Anna Karenina
By Leo Tolstoy
This book has been on my list for ever. First because it’s Tolstoy. Second it’s a ‘chick’ book, or so I
thought. But really, it was simply next
on the list. However coincidentally, its theme has much in common with books I have
read over the past year. This book,
along with East of Edin and Answer Like a Man all deal on some level with
virtue; specifically a woman’s lack of it.
I read each of these books at random urges where coincidence of theme
was unbeknownst to me as the books sat silently on their shelves. Ironically and coincidentally, I personally
endured the consequences of this trait in society. While I have torn myself up over it over in
the past year, I am somewhat mollified by the fact that from prolific authors;
Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck, Taylor Caldwell, and to include Guatav Flaubert's
Madame Bovary, one finds that virtue and women do not automatically go hand in
hand. To make my point, society over a
hundred year span of time has made each of these books best sellers of their
day and classics of today. Why? Is a
woman’s virtue to be tested as in Anna Karenina? A woman’s beauty teases men and vexes society
of both men and women. Is a flower only
to be seen and not touched at will? Love
of animal nature has no choice. Like
bees to a flower men pursue. Like a
flower should a woman surrender to each one?
By whom and how is the choice for virtue made. What is the rationale for or against
virtue? These are the questions that
Tolstoy explores on a word, a symbol of reality, where the meaning’s are
conflicted.
The book opens with an affair of Anna’s cousin. For which Anna tells her husband that she is
going to Moscow
to advise her cousin to forgive her adulterous husband. Anna’s husband’s first response is to
question that adultery may be forgiven, especially by his wife. Anna’s response is “do you think that nine
years of marriage should count for nothing against an infatuation?” His answer is “No, but sin has a price you
may be sure of that.” The book’s moral
message is weaved through typical Tolstoy voluminous depth, including sub plots
involving first Kitty and Constantine and his brother who marries a whore. Each sub plot helps the reader experience the
cross-sections of each thread of a tapestry of sin. Kitty at first turns down Constantine’s proposal for marriage but after
observing Ann’s sins, along side Constantine’s bother’s honorable faux
marriage; she changes her mind and becomes a virtuous wife. Tolstoy leaves the reader to visualize a
marriage of peasants held together by virtue.
It knows no gender as parties of all sides including the sidelines feel
its tension.
As the story goes:
Coincidentally enough; Anna rides the train to Moscow with the mother of
her eventual adulterous lover who poses the question of gossip and love to
Anna. The mother says it always turns up
that amidst the rumor she would always wish she had the affair, though she
hadn’t. She asks Anna her opinion and
her response was “I don’t know.” I am
familiar with a mother capable of that statement. Are a mother’s sins passed down to become sins of their sons and
daughters? Why does Tolstoy add this
dynamic? Well I suspect he is making a
point that anyone can fall prey to society and infatuation, only to leave your
life in ruins. Upon leaving the train
the arrogant son Bronski, son of the mother mentioned above who is introduced to a Anna, a married woman and mother of
a young son. With this knowledge in hand
he persists in yet immediate plots and assault on her virtue. His methods are selfish, devious, and
relentless. I know a man capable of
stooping to these bowels of character.
In this book Tolstoy deals with love at lust’s level. At the height of orgasm Anna’s cries Oh “god
forgive me, that’s the end of everything,
I have nothing left now but you.” She cries murder, murder!
Alexi replies “I can only remember my happiness.” For which Anna says, “You murdered my
happiness.” All of her senses are lost.
Her soul is sold to the devil.
Love of the flesh is now managed by the heart alone. Anna lives for her new lover’s happiness at
the expense of all her family and most of all herself. Her new found happiness is co-dependent on
her lover. Over time she realizes the
‘demons in her head’ in the form jealousy in her, but also knows it is too late
for saving or redemption.
Tolstoy also balances this love with forgiveness,
forgiveness in this case being a discipline of the mind/ego. Anna falls prey to her passions, while being
seduced by a gentleman and cavalry officer of society, Alexi Bronski. It was new emotion in an otherwise very
settled bourgeois life. She was being
pursued; it was refreshing compared to the life she was leading, albeit a very
comfortable life as the wife of a minister of the Russian royal court. While she was pleading for the fulfillment of
her loins with Alexi her lover, she comes to realize her mistake on her
apparent death bed. After baring Alexi’s child she asks her husband to forgive
the both of them.
In the course of her husbands struggle with this dichotomy
of nerve and passion, Tolstoy plays out societies impressions. In the drama, society is also vexed. They sit at parties and consensus would hold
that love, of Anna’s nature, is to die for.
It would be living and dying for your highest desire, be it right or
wrong. I believe it would be Voltaire
who would say see!!! And then at the
same time that same society scorns Anna in her attempt to bring this new love
into society without even concluding her divorce with her current husband. I have experienced this in a woman who
brings to life perpetual attacks of this disease. The
lesson of coincidence you would ask, I had no idea this was the plot or the
plots of the previously mentioned books had parallel trends. This book ends with Anna’s demise under the
wheels of a train and her husband sitting comfortably with Anna’s children in a
field reading a book. In all books the
virtuous live to see their virtue. But
for mankind the drama continues insanely.
Apparently betraying virtue haunts the soul; the aspect of
man that lives through eternity.
Betrayal of virtue brings along an accomplice; jealousy. Anna began to realize two things. First she recognized the demons in her head
during her jealous moments with Alexi.
She realized that she had nothing materially to be jealous for and that
her jealousy was self born. She also
began to realize that her own adultery may have inflicted her jealousy on her
lover. She asked him for forgiveness.
Anna was capable of asking for forgiveness and love but incapable of
returning anything but animal lust.
Having received love, the unconditional acceptance of her being, from
not one but two men outwardly, the conflicted Anna Karenina, at the peak of
emotional despair threw herself under a moving train.
So what is Tolsky trying to tell us? I suspect he is saying that the conscience of
society and the true nature of the animal in man are at odds with each
other. Conscience of man, that which
makes us beings above animals has the luxury of choice. Spirit of man is the fabric of society that
scorns animal lust. Spirit of society embraces
a man and a woman in marriage if for no other reason than to spawn raise children,
which in fact is the survival of our species.
Anna Karenina violated that virtuous quality in humans and her
conscience as a consequence would not let her survive. To Anna’s credit at least she had a
conscience. Victor Hugo’s Madam Bovary
with her many lovers does not. Mirror
mirror in the sky what is love?
Virtue
A virtuous woman guards against seduction
Preoccupied with the beauty of innocence
To prowling libidos of wolves, devil’s temptation
She’s content to alluring dance yet portrays reluctance
Consumed by footsteps of over bearing passion
The lamb loses her footing to wolves’ persistence
Succumbed not to his demands but a hidden hand
Past the heat of passion it was hers to control
Once virtue surrenders, ego’s devises take command
The devil’s gimmicks are released and let out on parole
Conscience registers his vote to heart’s upper hand
To unconsciousness only her humor can she cajole
Is it the carnivorous nature of wolves and lambs?
Or is it the waltz of bee over the fragrant flower?
Lambs will bleat a beaeah an invitation to the wolf
The roosters will strut beneath the circling hawk
Is it moral excellence to give and take of love…making?
Can its courage see through the conflicted meaning?
