Finis: Anna Karenina

Mom was right. Part VIII is anticlimactic. In fact, I think that's an understatement. About four pages are devoted to the aftermath of Anna's death, and then the next 100 are devoted to Vronksy thinking.

First of all, I'll discuss the aftermath, since that's the most interesting part of Book VIII anyway. Because Anna is dead, we can no longer view events (when there actually are events) from Anna's point of view. So from whose perspective does Tolstoy tell the rest of the story? Not Vronsky's. No, that would be too easy. And not Karenin's, probably because the fraudulent psychic and Lidia had him in a trance. No, we get to hear the rest of the story from Vronsky's mother, whom we haven't heard from since about Book III.

The only positive thing I can say about reading from Countess Vronsky's perspective is that we learn the apple doesn't fall far from the Vronsky tree. Vronsky and Anna couldn't hold a candle to the countess's self-involvement. When Levin's brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, runs into the countess at the train station, and as soon as she has someone who will listen, she says, "Oh, you have no idea what I've been through!" And then she tells the story of about what her son has been through. Apparently Vronsky's grief exacted a great toll on his mother.

So this is what happened: Anna knelt in front of the train. Vronsky had to go to the train station to recover her body. He was prostrate with grief for weeks. Karenin took Anna's baby daughter, because even though she wasn't biologically Karenin's, she was legally his because he and Anna had never divorced. Vronsky remained in a grieved state until political unrest developed in Serbia, to which many Russian soldiers volunteered to travel to offer support. Vronsky was one of them, and he was at the train station with his mother when they came upon Sergey Ivanovitch.

And that's all we get to know about that. As for the other 127 pages of Part VIII, I've written one-sentence synopses of each chapter, and they go like this:

1. Sergey Ivanovitch spent six years writing a book, which nobody read. He decides to visit his brother Levin.
   
2. At the train station, Sergey Ivanovitch encounters Vronsky departing to Serbia to war.
3. On the train, Sergey's friend Katavasov meets some soldiers and doesn't like them. How is any of this content relevant to the story? And why does Tolstoy introduce a new character now?
4. Countess Vronsky tells Sergey how awful Anna's death has been on her.
   
5. Sergey talks to Vronsky, who is still traumatized by Anna's death. We learn what happened when he went to the train station after hearing of Anna's suicide.
6. Sergey and Katavasov arrive at Levin's farm. Kitty welcomes them, then goes to breast feed her baby.
7. Kitty contemplates her husband's lack of religious faith.
8. Levin contemplates his religious ambivalence.
9. Sometimes Levin is so confused and troubled by his ambivalence that he considers suicide--how extreme. But he doesn't kill himself because he loves his wife and child. Levin is the king of overanalysis.
   
10. Levin, religion, blah, blah, blah.
    
11. It's harvest time. Levin throws himself into his work.But when a peasant inadvertently answers Levin's spiritual questions, Levin doesn't want to listen. Stupid Levin.
12. More over analysis.
13. Thank God! Levin finally figures out all he really needs to know he learned in kindergarten!
14. Having finally figured out his faith, Levin takes a walk with Dolly, Sergey, and Katavasov. They go to the bee house.
15. Levin and his visitors discuss people's decisions to volunteer to support the Serbians, like Vronsky has.
16. Levin argues with Katavasov and gets irritated with him.
17. A terrible storm blows up and the party makes it home just in time, only to learn that Kitty is out in the woods with the baby and nurse. Levin goes to find them. Lightning strikes a tree and it falls, but not on Kitty. They're all right. This is the most exciting chapter in all of Part VIII.
18. Kitty bathes the baby. She and Levin realize that the baby recognizes their faces.
19. And they all lived happily ever after. Except Anna.

And there you have it, my readers. Now you don't even have to read Part VIII of Anna Karenina.

If Susan Baldwin decides to finish this novel, I will give her a medal. And then we will discuss how this novel became a classic work of literature. My guess is that there was not much else to read at the time.

And now on to other novels. My next pic is Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith.

Part VII: Anna Karenina

If your name is Susan Baldwin, consider this a spoiler alert. While you may already know Anna's outcome, I don't want to spoil the rest of the novel for you. Keep reading Anna Karenina, and come back to this posting when you're done.

The rest of my avid readers will be glad to know that I've finished Part VII of Anna Karenina, and I've read about a dozen chapters of Part VIII (chapters are only a couple of pages long, so it's easy to get through a dozen). I have 30 pages to go in the book, and I'll be so glad when I've finished it.

As critical as I've been of the book lately, I found Part VII especially satisfying. That's because Anna dies.

I know that sounds horrible. I'm not glad Anna threw herself in front of a train. Instead, I found this portion of the book satisfying because Tolstoy told so well the story of a woman's downward spiral through depression and into the deepest despair. Reading Part VII gave me that "hindsight is twenty-twenty" feeling. As frustrated as I was with Anna all through the book, once she committed suicide, I reflected on her previous self-involvement, and it all made sense.

Anna never matures. When we first meet her in Part I, she advises Dolly to remain with her philandering husband, Anna's brother, and in 1000 pages that's the only thing she does that centers on someone else's needs or problems. From then on, Anna's behaviors are entirely self-focused, at the expense of those she claims to love the most. So at the end of the novel, when her selfishness turns into jealousy over an imaginary woman, she won't stop with her own misery, but must make Vronsky miserable with her, deciding to end her life to "punish him and escape from every one and from [her]self."

For several chapters leading up to Anna's end, Tolstoy focused on Anna's depression, revealing how Vronsky attempted to satisfy her to no avail. By creating problems to worry about, Anna dug herself into a hole from which she couldn't climb out, and Tolstoy's prose depicted that decline so perfectly, having her alternate between self-loathing and projecting anger onto others. One moment, Anna "blame[s] herself for the humiliation to which she ha[s] lowered herself," but then just a few minutes later, Anna feels "that sense of mortification and of being an outcast, which she ha[s] felt so distinctly on meeting Kitty," when in fact, Kitty finds her "charming" and "lovely," though "awfully piteous." When Anna decides to go to Vronsky (who is at his mother's), on the way to the station she views a couple on the street, and she projects her misery onto them: "They made inane and affected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit. Anna saw clearly that they were sick of each other and hated each other. And no one could have helped hating such miserable monstrosities." All through these chapters leading up to Anna's death, Tolstoy builds up tension with Anna's roller-coaster of emotions.

And that tension continues even as Anna stands at the railroad tracks because she mucks up the deed on her first attempt: "She tried to fling herself below the wheels of the first carriage as it reached her; but the red bag which she tried to drop out of her hand delayed her, and she was too late; she missed the moment" (At that moment I recalled Vronksy's failed suicide attempt earlier in the book). Then when she does finally kneel in front of the train, Tolstoy depicts that confused moment so well: "And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorry, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever."

And so ends Part VII.

Sadly, what Anna never realizes his how much her sister in-law Dolly admires her and how much she's influenced her. When Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin contemplates divorcing Anna, it's Dolly who stands up for her, remembering how Anna convinced her to remain in her marriage. Much later, after Oblonsky has continued his money-spending, philandering ways, leaving Dolly and her children at the mercy of Kitty and Levin, Dolly visits Anna and Vronsky at their country estate and admires how Anna and Vronsky carry on like a devoted, married couple. After observing their lives, Dolly questions whether she should have stayed her husband. Later, we see her standing up for herself more. For instance, in Part VII, Oblonsky, short on cash, much shorter on sense, asks his wife to sign over some of her property to him. She refuses because of Anna's influence. It's a round-about way of being a role-model, but as Anna contradicts the advice she gave Dolly, she demonstrates the results of acting in one's self-interest. The only difference is that Anna's decisions were entirely motivated by love; Dolly's are motivated by survival.

So now I'm on Part VII, the final book of the novel. My mom warned me I'd find it anti-climactic, as it's all about Levin, whom I love, but there's only so much I can read about a character's indecision about his religious faith. Several chapters revolve around Levin's ambivalence, and they have him doing absolutely nothing. Just thinking.

So I will push through these last 30 pages. As quickly as possible. I'm ready to pick up my summer reading books.

Just in Case You Didn't See Today's Paper

The BC Cadets lacrosse team is the team of the week! Look at this swell photo! Davis is on the bottom row, all the way to the right. Go, #16! This photo is courtesy of Pamela Veiock, special to Savannah Morning News. I wanted to connect the article to my blog, but I've forgotten my savannahnow.com username and password. So here's the article:

By Mark Beasley

Team Name: Cadets

School: Benedictine

Grade level: Ninth-12th

Sport: Lacrosse

League: South Carolina Independent School Association

Coaches: Carl Moore and Dick McAllaster

News: Ricky McAllaster was a 15-year-old BC standout lacrosse player who was tragically killed in a car accident on Jan. 1, 2010. He was a significant factor in the formation of the Benedictine lacrosse team.

The 28-member Cadets lacrosse team finished their 2010 inaugural season in second place with a final record of 5-5.

This season, they were 6-2 and in second place in the SCISA.

Players: Jacob Adair, Jack Autry, Thomas Ballew, Steven Barbose, Thomas Barrow, Sean Boyle, James Clark, Logan Clark, Bobby Crider, Jackson Dibrell, Alex Finkle, Lloyd Hodges, Matthew Johnson, Robert Kenny, Kyle Leonhardt, Aidan Mahoney, T.J. Mahoney, Hunter McJenkin, Zack Park, Charles Raley, Mark Reavis, Davis Remler, J.P. Sheffield, Samuel Silverman, Ben Summerlin, Logan Wilkinson, Joseph Willoughby and Chris Woiwode.

Next up: The team is finishing their 2011 season with league games. The postseason tournament opens April 27 at BC. If the Cadets are fortunate enough to win in the opening round, they will advance to the finals on May 7 at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C.

Contact: Pamella.Veiock@BCSav.net

If you’d like to nominate either a youth or adult league team as a Team of the Week feature, please contact Mark Beasley at 912-312-0749 or via e-mail at markbeasley.goodsports@yahoo.com.

Lawson at 12, Davis at Prom

This was a big weekend at the Remler household.

First, Lawson turned 12. Having already submitted our tax forms, we focused solely on the birthday of our second born. Lawson invited his three friends, Matt, Mills, and Drew, over to spend the night. After a filling fried fish lunch, we all went out to Pooler, GA to watch the BC Cadets play Savannah Lacrosse. It was a close game, and a bit of a disappointment, but we didn't let that ruin our evening. Back on Wilmington Island, we measured the height of all four boys while we waited for Davis to shower.













Then we lit up some candles on a chocolate cake and sang Happy Birthday to Lawson. His gift was a digital camera. Contact lenses are also part of the deal, but he does seem to be smitten with those big, black Harry Potter glasses.










After a satisfying sugar high, all four boys piled into the extra bedroom upstairs and stayed up til the wee hours watching movies on Netflix.

Then Saturday rolled around, and the focus turned to Davis. First, he and Stephen drove to Beaufort, SC for another lacrosse match (another close disappointment). By the time they got home, Davis's calves had wrought vengeance on him. He came into the house limping so bad that I thought someone had run over him. A soak in the tub with some epsom salts did the trick; then it was time to doll up for BC prom night.

Davis wore Stephen's tuxedo, but he had rented a vest and tie to match Megan's dress. Stephen and I helped Davis put on his great-grandfather's cuff links.


Then we plumped up his tie with some cotton balls. He looked right spiffy! And Megan looked lovely with her up-do and her strappy sandals. Don't they make a handsome couple?













They dined at Ele before driving in PopPop's Cadillac to the Jepson Center to dance the night away.










Tonight was Elizabeth Dixon's prom night too! She and her boyfriend Pete Beagle looked so handsome in basic black.













We hope everyone has a fun but safe night!

Lawson Performs in Living Stations

The second grade of St. Peter the Apostle School performed the living stations of the cross every Friday during Lent. Because no second graders were big enough to lift a dead Jesus, Lawson and Mills Thompson were recruited to play the role of the guards. The following two videos show his performance:





I smell a Tony!

Anna Karenina: The Nether Parts

I'm afraid my friend Susan has put down Anna Karenina. Not that I can blame her. While the first four or five parts, while frustrating, kept the story moving more or less along, Part VI brought the novel to a screeching halt. The first half of Part VII isn't much better.

I know it's a world classic. And for that reason, I'm a little ashamed of being so critical of it. And I'm going to make myself finish it. But right now, this book does only one thing for me: it confirms my opinion that no book--not one--needs to be 1170 pages long.

The novel has been sitting on my night stand, looking lonely, for about two weeks, but I haven't had the strength to pick it up, preferring instead to watch HBO's recent miniseries Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet might play a good Anna Karenina). But yesterday, I forced myself to read ten pages, telling myself that the longer I leave the book sitting, the longer it will be before I can read something more interesting, like the new tax code.

I take notes as I read, and recent notes are telling of the way the book holds my interest. For instance, at the beginning of Part IV, I've written several paragraphs, such as the following: "It's funny that Alexey Alexandrovitch (Karenin) cares what the servants think, only to grant a divorce but to take the blame. Meanwhile, despondent Vronsky tries to shoot himself, but misses, causing only a wound. What an idiot!" In other places, I draw little surprised faces, especially in instances of foreshadowing, like the following: "I shall die. I've had a dream" and "She showed him how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face. And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terror filling his soul."

But in the later parts of the book, my notes turn into one-sentence chapter summaries. And even they're boring:

• Levin and Kitty move to Moscow for Kitty's confinement. Levin doesn't like the city.
• Levin goes to visit a friend to talk about politics and agricultural economics.
• Levin goes to visit Lvov.
• Levin goes to a concert.
  
• Levin reluctantly pays a social call and has insipid conversations.
  

The end of Part VI has Levin attending the municipal elections, which take several days (and just as many chapters). All the while Levin isn't the least bit interested in what's going on. Now, I understand these chapters help set up the culmination of Levin's story (because my mom told me that at the end he'll finally come to terms with what he believes). But does it have to take five or six chapters to get that idea across? I doubt it.

Note to Tolstoy: If your character is bored, your reader is bored too. Just sayin'.

The interesting things that happen are as follows:

• Kitty's mother, sister, nieces and nephews move in with the Levins for the summer, much to Levin's dismay. Though he loves his in-laws, he suffers from too much togetherness.
  
• The reason Dolly et al. have come to stay is that Dolly's philandering husband Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky has not provided her enough money to maintain her own household.
  
• When Oblonsky does show up, he brings along his obnoxious friend Veslovsky, who, on a bird hunt, manages to get Levin's wagon stuck in the mud and then returns to the homestead to make passes at Kitty. Levin, much to my satisfaction, asks Veslovsky to leave.
  
• Dolly takes a day trip to visit Anna and Vronsky, who have set up housekeeping at Vronsky's country home. Vronsky has decided to become a landed aristocrat. That's fine, except that in Part II (or so), he was out of money, his mother had stopped providing for him, and he had resigned his commission in the army. So where is he getting the money to renovate the hospital on his estate? I'm confused.
  
• Now the Levins are in Moscow, and Levin is just about over his boredom. He has gone to a gentleman's club, where he ran into Oblonsky and Vronsky. Oblonsky begged Levin to be friends with Vronsky, and so they shook hands. Then Oblonsky took Levin to meet Anna, who captivated him with her charm and beauty. Now Levin is on his way home to Kitty, and I don't know what he's going to say to her about meeting the famous Anna.
  
• Oh, and by the way, Anna and Oblonsky are back in Moscow because Anna has finally agreed, after much begging from Vronsky, to ask Karenin for a divorce.

So Susan, as much as I'd like to discuss Anna Karenina with you, I completely understand why you may have put it down. But if you decide to pick it up again, feel free to skip the last half of Part VI and the first half of Part VII.

Only 165 pages to go!

The Great Clean-Up

Our house has been on the market for 15 months. During that time, three people have looked at it. Yesterday was the first time in more than a year that someone had come to take a peek. We've become so unaccustomed to visiting realtors that we got a little relaxed in our housekeeping.

Lawson especially.










Not that he was ever Mr. Neato Mosquito. His closet has always qualified for an episode of Hoarders. Although some folks in his maternal lineage tend to hold on to mementos for sentimental reasons, Lawson's tendency to keep stuff has more to do with his throwing it in his super big closet and forgetting about it. A couple of summers ago, Stephen, Davis and I kept noticing a strange odor at the top of the stairs. When Stephen decided to find out the cause, he discovered, after much investigative work, a two month-old egg salad sandwich in an old lunchbox, which Lawson had thrown into his closet at the end of the school year. Wearing a gas mask, Stephen tossed the lunch box out with the sandwich, and all was well for a day or two until we realized the smell upstairs hadn't gone away. Back to the closet. More spelunking turned up a three month-old tuna sandwich in another lunchbox. Tossing that one out required the haz-mat suit.












Fast forward to yesterday when the phone rang and a real estate agent asked to bring a client to our house. We pulled out the Endust and got to work, and Lawson, much to our surprise, asked Stephen to help him clean out his closet. Stephen can't resist the opportunity to get rid of old stuff, so father and son put a hurtin' on the closet shelves. I would have been crazy not to document the process in photographs.

We found a jacket, now too small, that Lawson had never worn.

We discovered multiple remote controls and chargers. What they control and charge, we have no idea.









And the trash. Lawson can collect more trash. It's like he's never heard of the garbage can. A sleeping bag full of toys, clothes, games, and electronics went to the Goodwill. A basket of clothes went to the laundry room, and two trash bags full of I-don't-know-what went to the dumpster.











Now Lawson can fit his shoes in his closet!










Meanwhile, Davis sat in his room and did his homework. Looks like his room is next.