Tuesday, April 30, 2013

My Year of Books: Anna Karenina Pt.3

I've gotten to the beginning of the third book, of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and have quit reading it, this is how hard I found the book to read and the characters to like. I kept on coming home from work complaining to Tom about what a bitch she is and have finally lost my patience with this book in it's entirety. In fact, the only character I really liked was her husband, Count Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, which I'm pretty sure isn't supposed to happen. I'm 100% sure you're supposed to have sympathy for her and dislike him, but alas, I do not feel that at all...maybe my wiring is backwards. I also can not stand Count Vronsky, he's a troubled dickhead who can't see past the end of his own nose and always wants what is on the other side of the fence!

I read the ending of the story on Wikipedia and revelled in joy when she dies at the end, I felt as though she deserved it for being self centred and desperate for drama in her own life. I appreciate she fell in love for the first time, I really do but regardless of that, she should have behaved better and no it's not that I'm unromantic, not at all, It's just I hated her behaviour of trying to justify her actions and blaming others for them. I get that she's a modern naive woman and all of that but I do not like her or understand her. But hey, that's just my take on it. I know someone who adores this book and probably adores the character of Anna Karenina. Although, most people who I've spoken to about this particular book have all expressed that Tolstoy is quite a difficult author to read and that Anna Karenina is a whole lot of drama for little purpose.

In the mean time, I've started reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; I feel that I'll get on this with book much better.