Deep Analysis of Anna Karenina Part One: The Themes of the World (Chapters 9 to 34) (Patreon)

Now that we've met the main characters of Anna Karenina, let's learn their concerns and explore the themes of the novel.

Here are some of the topics we'll be deep-diving into in this video:

• 0:00 Levin rejected  
• 5:00 Strong foreshadowing - mark this passage 
• 7:20 Strauss’ Die Fledermaus  
• 11:00 Biblical misappropriation  
• 13:40 Plato’s 2 loves from The Symposium 
• 15:00 Dual narrative: rise/fall, light/dark, heat/cold, exterior/interior 
• 23:00 The dawn of the Russian novel (vs the English novel) 
• 31:00 Bad omens at the train station 
• 35:00 Anna’s refrain/leitmotif - “understand” 
• 36:00 The cruelty of enchantment - the ball scene (chapter XII) 
• 44:00 The blizzard (chapter XIX)  
• 55:45 Anna and her husband, Alexei - deep psychological complexity 
• 1:08:00 The consummation between Anna and Alexei 
• 1:13:00 Questions to deepen your reading journey and start discussion

‘Remembrance’ by Alexander Pushkin

Levin indirectly quotes Pushkin’s poem when talking with Stepan over oysters. Indeed, the people of Tolstoy’s world quote Pushkin a lot. It was one of Pushkin’s stories that influenced Tolstoy in regards to writing Anna Karenina in the first place. Here’s a translation of Pushkin’s ‘Remembrance’ from Maurice Baring:

When the loud day for men who sow and reap

Grows still, and on the silence of the town

The insubstantial veils of night and sleep,

The meed of the day's labour, settle down,

Then for me in the stillness of the night

The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,

And in the idle darkness comes the bite

Of all the burning serpents of remorse;

Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities

Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,

And Memory before my wakeful eyes

With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.

Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,

I tremble, and I curse my natal day,

Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,

But cannot wash the woeful script away.

Do you feel the bite of ‘burning serpents of remorse’ in the stillness of the night? And why do you think Levin is preoccupied with this poem?

Incidentally, the story that influenced Tolstoy is from ‘The Tales of Belkin’, available in beautiful Everyman hardback, and begins: ‘The guests were arriving at the dacha. The drawing room was filling up with ladies and men, all driving over at the same time from the theatre, where they had just seen a new Italian opera.’ Tolstoy was impressed with how Pushkin just started the novel in media res without any long build up typical of novels at the time, and wished to do the same. His first draft of Anna Karenina looks very similar to Pushkin’s fragment.

Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion by John Tyndall (1863)

This book is based on a series of twelve lectures physicist John Tyndall delivered on thermometric and radiant heat – the heat that propels machinery and sentient life. Tyndall made great pioneering strides in regards to infrared radiation and the greenhouse effect. He was also part of a club of conservative scientists that supported Charles Darwin and wished for their scientific theories to strengthen religious belief and conviction rather than refute it. If you want to browse through this book and pore over the scientific illustrations, let me know and I will be happy to direct you to a PDF print of it available online. For now, consider this book artfully placed as a significant symbol/metaphor in Anna Karenina, and think about why Levin might be reading it.

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)

Now this is a volume that every home should own. I recommend the hardback Everyman volume, which also contains The Voyage of the Beagle. I might suggest you peruse the contents page of this volume and see if any of the chapters pique your curiosity.

One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

This book caused, and continues to cause, much controversy since its publication, with many damning the work as immoral. Why? And what do you suppose Tolstoy makes of this work?

Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1857)

Tolstoy was not a fan of Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, to put it lightly. If you’ve read through his What Is Art?, you’ll see he takes many writers from the French Decadent/Symbolist school of art to task. If you don’t mind your soul being corrupted, why not treat yourself to a volume of this poetry and rifle through in search of some favourites? Alexei has this volume (though Tolstoy satirically masks the title and calls the writer Duc de Lille) under his arm before a particularly unfulfilling session settling the marital debt. Here is William Aggeler’s translation of poem XXIV from the volume:

I adore you as much as the nocturnal vault,

O vase of sadness, most taciturn one,

I love you all the more because you flee from me,

And because you appear, ornament of my nights,

More ironically to multiply the leagues

That separate my arms from the blue infinite.

I advance to attack, and I climb to assault,

Like a swarm of maggots after a cadaver,

And I cherish, implacable and cruel beast,

Even that coldness which makes you more beautiful.

Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss (1874)

I’m listening to this scandalous operetta about a practical joke spun out of control as I write this (Herbert Von Karajan, Wiener Philharmoniker, on vinyl), and am pondering Stepan’s quoting of this stanza from the libretto:

Heavenly it would be to conquer

My earthly lusts;

But though I’ve not succeeded,,

I still have lots of pleasure.

What is the benefit of listening to the music mentioned in great works of art, viewing the paintings, and reading the books? If nothing else, it’s an easy and efficient way to expand and explore your budding artistic tastes. 

Many speak of wanting to ‘get into’ opera or jazz or read philosophy, but don’t know where to start. Well, you’re reading Anna Karenina, and now you can listen to Strauss, then Mozart – start here. 

You also have something to think about whilst listening to give you an aim and directive. Namely: why is Stepan quoting this to Levin? What does that tell us about his character? And why has Tolstoy chosen these words from this opera, of all operas, to take prime position in his novel? Does Die Fledermaus deal with similar themes as Anna Karenina?If so, how does it differ in its exploration of them? How does this illuminate the people and preoccupations that fill your life?

Specific tasks to deepen your reading journey

1) Collect a handful of your favourite episodes, sentences, phrases, character descriptions, or even whole chapters. File them away, mark them, journal upon them, or let the whole group know your favourite parts. If we talking about Part One, I simply adore the chapters at the ice rink, the ball, and the train carriage during the blizzard.

2) Analyse two or three of your favourite parts so far (either in your journal, in a typed-up review, or simply talking aloud to yourself, someone close to you, or the book group). What do they add to your understanding about the characters and the world of Anna Karenina? What do they add to your understanding of yourworld and yourself?