Anna Karenina – First Off

I usually find books much longer than 200 pages a lot to take on. The gulp you could hear when I first alight upon a novel and then subsequently realise it’s thicker than a common-or-garden housebrick, well it could shatter worlds and fill an Astronaut’s suit quicker than an elephant’s fart.
(I don’t advise being in the company of elephants whilst wearing an Astronaut’s suit. They may not have thumbs but they can soon sit on your chest and fart at you with great gusto, the sneaky buggers. But I digress.)
I’m 112 pages into Leo Tolstoy’s 800 page Russian epic Anna Karenina and I must say I’m already gripped. There’s a rich tragic tapestry being stitched calmly and effectively before me as my eyes dance lightly across the page – people, places, cold winter nights in Moscow and St Petersburg… I found myself believing that it was nearly Christmas on this, July the 14th. And yes, you could mistake this dull, heavy day as being in December, it’s certainly cool enough at 16 degrees C to be a warm December day. But it’s really not, and this demonstrates clearly to me, how this novel has already drawn me in.
I’m aware of the tragic end to Anna’s story, but I’m intrigued enough to continue to read closely and to chart a careful path all the way to the end…