I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
I’ve just begun reading Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy’s 19th century novel about a married aristocrat who engages in an extramarital affair, leading to her social ruin and tragic end. A parallel story follows landowner Levin, who is searching for love and meaning.
This is part of my effort to better understand what makes for great literature and a great main character, as I think about living my life as literature, inspired by Nietzsche (interpreted by Nehamas).
I’m less than 10% through — I read it on a Kindle, so I see a record of progress. I’ve been surprised that the initial focus is not on Anna but on the character Levin, who apparently represents Tolstoy himself.
I’ve been as well thoroughly surprised by the misogyny and objectification of women that the book opens up with. The first character to be introduced, Stepan Arkdayich (Prince Oblonsky), has had an affair with his family’s former French governess, and he gives as his reason that his wife, in her thirties like he is, is too old and haggard for him.
Then Levin arrives in Moscow from the countryside, where he manages a large farm as a landowner, so as to make a proposal of marriage to a young woman, Kitty Scherbatsky. He seems to have no other interest in this young woman then that she is youthful and beautiful, and as well comes from a family he much admires for their affluence and cosmopolitan lifestyle. She’s like a piece of furniture to him.
I know that as the novel continues, Anna will be ostracized and punished by society for her affair but her lover will not. This is the double standard of adultery that reigned at the time and, in some ways, still holds sway.
So far, Tolstoy’s novel makes woman the “Other,” as described by Simone de Beauvoir in her classic 1949 feminist book The Second Sex. He even starts a book that is nominally about a woman — Anna — with tales of men (Oblonsky and Levin) talking about and objectifying women, first Stepan’s wife Dolly and then the object of Levin’s attention, Kitty (who is Dolly’s younger sister).
There is controversy over whether Tolstoy’s novel is a proto-feminist critique of differential societal rule-making applied to men and women. And, as the novel continues, I understand, Levin’s fantasy view of his now-wife as object only will be challenged.
So I’m going to continue reading it, and once I finish I think I will watch this 1977 BBC miniseries. Or maybe I’ll start watchinig it now, as I read!
Three elements I’m going to be looking out for as I continue to read (thank you Gemini for the guidance):
- Psychological realism – Tolstoy gets inside people’s minds and shows the messy way their thoughts flow
- Micro-gestures – Tolstoy uses tiny, subconscious physical details to tell what a character is really thinking and create subtle tension
- Moral ambiguity – Though many 19th-century Victorian novels present characters as clearly good or bad, Tolstoy refuses to color characters in black and white. This is similar to modern fiction.
A year of reinvention blogging
I’ve finished one year of the 1000-day project!
This is actually my second year of reinvention blogging, as I started with The Reinvention Project before realizing that 365 days is not enough to track the total personal transformation I’m seeking.
That gives me about one and three-quarters more years of this. I’ve already decided that, if I like, I will start an 11,000-day project after this, just so I have a container and approach for blogging every day. That will take me to almost ninety years old!