Anna Karenina (Oxford World's Classics)

Excellent hard cover copy, high quality paper and print. There are extensive notes at the back and a nice introduction by Bartlett (recommended to read after you finish the book since it might contain spoilers). I am writing this review after reading part 1. I like how this translation flows so seamlessly and is very engrossing. You always remain in the story and it never feels like you are reading a translation. I previously read the P&V penguin edition and I loved that as well. This one just pips it by a hair for its smoothness.

A solid hardback. Good translation.

This is a beautiful hardback version. Bought for my 17-year-old niece to help her build a library of the great classics. It’s a beautiful yet tragic story that also provides a wise cautionary tale about “following your heart”.

I enjoyed this epic novel. It took me 2 months to read on my Kindle. I agree with other reviewers that Tolstoy perhaps should have given the book a different title (Ex. "Konstantine Levin," "Anna and Levin," or even "What Love Really Is") as the novel parallels the love stories of both Anna/Vronsky and Levin/Kitty. Tolstoy, however, knew what he was doing, as all master writers do. Anna Karenina is perhaps the most famous novel of all time. This novel is not a "love story" in the traditional sense because Tolstoy actually compares both couples. What constitutes true love between a man and a woman? Is passionate love really that big a deal at the end of the day? What keeps a couple together? Favorite characters: Levin, Kitty, Karenin, and Dolly. Why? Tolstoy fleshed out the humanity and inner journey of each of these characters well. The souls of these people grew as the novel progressed, and I marveled at their journeys toward forgiveness, growth, and self-acceptance. Their lives were never going to be perfect, but they did the best they could do - without intentionally hurting others. Through terrible trials, they became adults. I found Levin's (really Tolstoy's) search for God refreshing because it mirrors my own lifelong search for truth and meaning. Tolstoy and I were "soul mates! I also enjoyed the epic scenes of life in 1870s aristocratic Russia: the hunts, the Italy scenes, and German spa scenes, the election, and the upcoming war. Tolstoy explored the issues of the peasants and what it meant to be a landowner with honesty. What an epic read. My hat's off to you, Count Tolstoy!

I got this version for the translation. Anyone reading Russian literature is well served by researching the translations, which can change the reading experience. Regarding the novel, it’s Tolstoy, it’s great.

This translation is the most fluent and elegant comparing to other translations that I sampled. I enjoy it thoroughly. After reading the book I am puzzled why the book is named as it is. The Anna-Vronsky plot line is only less than 50% of the book, which I read through with lukewarm curiosity. The rest is Levin-Kitty plot line, which I cherish the most and gives me the impression that is also closer to author's heart. The adversities Levin and Kitty have to live through are the kind common to all humans. It's heart warming to see that they overcome, and grow stronger and fuller in a happy life with extensive family and friendship bonds. The book has broad realistic coverage on country life, farming labor conditions, human natures of all walks of life, and the inner struggle of a few main characters to make sense of their lives. On a quest seeking wisdom and guidance, I value this book as much as Middlemarch. The build and printing quality is very good. I find no fault. Except that the paper has an odor resembles newly manufactured wood that reluctantly fades.

It took Tolstoy ten years to write this book and it is easy to see why; it is multilayered and exceedingly brilliantly written.. I found it easy reading, and will always remember this book. It would be hard to forget as Tolstoy was born a noble and was well educated, but did not prosper until he finished this first book, War and Peace, he wrote about the tiny bit of freedom women had in Tsarist Russia. Anna (Anya in Russian) was also a noblewoman who indiscreetly had an affair that wrecked her marriage and life with a high Government Official who made her pay by giving him ownership of her child of Count Vronsky. There were two plots and Anna and Levi met only once. Levi and Tolstoy came to the end believing that God, Christ and family were the most important parts of a human's life. He thought men should be the lead in a marriage. Both at the end of a long life decided it was NOT nobility or the well educated that were wisest but peasants, and those that worked the fields such as Cesar Chavez. (He would have loved Chavez). A great book, truly and as good if not better than Dickens-as he put more into it-all encompassing of human strife and those who were discreet in having an affair of the heart was the right way to 'carry on' with a man not the husband. There are many highly cited philosophical statements concerning Anna (Anya) as she was both smart and brought low in life, was as Hurricanes and waves-she had to live a diminished life with some mania due to her affair with Vronsky. I highly recommend this book to the over 18 year old unless they are precocious.

Rosamund Bartlett's 2014 translation is so good that I re-read it less than a year after reading it the first time! Four years ago I read the old Maude translation and also enjoyed that immensely. I suspect that it would take a really bad translator to make this novel anything other than compulsively readable. This edition has the advantage of a modern, but never anachronistic, translation and a terrific introduction as well as a very helpful set of end notes. After finishing Bartlett's translation the first time, I turned my attention to Marian Schwartz's new translation. While that has some interesting differences (including a more successful - in my opinion - opening chapter), on balance I really much preferred Bartlett's work. Schwartz too frequently falls into what I think of as the "Pevear & Volokhonsky trap&#34 (in an effort to remain literally faithful to Tolstoy many of the passages read as if translated by Babel Fish). However, I would always advise someone to sample different translations before purchasing. For me, Bartlett's is now my "go to" AK translation (now, if only she'd translate WAR AND PEACE!).