It's Love, Love, Love
"Anna Karenina" (1877), which Leo Tolstoy called his first true novel, is about life lessons on relationships. Don't scratch your heads, as Tolstoy, the master of realistic fiction, knows something.
There are sixteen film adaptations of the novel, which attest to its enduring popularity. But most of them focus on the illicit affair between Anna Arkadyevna Karenina and Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky. This is understandable, as the book is 864 pages long. But watching the movie is like settling for second best. Read the book - and read it again. (Time can be a factor in one's understanding - and appreciation - of the novel.) Many consider "War and Peace" (1869) as one of the most important works in world literature, but "Anna Karenina" is no less significant.
You've never loved
"Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but today for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idea and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and social, delightful life."
Divorce isn't a socially acceptable option back then, but this isn't the main issue. Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin is the other main character in this saga, a landowner who don't fancy social gatherings. His bourgeoisie peers heckle him for this. If not for Prince Stepan "Stiva" Arkadyevich Oblonsky, Anna's brother and his friend, he wouldn't meet Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, Stiva's sister-in-law. Tolstoy initial description of Levin won't impress readers, but he is thirty two years of age, financially stable, and prone to introspection (whenever he don't tend the fields).
Some might remember Aristotle, one of the great minds of ancient Greece, who believes that the appropriate age for marriage is eighteen for girls and thirty seven for men. Many may find it impractical, but the menfolk during the philosopher's time strive for the best. (In other words, there may be some truth to the six-pack abs you've seen in Zac Snyder's "300".) Kitty, an eighteen years old, isn't attracted to Vronsky at first, but she founds out later that living simply isn't dull at all.
True love do exist
"Anna Karenina" will test one's belief in human nature. It is a tragedy, first and foremost. A woman risks her own life in pursuit of true love, only to end up in a train station. Alone. Then there's the tumultuous situation in 19th-century Russia. ("In former days, the freethinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality, or of religion, of notion of everything, that's to say, savages.") Levin is like a beacon of light, a fellow who find a way to cope with unfair situations. He found contentment in mowing and doing physical work. It's not for everyone, but this may prompt some to wonder (and give it a try).
