Teaser Tuesday 146: Anna Karenina

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


It seems somewhat appropriate that I should still be reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy as Banned Books Week gets under way. I have finished part three and am now well into part four—just past the halfway mark. So far I like it, though it is taking me longer than I'd like. This book has been banned or challenged in some countries (including the US), some of the reasons for which include: its discussion of communism, adultery, questions of religion, and treatment of/prejudice against minorities.

"She knew that this was what was going to happen; at the same time it was so horrible that she could not even imagine to herself how it would end. And she wept without restraint, like a child that has been punished.

The sound of the footman’s steps forced her to recover herself; hiding her face she pretended to be writing.

(pg 351; Part three, chapter XVI)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

A magnificent drama of vengeance, infidelity, and retribution, Anna Karenina portrays the moving story of people whose emotions conflict with the dominant social mores of their time. Sensual, rebellious Anna falls deeply and passionately in love with the handsome Count Vronsky. When she refuses to conduct the discreet affair that her cold, ambitious husband (and Russian high society) would condone, she is doomed. Set against the tragic love of Anna and Vronsky, the plight of the melancholy nobleman Konstantine Levin unfolds. In doubt about the meaning of life, haunted by thoughts of suicide, Levin's struggles echo Tolstoy's own spiritual crisis. But Anna's inner turmoil mirrors the own emotional imprisonment and mental disintegration of a woman who dares to transgress the strictures of a patriarchal world. In Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy brought to perfection the novel of social realism and created a masterpiece that bared the Russian soul.



Last week's Anna Karenina teaser