Agora Road Book Club: Anna Karenina Edition

[remember_summer_days]

Ngl bros... I might be getting a bit filtered by this book, there are several stretches of chapters that I find really boring, like doing homework sort of boring. Going through Anna Karenina right now feels like a chore. I'm nearing page 350 and it becomes frustrating to keep going, not like that will make me stop lmaoo.

For part 2, the highlights are still Anna/Vronsky and Kitty/Levin.


How Anna treats her husband, and by extend her family is some toxic femininity alright. Imagine if lit majors cared about that as much as they care about toxic masculinity, thanks for Super Summary for letting me now once again that Levin's traditional views are problematic. How Anna cheats on her husband, and how she reacts to her husband's regards for the family integrity feels outright disgusting. Especially when we see how it contrast with how she talks to Vrosnky.

Compare this:

Anna, for God's sake, don't talk like this," he said abruptly. "Perhaps I'm wrong, but believe me that what I say I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband and I love you."

For an instant her face fell, and the amused spark in her eye was extinguished, but the word "love" roused her indignation again. She thought: "Love? Can he really love? If he'd never heard that there is such a thing as love, he would never use this word. He doesn't even know what love is."

To this

I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your honest nature to lie, and I am sorry for you. I often think how you have ruined your life for me."

Bruh. And yes we know that Anna has already slept with Vronsky.

That which for almost a year had constituted the one exclusive desire of Vronsky's life, replacing all former desires, that which for Anna had been an impossible, horrible, all the more enchanting dream of happiness—this desire had been satisfied.

We get no indication that Karenin is a bad husband, Anna is the asshole in this situation.

As for Vronsky, I don't believe I've got anything insightful to say about him, he's just a scoundrel for initiating and further partaking in Anna's romantic delusions. Though the horse race scene involving him was absolute kino, Tolstoy, as always, has a talent for putting you in the scene, in the character's shoes. Watching Vronsky choke the race was satisfying as fuck.

Levin/Kitty is by far the more enjoyable part of the novel, probably because Anna and Vronsky are so annoying for me. But I also think Levin and Kitty's relationship is meant to embody the positive values of the novel, whereas Vronsky/Anna... Fuck lets call them Annsky. Annsky embody the shit values of the novel, how you're not suposse to hold yourself if you end up in a romantic dilema. Unlike Anna who deals with heartbreak by train autism and reading romantic novels, Levin heals his soul by contemplating nature and helping his fellow men, gathering true appreciation for the rural life.

Kitty is my favorite character by far. I think her character, not as her literal character since I don't have young men that want to marry me, but her character as in her personality is somewhat similar to mine. I feel the struggle of a pride that wants to gain social acceptance, fame and material wealth. These pretensions come to a point that you're not even sure if your good works were truly good or just another pretension to gain approval from people. During her visit to Madam Stahl, Kitty grows more and more like Levin. I really enjoyed reading about her coming of age segment with Ms Stahl, Kitty learning to get in touch with her inner character, come to terms with her past failures, as in past failures, and rethinking her approach to life. She's supposed to be 18 right? IDK if in 19th century Russia that was the time were you were meant to be an adult, but like most zoomers, Kitty has an extended adolescence and she's coming to understand the consequences of that. I'd like to imagine that I went through a similar process, albeit I'm still somewhat stuck in it, and it is painful.

And like Kitty, I doubt my sincerity on my mimicking of traditional values. Kitty feels like she's being pretentious, as if she were fooling herself.

"It serves me right because it was all pretense, because this is all invented and not from the heart. What business did I have with a stranger? And now it turns out that I am the cause of a quarrel and that I did something no one asked me to do. Because it is all pretense! Pretense! Pretense!"
"But what would be the purpose of pretending?" said Varenka softly.
"Oh, it's so stupid, so vile! I had no need. ... It's all pretense!" she said, opening and closing the parasol.
"But what would be the purpose?"
"To appear better to people, to myself, to God, to deceive everyone. No, I'm not going to give in to this anymore! Be bad but at least not false, not a deceiver!"

Be bad but at least not false is a path that I've followed at more naive epochs in my life, and is a path I regret taking. Though when you see Billboard Top 100. About being fucked up but at least not false, you worry how popular this sentiment seems to be among young people. It's scary how much emphasis our culture puts into the baggage of being sincere and true to yourself. Who is to blame for this? Boomers for being too fake or for rioting against 'fake values', the cynicism of Gen X'ers? Millennial cope? Regardless, it all feels so over. Especially when you realize sincerity can be brought about insincere methods, or much worse, as another form of self-deception and manipulation.

Though I wonder, is today's generation ironically sincere or sincerely ironic?

Back to Kitty, she showcases I think an important theme of the novel, the concern with self-deception. Unlike Anna, Kitty seems to be aware of what's going on with her, that she might have a rotten core that blind her to her hearts true intents. Kitty blames herself for what happened to Levin and her marriage. While Anna is now arguing that her husband lacks the capacity to love.

Though I love what Kitty's character arc is shaping up to be, the execution feels rushed. Kitty goes from a spoiled teen to full devotion to yesus in one chapter, and then back again to her old ways. Of course this sort of radical changes in personality can happen, but I don't think Tolstoy quite nailed the wildness of this process, Kitty's change of character, and how fast these changes happen, feel more akin to a character Dostoevsky would tackle... Tolstoy just wasn't that efficient, at least with this part of her arc.

Finally, it's easy to forget that all this Kivin (Kitty x Levin uwu) drama happened because of a failed proposal... Like, it's hard for me to think how people can fall in love without a deep friendship or dating first. Like fuck the first thing I think when I see someone is to try and figure out their true self, cause I feel like we 21st century urbanite humans operate on layers and layers of onion layers, a cabinet of masks we change when the social occasion suits it. I guess 19th century Russians expected the inner self of people to act just how they appear to be. What if the person you marry from meeting them a few times turns out to be a completely different person?

 

[remember_summer_days]

I'm starting to think that Tolstoy was trying to draw a parallel between this lack of self-awareness in the characters of AK and the ultimate fate of Russian society in the late 19th century. It's almost like he knew that the upper-class world it describes was going to be completely destroyed 40 years after the novel was published, and that the change would come as surprise to those Russians who had been "going with the flow" based on the assumption that there would always be a tsar. Maybe this is something that only makes sense retroactively, but Tolstoy must have known that he was living through a political turning point resulting from the emancipation of the serfs and the transfer of wealth from the traditional aristocracy to the middle class - see Levin's rant in chapter 17. I also wonder if AK had as good of a reputation before the revolution as it does now, or if its current status as a classic has something to do with post-revolutionary nostalgia.
TL;DR Anna Karenina reads like a slow-motion train accident. And yes, I've been spoiled on the ending.

I def believe this was a point Tolstoy might were trying to get across. The urban aristocracy is portrayed as out of touch, performative and proud. I also agree that Part 2 was particularly frustrating because of how self-deluded the characters feel. Kitty is really building up to be best girl this time around, I wonder if she will top W/P Natasha...

 

[remember_summer_days]

I can also say, this novel doesn't feel like War and Peace at all, though it's been almost a decade since I last read War and Peace. W/P was way more cool honestly. War and the philosophy of history, with family drama in between, I dig that stuff, it also helps that you feel more engaged cause characters live's are at actual risk, heck one of my favorite characters in the novel dies in the first 200 pages. In contrast, nothing all that grandiose seems to be going on in Anna Karenina 350 pages in, but I think AK being more of a daily-life novel was one of Tolstoy's points, after all in both W/P and AK he seems to put value in living ordinarily and humbly. Still, it makes AK more boring to read.

Like in WP they build up Napoleon to be such a menacing figure, and when he actually appears, the subversive pay-off is just amazing. The characters in both AK and W/P and well developed, but fuck W/P keeps you on the edge because you know your favorite character could die thanks to the War part of the title.

And the characters are strong, but not strong enough to keep me that invested, unlike Dostoevsky's characters.

Yeah I guess I like W/P more so far xD Guess I'm just venting my disappointment on A/K so far. It feels like a very female oriented novel for some reason, I think someone already said something similar to this, but it feels like a weirdly well written soap opera.

 

[Deleted member 4436]

Yeah I guess I like W/P more so far xD Guess I'm just venting my disappointment on A/K so far. It feels like a very female oriented novel for some reason, I think someone already said something similar to this, but it feels like a weirdly well written soap opera.

I dunno. It's been pretty Sneedcore on my part

 

[Deleted member 4436]

Ngl bros... I might be getting a bit filtered by this book, there are several stretches of chapters that I find really boring, like doing homework sort of boring. Going through Anna Karenina right now feels like a chore. I'm nearing page 350 and it becomes frustrating to keep going, not like that will make me stop lmaoo.

For part 2, the highlights are still Anna/Vronsky and Kitty/Levin.


How Anna treats her husband, and by extend her family is some toxic femininity alright. Imagine if lit majors cared about that as much as they care about toxic masculinity, thanks for Super Summary for letting me now once again that Levin's traditional views are problematic. How Anna cheats on her husband, and how she reacts to her husband's regards for the family integrity feels outright disgusting. Especially when we see how it contrast with how she talks to Vrosnky.

Compare this:

Anna, for God's sake, don't talk like this," he said abruptly. "Perhaps I'm wrong, but believe me that what I say I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband and I love you."

For an instant her face fell, and the amused spark in her eye was extinguished, but the word "love" roused her indignation again. She thought: "Love? Can he really love? If he'd never heard that there is such a thing as love, he would never use this word. He doesn't even know what love is."

To this

I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your honest nature to lie, and I am sorry for you. I often think how you have ruined your life for me."

Bruh. And yes we know that Anna has already slept with Vronsky.

That which for almost a year had constituted the one exclusive desire of Vronsky's life, replacing all former desires, that which for Anna had been an impossible, horrible, all the more enchanting dream of happiness—this desire had been satisfied.

We get no indication that Karenin is a bad husband, Anna is the asshole in this situation.

As for Vronsky, I don't believe I've got anything insightful to say about him, he's just a scoundrel for initiating and further partaking in Anna's romantic delusions. Though the horse race scene involving him was absolute kino, Tolstoy, as always, has a talent for putting you in the scene, in the character's shoes. Watching Vronsky choke the race was satisfying as fuck.

Levin/Kitty is by far the more enjoyable part of the novel, probably because Anna and Vronsky are so annoying for me. But I also think Levin and Kitty's relationship is meant to embody the positive values of the novel, whereas Vronsky/Anna... Fuck lets call them Annsky. Annsky embody the shit values of the novel, how you're not suposse to hold yourself if you end up in a romantic dilema. Unlike Anna who deals with heartbreak by train autism and reading romantic novels, Levin heals his soul by contemplating nature and helping his fellow men, gathering true appreciation for the rural life.

Kitty is my favorite character by far. I think her character, not as her literal character since I don't have young men that want to marry me, but her character as in her personality is somewhat similar to mine. I feel the struggle of a pride that wants to gain social acceptance, fame and material wealth. These pretensions come to a point that you're not even sure if your good works were truly good or just another pretension to gain approval from people. During her visit to Madam Stahl, Kitty grows more and more like Levin. I really enjoyed reading about her coming of age segment with Ms Stahl, Kitty learning to get in touch with her inner character, come to terms with her past failures, as in past failures, and rethinking her approach to life. She's supposed to be 18 right? IDK if in 19th century Russia that was the time were you were meant to be an adult, but like most zoomers, Kitty has an extended adolescence and she's coming to understand the consequences of that. I'd like to imagine that I went through a similar process, albeit I'm still somewhat stuck in it, and it is painful.

And like Kitty, I doubt my sincerity on my mimicking of traditional values. Kitty feels like she's being pretentious, as if she were fooling herself.

"It serves me right because it was all pretense, because this is all invented and not from the heart. What business did I have with a stranger? And now it turns out that I am the cause of a quarrel and that I did something no one asked me to do. Because it is all pretense! Pretense! Pretense!"
"But what would be the purpose of pretending?" said Varenka softly.
"Oh, it's so stupid, so vile! I had no need. ... It's all pretense!" she said, opening and closing the parasol.
"But what would be the purpose?"
"To appear better to people, to myself, to God, to deceive everyone. No, I'm not going to give in to this anymore! Be bad but at least not false, not a deceiver!"

Be bad but at least not false is a path that I've followed at more naive epochs in my life, and is a path I regret taking. Though when you see Billboard Top 100. About being fucked up but at least not false, you worry how popular this sentiment seems to be among young people. It's scary how much emphasis our culture puts into the baggage of being sincere and true to yourself. Who is to blame for this? Boomers for being too fake or for rioting against 'fake values', the cynicism of Gen X'ers? Millennial cope? Regardless, it all feels so over. Especially when you realize sincerity can be brought about insincere methods, or much worse, as another form of self-deception and manipulation.

Though I wonder, is today's generation ironically sincere or sincerely ironic?

Back to Kitty, she showcases I think an important theme of the novel, the concern with self-deception. Unlike Anna, Kitty seems to be aware of what's going on with her, that she might have a rotten core that blind her to her hearts true intents. Kitty blames herself for what happened to Levin and her marriage. While Anna is now arguing that her husband lacks the capacity to love.

Though I love what Kitty's character arc is shaping up to be, the execution feels rushed. Kitty goes from a spoiled teen to full devotion to yesus in one chapter, and then back again to her old ways. Of course this sort of radical changes in personality can happen, but I don't think Tolstoy quite nailed the wildness of this process, Kitty's change of character, and how fast these changes happen, feel more akin to a character Dostoevsky would tackle... Tolstoy just wasn't that efficient, at least with this part of her arc.

Finally, it's easy to forget that all this Kivin (Kitty x Levin uwu) drama happened because of a failed proposal... Like, it's hard for me to think how people can fall in love without a deep friendship or dating first. Like fuck the first thing I think when I see someone is to try and figure out their true self, cause I feel like we 21st century urbanite humans operate on layers and layers of onion layers, a cabinet of masks we change when the social occasion suits it. I guess 19th century Russians expected the inner self of people to act just how they appear to be. What if the person you marry from meeting them a few times turns out to be a completely different person?

Really though, this book has been somewhat filtering me, as well. It's too animated. I can somewhat see the comparisons to a soap opera, and I myself have compared it to a VN. It feels too emotional, though not any emotion that I can understand. I was under the assumption that this was one of the greatest novels of all time, but I can't really say for sure. Is this what was considered "real" multiple centuries ago? I can't really see it. All of this talk of love is going over my head, but maybe that's just because I'm a braindead zoomer. Most of my friends are female, and I can say with certainty that none of them act like any of the characters in this novel. If anything, I find myself to be relating to Kitty, Dolly, and Anna more than I could say for any of the people I know IRL.

It's like how I brought up in the BNW world thread how blushing doesn't feel real, even though it seems that some of you can do it. I dunno. I'm trying to read it while also removing all of the biases and assumptions I have towards how people act and feel. That's my goal, anyways.

愛が無ければ、見えない。

 

[remember_summer_days]

Really though, this book has been somewhat filtering me, as well. It's too animated. I can somewhat see the comparisons to a soap opera, and I myself have compared it to a VN. It feels too emotional, though not any emotion that I can understand. I was under the assumption that this was one of the greatest novels of all time, but I can't really say for sure. Is this what was considered "real" multiple centuries ago? I can't really see it. All of this talk of love is going over my head, but maybe that's just because I'm a braindead zoomer. Most of my friends are female, and I can say with certainty that none of them act like any of the characters in this novel. If anything, I find myself to be relating to Kitty, Dolly, and Anna more than I could say for any of the people I know IRL.

It's like how I brought up in the BNW world thread how blushing doesn't feel real, even though it seems that some of you can do it. I dunno. I'm trying to read it while also removing all of the biases and assumptions I have towards how people act and feel. That's my goal, anyways.

愛が無ければ、見えない。

You're not under the assumption, it is considered one of the greatest novels of all time. But I honestly don't see it (not yet at least). I think I saw a thread on /lit/ today about someone complaining about the same things we are complaining about actually xDD I guess its just... Le filtering

 

[shooshoo]

Greetings from Russian (we were reading it in high school).
Btw, Anna was one of the most favorite Leo's characters

 

[zalaz alaza]

Really though, this book has been somewhat filtering me, as well. It's too animated. I can somewhat see the comparisons to a soap opera, and I myself have compared it to a VN. It feels too emotional, though not any emotion that I can understand. I was under the assumption that this was one of the greatest novels of all time, but I can't really say for sure. Is this what was considered "real" multiple centuries ago? I can't really see it. All of this talk of love is going over my head, but maybe that's just because I'm a braindead zoomer. Most of my friends are female, and I can say with certainty that none of them act like any of the characters in this novel. If anything, I find myself to be relating to Kitty, Dolly, and Anna more than I could say for any of the people I know IRL.

It's like how I brought up in the BNW world thread how blushing doesn't feel real, even though it seems that some of you can do it. I dunno. I'm trying to read it while also removing all of the biases and assumptions I have towards how people act and feel. That's my goal, anyways.

愛が無ければ、見えない。

For me, it's Prince Schterbasky. Or however it is spelled.
The longer I read this the more I am enjoying it but still doesn't hit the beauty of the novels I really love, even in regards to plot and character development.
I am lagging behind you guys as I have been focused on a few other projects, I don't know if I will catch up but it is possible. I will finish the novel regardless.

 

[zalaz alaza]

Though I wonder, is today's generation ironically sincere or sincerely ironic?

this is the question that burdens me most in the world. I know I am older(not today's generation) but my entire life I have had a deep love and appreciation of both sincerity and irony. I have come to embrace the relationship I have cultivated between the two and the manner in which that manifests. This relationship yields the real fruit of life and allows a person to act generously in society.
Likewise, this is comparable Kitty's personal dilemma between goodness and honesty. She need not choose one or the other, yet feels as she does. In the relationship between Kitty and Varenka, after which Kitty fundamentally changes, I see the dilemma of those that feel they have to choose one side or the other because of their polarized views on purity and goodness. Kitty sees in Varenka someone that does good and tries to imitate it. In turn this means that she does not act honestly to her self or others. These purist views of goodness and honesty create a dichotomy that need not exist. The fruit is revealed when a person embraces both for themselves, to be honest and good is the trick. Varenka has worked this out for herself, at least I think so, but Kitty has not and so feels that her only route to goodness is through imitation and dishonesty. Likewise for me the trick is to embrace sincerity and irony. The mixing of these two things when done well allows me to give the most back to the world around me.

 

[№56]

Finished part 3 the other day but I don't really have anything to add. I think the theme of trying to ignore an unavoidable change because you want things to remain the same as they've always been is really important. It's the one thing that ties together the two different plot threads about Levin trying to manage his emancipated peasants and Anna's affair with Vronsky/Karenin's reaction to the affair.

Though I love what Kitty's character arc is shaping up to be, the execution feels rushed. Kitty goes from a spoiled teen to full devotion to yesus in one chapter, and then back again to her old ways.

It's sudden, but I think it's realistic behavior for a teenager. Kitty never actually commits to making the changes to her lifestyle she was thinking about. It's a "phase" she goes through as a way of coping with what she's been dealing with back home, and eventually she realizes what she's doing and snaps out of it. Young people do this kind of thing all the time. The same goes for Levin and his flip-flopping on whether he likes agriculture or not. It's irrational but also very realistic.

Has anyone seen the 2012 film adaptation of AK? What about the 21 other film and TV adaptations listed on Wikipedia? I'm kind of interested in the most recent one, at least based on the stills I've seen. It seems like they deliberately tried to make everything look as sexy and modern as possible, but at the same time the characters all look the way I pictured them while I was reading. There's also a recent Russian movie called Anna Karenina: Vronsky's Story that expands the novel's plot to have more Vronsky content. Apparently it got really bad reviews. Maybe a "Levin's Story" adaptation that turns AK into three straight hours of farming and mowing grass would have done better.

 

[remember_summer_days]

Finished part 3 the other day but I don't really have anything to add. I think the theme of trying to ignore an unavoidable change because you want things to remain the same as they've always been is really important. It's the one thing that ties together the two different plot threads about Levin trying to manage his emancipated peasants and Anna's affair with Vronsky/Karenin's reaction to the affair.


It's sudden, but I think it's realistic behavior for a teenager. Kitty never actually commits to making the changes to her lifestyle she was thinking about. It's a "phase" she goes through as a way of coping with what she's been dealing with back home, and eventually she realizes what she's doing and snaps out of it. Young people do this kind of thing all the time. The same goes for Levin and his flip-flopping on whether he likes agriculture or not. It's irrational but also very realistic.

Has anyone seen the 2012 film adaptation of AK? What about the 21 other film and TV adaptations listed on Wikipedia? I'm kind of interested in the most recent one, at least based on the stills I've seen. It seems like they deliberately tried to make everything look as sexy and modern as possible, but at the same time the characters all look the way I pictured them while I was reading. There's also a recent Russian movie called Anna Karenina: Vronsky's Story that expands the novel's plot to have more Vronsky content. Apparently it got really bad reviews. Maybe a "Levin's Story" adaptation that turns AK into three straight hours of farming and mowing grass would have done better.

I've heard about the AK 2012 movie, the translator I got, Marian Schwartz, apparently really hates that one, she thinks it missed the point of the novel by how they portrayed Anna. But nah I havent seen it. Though its not hard to imagine how easy it would be for a Hollywood film adaptation to miss the point, the novel presents a view of women and marriage thats not exactly accommodating to how we like to say gender and marriage dynamics these days...

As for Kitty. I think you're right that it is realistic. But now I'm thinking about cultural barriers. Was being an 18th year old still considered a teenager on 19th century Russia? A person ready for marriage?

 

[№56]

How Anna treats her husband, and by extend her family is some toxic femininity alright. Imagine if lit majors cared about that as much as they care about toxic masculinity, thanks for Super Summary for letting me now once again that Levin's traditional views are problematic. How Anna cheats on her husband, and how she reacts to her husband's regards for the family integrity feels outright disgusting. Especially when we see how it contrast with how she talks to Vrosnky.

All the reviews of AK I've seen have talked about what a fascinating and endearing character Anna is, but so far she's the one I'm the least interested in. It's not that I can't sympathize with her or that I don't find her to be believable, it's that she doesn't seem to have as much going on as the other characters do. So far my only impression of her is that she's a woman who got carried away by her feelings and now regrets it. Where those feelings came from and why she does what she does are a mystery to me, and I don't know whether that's because I missed something or because Tolstoy isn't giving her inner thoughts the same attention as he gives to other characters. I'm at the halfway point of the novel and still don't entirely understand what she sees in Vronsky or what her motivations for pursuing her affair with him are. Maybe there's more to come.

 

[remember_summer_days]

Was gonna make a post this week but got a bad cold...

How have you guys been holding up? Kitty x Levin bros we can't stop wining. How can Anna bros recover from this?

 

[Junious]

I finished the book last week. What I found most impressive about the book was Tolstoy's ability to dissect unspoken social/emotional interplay. Things like little looks, awkward moments, and deep emotional moments. He says what is generally left unsaid and breaks it down well. I saw aspects of myself in almost every major character. I've been a Vronsky and I've been a Levin, but I'm generally an Oblonsky. I also thought the examination of differences in how men and women are treated in society particularly apt and still relevant. The old saw "a good key opens many locks, a bad lock is opened by many keys" with regard to men versus women cheating is examined repeatedly to the extent of it almost becoming an Ayn Randian trope. Also the strange cruelty women reserve for other women. The ending is really good, and I'm not going to spoil it. I marked a bunch of passages I wanted to revisit and would be happy to trot them out, but what section is the group on, anyways?

Special Aside: I am back to reading Lovecraft and Conrad short stories for the last week and holy shit is this stuff dark by comparison.

 

[№56]

I marked a bunch of passages I wanted to revisit and would be happy to trot them out, but what section is the group on, anyways?

I've managed to keep up with the schedule so far and have just started Part 5. Today I finished the section about Anna and Vronsky going to Italy, which I really liked, especially the description of the artist's painting technique as "removing the wrappings" from the idea he was trying to express. It sounded like Tolstoy was describing his own writing process.
Levin's wedding was also great. The combination of excitement, frustration, fear, joy, and confusion felt very realistic and it was easy to put myself in Levin and Kitty's place despite never having been married myself.

 

[zalaz alaza]

Filtered

 

[remember_summer_days]

Filtered

I think most of us were filtered, I'm like 100 pages behind lmaoo.

I guess for now, on what parts are you guys at? Doing such a large book without more organization/incentives for participation was probably not the best idea... I'm gonna make a post about ways to bring more participation and revitalize the agora book club, I'll link it here when it's done

 

[remember_summer_days]

Here

 

[№56]

I guess for now, on what parts are you guys at?

I finished Part 5 a week ago and put the book down to focus on other stuff for a while but I'm planning on starting to actively read it again this weekend. I'm still enjoying it a lot, I just needed a break.

 

[Deleted member 4436]

I'm about to start part 7. I absolutely love how there is little to no edge in this book. Violence, death, sex, absolutely everything is either ignored or only implied. It also has a very impressive scope for what it's trying to do. At the same time, it's filtering me so hard because of that. Everything that's happening feels beyond me. A lot of the time, it just reads like nothing is happening. This was my grandmother's favorite novel, so maybe I'm just too zoomerbrained to understand.

If anything, though, I'm only more compelled to start WP at some point, even though it's even longer than AK. Sorry to say, but I think I might have to miss out on the next club to work on some other things.

Dolly and Varenka are my favorite characters so far.