Sublime and Vivid Tragedy of Unhappiness in Anna Karenina
Counting the days to end 2023, the biggest publisher in Indonesia finally announced that they will publish the Indonesian version of the merriest work of Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. Yes, it’s real. The book will be published in the following year.
Leo Tolstoy is my favorite author, and I don’t care about the fact that he’s a dead person now. His liteature work itself has been some of the greatest work of all time. I was deeply touched with Anna Karenina, and that elegy finished me. Now, to celebrate the translation of War and Peace, I want to share my review about Anna Karenina, which is one of my best read in 2023.
Anna Karenina, oh how to describe this book? Perhaps, sublime would be the best description. I read the English translation version, translated by Kyrill Zinovieff and Jenny Hughes. I fall in love with the book from the first sentence, which we all remember:
"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Some readers out there said that Anna Karenina is just another lengthy drama with some wittiness and scandalous plot, and reading it feels like enjoying a soap opera. But for me, Anna Karenina is a tragic story everyone should read in understanding about a true happiness.
With its first sentence, Tolstoy subtly told his reader that true happiness is simple, it lies in each of our heart and it’s also our way to treat other people. That’s shown directly at the interaction between all the characters, specifically Anna Karenina herself as one of the main characters. She has everything in the world, and her world is perfect, but why was she still looking for happiness? Why she left Alexei Alexandrovich for Alexei Kirillych or Count Vronsky and then making both of them miserable?
As the story goes, readers understood why Anna felt in love with Vronsky. She was trapped in a loveless marriage when she met the young and handsome Vronsky. It was passionate and romantic, but then it led to jealousy, hatred, obsession, tragedy, and all of its consequences.
Contrast with her, there was also another girl, Yekaterina Alexandrovna Schcherbatsky or Kitty, who’s naively looking for happiness from the start. She was just a girl entering the upper aristocratic life of Moscow and starstruck to Vronsky, unaware that the charming man had lied his eyes for Anna only. Broken hearted, in the end Kitty found the truest happiness within her love to Konstantin Dmitrich or Levin and their simple life.
Levin is the next interesting character in Anna Karenina, socially awkward but kind-hearted living in his agricultural lifestyle. I don’t know why but I got the vague idea that Tolstoy tried to compared Anna’s life with Kitty, and Levin’s clumsiness yet simple life as landowner with Vronsky, a casanova with an extravagant life. He clearly told his readers that flamboyant life is nothing if unhappy heart living that life.
The readers perspective was also pushed to the extreme level when they realized that both Anna’s husband and lover name is Alexei. All characters are tangled with each other, but their relationships are easy to read. Yet, don’t ever think that the plot is dry and plain, because all of them makes you questioning everything: does Karenin had no sympathy? does Vronsky really loves Anna? does Anna really unhappy through all her life? does society treats her fairly?
The best thing about this novel, which released in 1878, is after 145 years, the plot still relevant to this day. We have infidelity, mental health, judging society, bigotry religion worshipper, and everything else. But what most relevant is, happiness and life co-exist to each other.
