Yesterday I finally finished reading Anna Karenina, which is one of six texts I promised to read over the summer for English. It's taken longer than it should have and has been tiresome at times, but it's a truly remarkable piece of work and I'm delighted that I chose to read it.
I chose it because for Literature next year we are focusing on the theme of 'love'. I know, I know, where can you find a book about 'love'; that's a bit specific, surely? But have no fear, the exam board have kindly narrowed it down to 'love over the past 1000 years', although I would desperately have liked to read the old testament as one of my texts just to be a meddlesome, pretentious prick. I like doing things like that, you see. Since I was 8 and read the word 'ubiquitous' in a book and from that decided to base my entire storyline of the story we were supposed to be writing in class around the idea of being able to fit that word in, it has been a particularly inherent aspect of my being. Not to mention the fact that my Year 4 teacher had to ward me away from my over reliance on the phrase 'nought but'; that is to say that I would compose sentences such as -
'The sun was nought but bright on that day'
'The football was nought but red'
So yes, I was a weird kid, in summary. But I chose Anna Karenina because I wished to focus on the idea of a love outside of society's bounds; a love that is somehow perceived 'unnatural' or is not conforming to convention. This is largely because I have already decided I wish to use Lolita, and the overriding theme in that is Humbert's love for small children. So I had to work around that, and after deciding that reading any more books about paedophilia would cause some very strange glances from my English teachers and no doubt society in general, I decided to go for the more casual idea of affairs. I could use Romeo and Juliet as one of my Shakespeare plays though; Juliet was only 13 in the play, I'll have you know. TAKE THAT, SOCIETY - one of your most beloved romance works is a vicious bout of paedophilia.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Or, more pertinently, the translation at the beginning of my version begins -
"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
It doesn't quite roll off the tongue in the same manner, much to my frustration. So upon opening the book I was pissed off, but I recovered from this brutal bastardisation of the line I was expecting and went on with the book.
It's very much about society, which I loved. I was definitely in the mood for a huge slight against society; to which Tolstoy fulfils this ideal with great efficiency, precision and rather creates the image in my mind of a madman repeatedly stabbing an already dying man in the chest, whilst laughing. I realise that this analogy probably says more about my state of mind than the book, but fuck it - this is how I roll. *rolls*
Really the analogy should have related to a train station. I found the metaphor brilliant in the book of the parallels between the train station and a depiction of society; it was quite brilliant.
I don't really want to review the book too much on here, because I don't want to give away the whole plot. On the other hand, of course, nobody reads this thing so I can say what I want and there is nobody to disappoint or laugh at my understanding. Hmm.
BUT YES, it's about society. It's interesting, Tolstoy somehow manages to not only present society as a concept that is just as abstract as love; still within every one of us like some ingrained, inherent attribute, but also to present it as quite a literal place out of your state of mind. He also very much presents society as the disease and love as the cure, I feel. But of course the marriages as one can expect from the opening line are depicting largely hardship and the struggles or non-existence of love, so on the other hand society really gets the better of everyone.
Fuck it, I'll stop writing here. Peace out, motherfuckers.
