Hannah > Recent Status Updates

It’s early but I don’t think he fully sees women or jews as people

The concept of having to make a shorter version of your book because there was so much nonsensical yap. He needs to shut up, yet here I am, reading this. The things I do to read Hegel.

Oh to relate to Aloysha… I wouldn’t be reading Dostoevsky if I did though let’s be so real

I always thought it’d be kinda cool to write a book in the lens of just two people, and one framing their life in terms of the other. But doing that with a romance is so overdone. Doing it with some weird elusive friendship, now that’s awesome.

“I do not want your admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness in the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.”

Oh lord

Kinda funny that I started reading this on a beach and the book starts on one. This was not intentional, I knew only briefly what the story is about, but damn it majorly enhanced the experience.

I would call Levin far more spiritual than he is at all Orthodox Christian tbh

“Without knowing what I am and why I’m here, it is impossible for me to live. And I cannot know that, therefore I cannot live”

Real as fuck Levin. Something that fully could come out of my mouth any given time during summer.

“It’s like keeping a man condemned to death for months with a noose around his neck, promising him maybe death, maybe mercy.”

Stiva and Anna are masterclass complex characters.

“He wants to prove to me that his love for me shouldn’t hinder his freedom…. I can’t do anything, start anything, change anything. I restrain myself, wait, invent amusements for myself - the Englishman’s family, writing, reading - but it’s all only a deception, the same morphine again.”

Still not over Vronsky calling Levin a crack head hdhshshs

Alexi Karenina hasn’t been properly discussed in hundreds of pages at this point. I hope he gets some content before it happens

Over 800 pages read and it took this damn long for Anna and Levin to meet. Wow.

Levin telling Vronsky “I think the local court is an idiotic institution” 💅

“Vronsky had come to the elections because he was bored in the country and had to assert his right to freedom before Anna” This really is a cautionary tale of don’t EVER change your entire life trajectory for a man.

Tolstoy is really able to get into the little nuances that cause irritation and miscommunication. I worried the Levin Kitty plot would dry up with them getting their happy ending of sorts but in showing these normal relationship problems in such a perceptive way, it keeps my attention.

“‘And why not?’ he thought, ‘if it were a momentary flash or passion, if I experienced only this attraction (I may call it “mutual”) — but felt that it went against my whole mode of life, If i felt that in yielding to this attraction I would betray my calling and duty.”

I may have been wrong about Stiva

I feel a lot of pity for Karenin. He goes to show that it is so important to forge friendships because that’s really what you have to turn to when family and love lets you down. And of course the one friend he does have is in the perfect place to take advantage of him, and perhaps no better method of exploitation exists than religion.

I love you Stiva. Makes me wanna throw a fire dinner party. There’s the contrast of women being demonized for cheating and men being forgiven, yet they’re all technically Christian so isn’t forgiveness a principle? Only for men. Regardless of that you can’t help but admire the lengths Stiva goes to make it up to Dolly, as Anna tells herself Alexi is a machine to rid herself of any remorse.

Remember when a while back Kitty became way too into her faith? Even if she’s less devout now she clearly still holds it, and with Levin revealing he’s an atheist, I think that’s their biggest worldview clash. Curious to see how that plays out.

Also the discussion of painting of Christ by an atheist feeling like it’s missing something was interesting, and if atheists should paint religious figures or not

Cut from Vronsky gaining a new understanding of Anna from a stranger painting her to Levin struggling with separation of identity with Kitty because of their weird ability to understand each other.. to loved properly is to be understood and Vronsky just can’t understand Anna. She may be a pos (kinda understandable from circumstances), but she is complex and that’s more than he can say.

Something I really appreciate this book for is showing the importance of conversation, and the pairing of dialogue with insights to characters minds shows communication gaps. These people think about conversations long after, seeking out not only friends, but strangers and mutuals, often opening their minds or at the very least making them rethink their own opinion strengths.

The full quote doesn’t fit here but Levin talked about how arguments between intelligent people are often not really about proving each other of something, but spent clarifying what is important to you about something and trying to prove how that thing is worthy of noticing and loving and such and that the opponent will come to agree usually that it is important, maybe not the most, but still gain an appreciation

Fuck I’m really seeing a new side to Alexi Karenin. Forgiving both Anna and Vronsky in such a pure way? To raise Vronsky’s child??? For such an emotionally unavailable and detached man, he really is good at heart it seems. We can’t blame Anna for in love with someone else, that’s only human, but idk she’s such a mess and obviously not ill intentioned like she fully admitted to the affair. Fuck Vronsky

“It’s true that it’s time to die. And that everything is nonsense. I’ll tell you truly: I value my thought and work terribly, but in essence - think about it - this whole world of ours is just a bit of mildew that grew over a tiny planet. And we think we can have something great - thoughts, deeds! They’re all grains of sand”

Levin just put existential crises in the most poetic way.

Levin: There’s less charm in life when you think about death — but it’s more peaceful

Stiva: On the contrary, the last days are the merriest

Fuck man, sometimes I think about what I’d do if I had confirmation I was in my final days of life and just that thought is freeing. I need to make more updates bc this book is great. The complexity of Anna, the shallowness of the Alexis. Levin and Kitty as the light

I have to read 6 books at once or I get bored