Anna Karenin(a)

I spent a little of the day before and the whole of yesterday (reading til 11plus) reading Anna Karenina. I always thought it was Karenina, but apparently that's the feminine form. Karenin is what's on my book title. But I still like Karenina more because... I guess because it's feels nicer to say.

The story, like War and Peace, doesn't have much of a plot. Actually, it has more of a plot than War and Peace, but the main point is that the story follows the lives of the characters rather than just making the characters follow the plot. And that's kinda like the taiwanese dramas, the really long winded, last-three-or-four years kind. Like Ai or Yi Nang Wang.

The novel is, in my opinion, misleadingly titled. That's because Anna (and her husband, and her lover) aren't the only main characters; there's also Kitty and Levin's romance. At first, I heard them referred to as a "subplot", but they're so much more than that. They're story takes up half the book, and provides the sense of hope; most likely to counterbalance the tradgedy and despair of Anna's life. All characters are well crafted (which means believable), although it took me some time before I could differentiate between characters (bad at names, and Russian names have 3 names, which make it worse).

For some reason, this book reminds me of Esther. It's not a very save-the-Jews story, or with any heavy moral overtones (and the only character that 'comes to Christ', so to speak, is Levin, and that is only in the last part - i.e. part 8 of the book). But the common characteristics are that God is not shown, but in a way, you can feel him. Ok, bad explanation, but its the best I can do. And you do know that Tolstoy was Christian right?