Samantha > Recent Status Updates

Relieved not to be the only one struggling with this book.

A bedazzled, monogrammed tortoise. Sexy.

Grateful for books that remind me I’m not alone in my thoughts, and for the friends who recommend them to me 😘

Really adoring reading this alongside The Overstory. A lot of themes and facts come up in both books: for instance, how respiration works in trees.

A funny moment in every chapter. I really liked Mimi Ma’s game of staring at her littlest sister on road trips, and I really enjoyed the psychology professor recognizing all the strategies he wrote about in the Adam Appich chapter.

Oh god, is this full of trying-too-hard language. I think we could tone the language down and the story would be a lot more affecting.

Not sure we need the time-hopping letters from Olga’s mom.

I really love how realistic Anna and Vronsky’s fights are, even in a different language, 150 years after they first “happened.” Neither can stop themselves from saying stupid things out of hurt and anger, and we argue with our loved ones the same way today.

He ran “like” one distraught. But, you know, not actually distraught.

Aha! Anna has *spoiler* and the perfect teeth make a comeback, but now they hurt.

But seriously why doesn’t Anna want a divorce?

Veslovsky is literally *the woooooooooorst*

How does he keep showing up?

Bringing Veslovsky on a hunt is the equivalent of (maybe worse?) than bringing Tom Haverford. But Veslovsky and Stiva taking down Levin’s idiotic sophistry (that’s exactly exactly what it is) around his relationship as a landowner to the peasants is priceless.

This is your daily reminder, as I get one, that Vronsky has strong, white teeth. Good teeth. Fine teeth.

Is there even any question whether the Levin story is more romantic than the Anna story? Levin is crazy but we linger on his absurd proposal and his pre-wedding jitters and how lovely and sweet the ceremony is. Anna and Vronsky just meet up to chat about how screwed they are.

Love this Dolly / Karenin tête-à-tête coming on the heels of a conversation about women’s rights. Strange to me how after defending unequal rights within a family Dolly can’t see that she and Karenin are in very different situations.

No one in history has had a face or eyes as expressive as Anna Karenina, according to the many adjectives Tolstoy has used to describe her. You can see everything you need to know to advance the plot just by looking at her face (unless you are her husband, in which case, you will ignore reality). Amazing!

Hot take: I like the Levin farming parts better than the “love story.” Anna and Vronsky are boring and superficial characters. Levin is totally nuts, but he has a lot more substance, and I enjoy hearing about his harebrained schemes and patronizing attitude toward the peasants which he thinks is so enlightened.

Also, the Maggie Gyllenhaal narration is fabulous.

“Many people think a trans woman’s deepest desire is to live in her true gender, but actually it is to always stand in good lighting.” Amazing.

Say “apposite” one more time, Bill.

absolutely the worst part about this book is the fact that jia, while barely older than me, articulates most things i've thought much more cogently. will read everything she writes.

He did gradually start to wonder why all their classroom discussions were so abstract and lacking in textual detail, and eventually he realized that most people are not actually doing the reading.

“Very early she’d been spiritually and emotionally corroded by the roomfuls of them at various industry gatherings, men who talked over her, explained to her, asked her to fetch them lunch or coffee, planted and reaped her self-doubt.”

There are quite a lot of adjectives and adverbs and clunky, self-conscious words where I think the usual ones would do, which I find distracting.

“Come on—she would say—tell us what turn your life took, who cares about mine, admit that it doesn’t even interest you. And she would conclude: I’m a scribble on a scribble, completely unsuitable for one of your books; forget it, Lenù, one doesn’t tell the story of an erasure.
What to do, then? Admit yet again that she’s right?”

I still love these books, but Elena’s obsession with Lila and Nino is frustrating and tiresome. Let’s hope AT THIRTY that she grows out of it.