Avery’s Reviews > Anna Karenina > Status Update

“It is dreadful that once cannot tear out the past by the roots.”

“Respect was invented to fill the empty space where love ought to be!”

*insert Oprah Sussex interview gif here*

I annotated this the 2nd time I read it but it feels like I am truly reading it for the first time. I guess that goes to how deep my original biases were.

Final (200 page) stretch

‘Not exactly that he can’t fall in love,’ Levin answered with a smile, ‘but he has none of that weakness, which is necessary…’

“in spite of death, he felt the necessity of living and loving. He felt that love had saved him from despair, and that love under the menace of despair grew still stronger and purer.”

“We in Russia are slow to realize that we are the inheritors of Byzantium”

And then she gasped. I know from my previous reads (and knowing Tolstoy) the various political concerns that are discussed in the book from that period but I suppose the next tike I reread it I will have to pay closer attention to the political debates discussions and questions Tolstoy observes and considers.