Anna Karenina

This rainy Saturday morning I began rereading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  The translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is immeasurably superior to the translation I read previously.  The Pevear/Volokhonsky team are known for their Dostoevsky translations, particularly The Brothers Karamazov.  I found that couldn't put it down and read straight through the first book.  I'm particularly taken with the characters of Oblonsky and Levin.  The two are set up to be something of opposing tendencies, poles apart, yet friends.  They seem to be very close to aspects of my own personality, Levin, my dark, moody, obstinate, country loving, conservative side and Stepan, my light, cheerful, easygoing, cosmopolitan, liberal side. 

I'm deeply impressed, not only with Tolstoy's depth of insight into human beings and their world, but in his ability to articulate his insight clearly and convincingly.  Not a single character's thoughts, moods, or feelings are at any time foreign to my own experience of internal dialogue.  Tolstoy is such an astute observer of human beings that I believe that, upon reading his work, I would feel self conscious were I to be in his presence.

I like this excerpt from the libretto of Die Fledermaus:

Himmlisch ist's, wenn ich bezwungen

Meine irdische Begier;

Aber doch wenn's nicht gelungen

Hatt'ich auch recht hübsch Plaistir!

In English:

Heavenly it would be to conquer

My earthly lusts;

But though I've not succeeded,

I still have lots of pleasure!

As he said this Stepan Arkadyich smiled subtly, Levin also could not help smiling.

Update:

I awoke at 3:00 AM this Sunday morning, and being unable to return to sleep, and with little email or other internet work to fritter away my time with, I picked up Anna Karenina again.

I'm up to chapter 14 (in book 2) and I can feel the pull of Levin drawing me away.  It's no secret that Tolstoy likes him best.  The country life, the solitude and the soon to be domestic life… This must be the meaning of life!  It's still raining outside, and I can smell the wet soil on the cold November air through my open window.  That's a smell that I enjoy… dirt.  No really, it smells wonderful!

"But of Levins there are a great many in Russia, almost as many as Oblonskys." -Dostoevsky, Diary of a Writer