Katya Mills > Recent Status Updates

i was sad for Vronsky that he thought society had gone 'progressive' and hoped but then found himself and Anna walled off and the reality has sunk in by page 650, as his own family cannot even host them for a get together.... not even a game of Scrabble? please?

the last 100 pages i realized i had a real emotional connection to the characters, as the biggest changes to their circumstances caused me to cry all over the paperback for several nights in a row. lol

not really into it - its still early - but i think i prefer Mr Brown's short stories.

Mr. Karenina wants everything to be 'like it was' and Anna is struggling to imagine how to 'pretend'. Vronsky is young and ambitious and she realizes he's likely not capable of being the man she needs in this moment. Levin is dreaming of joining the peasants but pulled toward Kitty. despite pride.

Anna has moved from more traditional social circles into the edgy world of balls and flaunted wealth, where she knows she will find Vronsky and be able to feel that special feeling she gets in his presence, that feeling of being alive. I'm not exactly sure why her own family and status doesn't give her that same feeling, because she's got it made and set up for life, but so it is.

...then Kitty's slow comprehension of what is happening at the ball... but the scenes i love best so far actually are the ones with Levin who may be a character closer to Tolstoy himself, his expressed curiosity about communism... a country guy whose awkward in the city... has a big heart for his alcoholic brother Nicholas. it's a bit wild to be reading about Russia while i'm so angry with the invasion of Ukraine.

my impressions so far... few contemporary authors are capable of a linear narrative that is still compelling... also the way Tolstoy understood human nature... he drops these one liners that get to the psychology behind the behavior... how Anna suspects something off about Vronsky by his early actions at the train station and also again when he visits Dollys home to catch a glimpse of her...

Portugal was a bit of a royal madhouse i don't know about now

the year of the tiger advances

i see in the protagonist

myself. awkward at the party

inflated with passion of they convictions

breaking a cherished vase

spiritually tested psychosocially

admonished. nearing the end

of this unruly chapter

i laugh and go to bed

It's almost painful to read Nabokov when you consider yourself a writer. He certainly mastered the craft!

the description of a young man Ippolit who is dying from consumption is both terrifying and heart rendering. he cannot get out of his own way as he stumbles toward death. now he's firing on the Prince as an easy target!

the King of Portugal should be ashamed!

picked this dusty 1998 paperback off my book shelf to read it again. started reading it aloud to a friend on a friday night.

how wonderful! the way Nabokov writes! tons of name dropping which is hard to keep track of but all of these figures and predecessors in the family lineage must be there, because it is not a story of one man's life, it is the web of life of which he speaks.

Nastasya Fillipovna is wrestling the dinner party with her status and other peoples judgment of her... Roghozin tried to put a price on her to keep her from marrying Ganya and Ganya himself is a bit of a bastard and not in love with her...only the Prince is there among them whom she feels she can trust with her heart. the so-called 'idiot'.

re-reading this edition which is a much better translation than the cheapo copy i was struggling with on my kindle. now i read the scene where the general, in trying to impress Nastasya F inserts himself into a story he read to impress her... he suggests he was smoking a cigar on a train across from 2 ladies and a lapdog and they threw his cigar out the window and he then grabbed the lapdog and did the same!

so far i really like this voice out of Portland OR. boots on the ground locations the majority of people may relate to in american city life, like waiting in line for fast food.

so far i am getting an incredibly clear image of Nabokovs childhood and his relationship to his mother as a boy. its great.

love it

great!

lots of juicy characters

chess match leads to nervous breakdown. Luzhin strikes a match and it burns down in his fingers while he's in deep focus.

word for word its outstanding

quirky characters

sex definitely sells! its funny. her psychiatrist is a joke

love the push and pull with uninvited friend Reva