40 Before 40 - Read Anna Karenina

 

So this is the cover of the book Anna Karenina, the book that took almost a year to read! And what a read it was....and not always in a good way. It took forever! I didn't get to read everyday or every week for that matter. But, when I did get a chance to read, I would read! And, read, and re-read and read again. I found that I would re-read a sentence three or four times in order to understand it. It wasn't that it was complicated, there just wasn't a ton of punctuation used, so I felt like I was reading a 33 word run-on sentence. Plus, there were so many footnotes! And, if it wasn't related to language interpretation (they spoke Russian and French off and on) then it was a reference to other works. I flipped back and forth a lot!

 

When I started the book, the movie was in theaters, and the commercials romanticed the story. I truly thought it was an epic love story between Anna and Vrosky. Sure, there was a "love" story there, but that was only about 10% of the book. The rest of the book was around politics, religion, the meaning of life, the meaning of death and lots of things that were/are of zero interest to me. And, it revolved around so many other families and very rarely Anna. But, I kept reading because I had a goal. I was going to finish this book!

 

 My dad and I talked about the book off and on, he read it in high school, and the thing that struck him was that in Russian literature, every character had a name. And let me know tell you, they did! Even if they were a minute character. And, half the time, they were either the same name or I couldn't pronounce it, so I made up a nickname! In the words of my friend Ingrid who has tried several times to read the book, keep in mind "that those writers wrote in almost a different language and for people who were used to imagining everything (no tvs), so they tend to be long winded." It wasn't that I couldn't imagine anything, I actually could and it wasn't the actors that portrayed the characters in the movie. I couldn't get past the wordiness! I feel like the book could have ended 400 pages earlier! What would have made the book a little more enjoyable was to have a reading buddy. Someone who I could talk to throughout the book or to discuss with upon conclusion.

 

 

All in all, it was worth reading and I'm glad I actually finished it. I may not have enjoyed every minute of the read, but there were aspects of the book that I really enjoyed. But what I love most of all is that number 34 is complete!