The Idiot Prize: Anna Karenina Part IV

While I would characterize Part III of Anna Karenina as a snail of a section (did we really need to read a whole chapter about a character balancing his check book?), Tolstoy made up for lost time in Part IV. Lots happened. The story finally started moving along. Quickly. Still, while I was less frustrated with the pace of the story, I came away from Part IV more frustrated with characters. In fact, I would label Part IV as "The Book of Idiots."

Let me explain.

Karenin's position develops as follows: First he wants to maintain status quo at home, for the sake of maintaining a good reputation with the ministry. But when Anna invites Vronsky to their home, Karenin immediately decides to consult a lawyer for a divorce. And by the way, Karenin has decided that he hates his own son simply because the kid is also Anna's child. That one didn't go over well with me. He has second thoughts about divorce after Dolly urges him to forgive Anna, and he actually does, once Anna gives birth to Vronsky's baby and then in her delirium asks Karenin's forgiveness. All of a sudden, he no longer hates his son, but he's taken quite a shine to Vronsky's baby girl as well. By the end of Part IV, Oblonsky has convinced Karenin not only to give Anna a divorce but also to take all the blame so that Anna will not be a ruined woman. By the end of Part IV, I didn't know whether Karenin was coming or going, and his changes of heart were so sudden that I found them unconvincing.

But then there's Anna, who wants a divorce but can't have one. So she invites her lover into her husband's home (that took some guts). Then, once her husband is considering divorce, she gives birth and gets sick, which for some reason gives her a change of heart and she begs her husband's forgiveness, right there in front of Vronsky. Once forgiven, she falls into a deep funk over her farce of a marriage, which readers get to see very little of. Only when her brother steps in on her behalf and convinces Karenin to grant Anna a divorce does she pull out of her depression, and she does so in a snap, taking off with Vronsky before Karenin can even draw up divorce papers. And she leaves behind her precious Seryozha, whom she had once claimed she could never do without. I don't know what happened to the baby girl. Tolstoy didn't explain that. Maybe Karenin gets her too. Anna's quick changes of tune, like Karenin's, turned me off.

Please don't think I misunderstand the intent behind Anna's and Karenin's characters. I get that Anna is frustrated by the rules and expectations of society and that Karenin is striving to keep up respectable appearances at all costs. I get that those two personalities conflict.

I get it.

But we see very little of Anna and Karenin's relationship prior to the betrayal, and as a result, it's hard for me to simply accept their rash changes in judgment as Tolstoy depicted them. Not only that, but Anna acknowledges in Part IV that she married Karenin even though she didn't love him. I know many women did that in the nineteenth century, but still, I find it silly to make such a decision and then complain because the marriage is unhappy. To me, that's like jumping into a shark tank and then complaining of being bitten. To me both Anna and Karenin come across as selfish, silly, and, well, idiotic.

But they don't win the idiot gold medal. No, that one goes to Vronsky. Once forgiven by a magnanimous Karenin, Vronsky goes home to ponder the loss of his true love. He decides he can't live without her, so he loads his revolver, points it at his chest, and...(wait for it)...He misses!

Vronsky is a soldier! He's trained to use weapons! And he can't even shoot his own chest? Puh-leez. I think he didn't really want to go through with it; otherwise, he would have pointed that gun to his head. At any rate, it's a good thing he retired his post and ran off with Anna because if Russia ever needed him to defend it, everybody'd be in a world of hurt.

The only characters exempt from the idiot prize, are, of course, Levin and Kitty, who finally get together in Part IV. Now, I am told by my father, a HUGE Tolstoy fan by the way (and probably cringing at my throwing out idiot awards hither and yon), tells me that the scene in Chapter 8, in which Levin writes down a code consisting of about a dozen letters which Kitty immediately deciphers (the code is a declaration of his love), is an actual episode from Tolstoy's life. It's how he declared love to his wife. In the subsequent chapter, Levin decides he must come clean to Kitty that he is not a virgin, which upsets her, but she stands by him. That episode is also from Tolstoy's life. According to Father, Tolstoy kept a specific diary, and prior to his marriage, he gave his diary to his fiancee for her to read. She learned of his previous relations with another woman (or women--I can't remember). She was terribly upset, but she married him anyway. I think that's an interesting story.

Anyway, Tolstoy consistently strikes vivid contrasts among his characters. In Part IV, Kitty and Levin couldn't be closer, while Anna and Karenin couldn't be more distant. Kitty and Levin's lives become more stable; Anna and Karenin's grow more chaotic. I'm sure Kitty and Levin will get married in Part V. I'm looking forward to that part.

One more thing: I am dying to know whether one sentence is a result of poor translation or just poor writing, so I issue a question to Susan Baldwin. Please look in the next to last paragraph of Part IV, Chapter 12. I would like to know if the following passage reads the same way in your book as it does in mine (this is Karenin speaking):

"I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!" he said, with tones of hatred in his voice.

Please, please, let that horrible redundancy be the result of yucky translation and not Tolstoy's writing. Susan, let me know.

On to Part V.