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Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina
Category: Fiction | Published: 1877 | Review Added: 17-02-2004
Many years since I read this. It tells the story of a beautiful aristocratic woman who deserts her conventional, unattractive husband for the dashing Count Vronsky, to the opprobrium of society. In an almost entirely unrelated strand, introspective landowner Levin navel-gazes and worries and gets married.
My response to this novel mirrored that to War and Peace. I found it intermittently gripping, but with protracted sections (mostly those about Levin) that were something of a yawn. It did leave me doubting whether realism should ever be regarded as the highest artistic ideal.