Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

No, I didn't forget about my review blog. I just read something longer than usual: Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. A friend suggested it several years ago after learning how much I enjoyed War and Peace, and I finally worked my way to reading it. Now for the review!

I enjoyed the book all the way through. From the start it was much simpler than War and Peace in terms of plot and the number of characters to keep track of. WaP took about 350 pages before I was finally able to comfortably track and relate to the characters. The Napoleonic conquest of Russia mingled with their personal lives lead the story in an elaborate spiral that at times felt overwhelming. Anna Karenina was gentle and deliberate. The plot points were easy to point out so long as I remembered that the main story arc can be reduced to the fact that a married woman has an affair. There are other characters and other stories, but the structure carefully revolves around Anna and her various torments and temptations. Should she leave her husband and son to start a life of scandal with the only man she had ever truly loved? What should she do regarding their mutual friends? Should she justify the looming divorce or admit that she was a horrible person and a sinner? Sometimes the writing gets relentlessly haunting and takes a bold moral view of the scenarios.

That's enough about the story. Now for the payoff. When I finished War and Peace, I couldn't believe that it wasn't a more popular book. It was amazing (well, except for the epilogue section that was too far removed from the rest of the book for me to do anything but hate) and I felt that the read was so worth the read that it's been hard not to commit myself to another six months of digging into it. With Anna Karenina, I didn't feel that. I'm glad I read it, and I did find it a fun read, but it was more fluff than War and Peace and less a piece of art. I felt a bit like I'd stepped into a vaudeville show instead of the classical ballet I had expected. Still entertaining, and easy for masses to pick up on, but not jaw-dropping.

Do I recommend it? I give it 4 stars. And if you're thinking about attempting WaP anytime and don't know if you can last, you might want to start with this so you can get a feel for Tolstoy's writing and upper class nineteenth-century Russian family politics.

****º

In Search of The Castaways by Jules Verne

Most reviewers stick to new books. It makes sense. The authors will be much more appreciative if they're still alive when you review their books, and you can get the word out about new writers who are still early in their careers. But I'm a sucker for the classics. I've been a devotee of Jules Verne especially since before high school, and since I got my Kindle I've been discovering books of his that I'd never even heard of before. In Search of The Castaways is one of those books.

In Search of The Castaways is actually part of a trilogy Verne wrote, the most famous novel of which is 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and the conclusion of which is The Mysterious Island (also a great read). Each book can be read and enjoyed individually and have only the smallest bits of interaction, but they really pop when read together.

Castaways is a true adventure novel. A message from a missing sea captain appears in a bottle, and an entertaining and unlikely group of explorers--men, women, and even children--sail around the world in an effort to find and rescue the wrecked survivors. Most of the story takes place either at sea, in the Chilean wilderness or in colonized Australia, and the heroes have to battle the elements, pirates and cannibals on their way to learning the fate of the men.

The characters are just as unforgettable as the adventures they face: the determined orphans who will do anything to see their father again, the daring young sea captain who's just crazy enough to make the trip, and (my personal favorite) the brilliant French geographer who is also, despite his intellect and abilities, the unluckiest person on the world.

This book is a worth read and deserves a spot in anyone's classics collection. And hey, if you can read it for free online, what is there to lose?

Five stars!

*****