Anna Karenina: At Last It’s Finished!

What with distractions and lack of time to spare, it took me about 6 weeks to read Anna Karenina. All 804 pages of it! Enjoyed it almost all the way through; it is such a rich and all-encompassing experience with scenes at Levin’s country estate that reminded me of Thomas Hardy, and the machinations of Moscow and Petersburg Society reminding me of Edith Wharton; more private romantic intrigues reminding me of Jane Austen; three of my favourite novelists. I really did enjoy and savour this novel. I must confess that the birth of Levin’s son Dmitry really made me long to have a child of my own one day, which is a first, I must say! The descriptions of how tender and joyful a relationship Levin’s wife has with the child touched me very deeply indeed, and made me look forward to the time where my own child is laid in my arms for the first time. Even I’m slightly amused at my own response to this – I’ve never really wanted children like this before!

And all was well until Anna’s demise on page 755 and then it fell off drastically with a long exploration of Levin’s religious woes, which bored me silly. It was a shame because I lost interest after that, speed reading the last 50 pages. I don’t think I’ll be reading War and Peace for a while yet, I need a rest!

John Steinbeck x 2

Read Of Mice and Men and it was in one sitting on Saturday night – yes I don’t go out much when my fella’s not around! Really quite moved by it in an odd way, I don’t recall being quite that gripped in a long time. I knew what happened at the end but was still quite surprised by it, George was almost tender before the fatal moment. I guess it was just how it had to be, without giving anything away to those who haven’t read it, but there are some brutal images in this work and I’ve lately come to realise that it’s brutal moments that make the most moving works, and this is something else I need to get into my head and my writing!

Next picked up Cannery Row and read that greedily. Can’t help but admire it, as I’ve got a writing project that would be best described as Cannery Row meets The Shuttleworths. It certainly touches all the right chords in me, I guess I’m just a sucker for tales of a backwater community. I love the simplicity of the scenes, how the characters reacted to each other and I could almost hear an empty tin can rolling around on a slab of concrete. It could have happened her, you know. And maybe it will.