasants. Just not nobility, nor rich people. Dostoeivsky is an example from the same place and relative time as Tolstoy.
>>25228653is part 8 like the second epilogue of War and Peace, no narrative and just a pseudo-essay?
>>25228828you probably get filtered by virginia woolf or something kek
>>25229635Dostoevsky had a rich dad and Joyce had rich benefactors. Not to mention Tolstoy served as a captain in the Crimean War and experienced actual bloodshed, while on top of that Joyce is the prime promulgator of 20th century elitist literature. Your distinctions are arbitrary.
>>25229637No, it's not that extreme>>25229635Dostoevsky wrote under truly abhorrent conditions, but he's technically nobility
>>25229625>CIA friendsDidn't he die before CIA was founded?
>>25229693he probably means OSS
>>25229625>CIA friendsI assume you're talking about Jung and they were only "friends" for a couple years before Joyce ghosted his superstitious ass.
>>25229479>oprah = foid litOh no no no
>>25229635You can be nobility and still live in harsh conditions, you can be a rich farmer. I don't understand the social distinction you are trying to force, Tolstoy was everything, a Bruce Wayne type to a bloody soldier and war hero type to a peasant living locally type. He tried all the roles, if there is anyone with skin in the game it's him.
>>25229778kek
>>25229110>Nabokov wrote extensively aboutDo you have a link?
>>25229092fans of realist writers tend to be very uppity about people not liking their favorite writers, they have that much in common with the "i only read non-fiction" types
It is strange. When I read War and Peace I struggled to put it down. But Anna Karanina I struggled to finish. Well written, grandiose and an incredible achievement of freezing a specific time period into a tangible object using only words. But man was it unfortunately boring. Levin being the kinda guy to disaprove of rumours, drama and gossip ironically made the book more boring because Anna and her affair was infinitely more juicy. Maybe there is some kinda meta commentary about just that, but whenever Levin appeared the story became a slog. For sure I understand the appeal of his mode of life, but for a book it wasn't conducive for my entertainment. I'm beginning my second reading of Insulted and Injured by Dostoy and I'm already hooked deep at just 30 pages.
>>25229947Levin's character is too sentimental with the kind of religiosity that spoiled Ivan Ilyich for me as well. They are both inoffensive as possible, aside from being bores.
>>25229672Dostoevsky. Idk about a rich dad. Rich for Russian commoners, he was a doctor. That much is true. But fyodor himself experienced a lot of struggle. As for Tolstoy and the war, sure, but I just dont get much from his writing. I read war and peace. Then when he became all anti-rich, I read the kingdom of God is within you, and this is a common thing these people do. By the time he decided being rich and powerful was gay, he tried to make some noble code out of being poor, rambling about the virtues of manual labor, and abolishing private property. Went the total other extreme with it. I think if you asked a Russian serf at the time he'd have been like, idk wtf you are talking about. Life sucks, I work hard, I wait for meal, and dont abolish property, it is all I have.
>>25229792I dont like the way he writes or the psychology it reveals. I dont think hes bad, just ignorant in a particular way I dont like, and recognize as a pattern. Idk why youre freaking out about it. Its just my opinion.
>>25230029I thought the same at first because it instinctually sounds radical but then I really endeavored to break down what he was talking about and found myself agreeing with him on everything. The serf for instance wouldn't have next to nothing without their exploitation and the misallocation of resources which Tolstoy desired to eliminate. What do you think he was ignorant about?
>>25227823It's a 3/5 book
/lit/ is just so irredeemably shit at this point. can't even appreciate anna karenina lmao. make another politics culture war slop thread i guess that's more of what you guys enjoy
>>25229799
>>25227902>does this become more clear after the endingI don't. Unless you are already invested in it you will feel nothing by the end and just end up liking the character you sympathised the most with and thinking the other half of the book disposable
>>25229566You still didn't answer the question. I asked WHY you think aristocratic writers aren't worth reading. "It's just my opinion" isn't a reason, it's you refusing to justify it, and it won't fly when you made such a strong statement in the first place. Instead you jumped straight into weak personal insults that have absolutely nothing to do with the point. If you can't explain your position beyond that, it kind of proves there isn't much behind it. I'm not demanding that you like anything, I'm asking you to explain your reasoning, assuming there is any.
>>25230706And what is wrong with dissenting opinions? Would you prefer we all masturbate to Tolstoi 24/7 and metaphorically lynch anyone who dares criticize him?Gogol is better than Tolstoi. This is my honest opinion.
>>25228774>>25229801>they have that much in common with the "i only read non-fiction" typesInteresting. I don't get uppity or anything, but I did greatly enjoy reading Anna Karenina and for a long time I was indeed an "I only read non-fiction" type of guy. I still prefer non-fiction or literary fiction over just about anything else. I never knew there was a connection.
>>25227823That cover is so funny
