Brandon’s Reviews > Anna Karenina > Status Update

It's amazing to read that people also pulled petals off of flowers in sequence to figure out if something would happen in the 1800s... I wonder how long people have been doing that

The nature writing in this book is beautiful. Levin's farm and estate, the wildlife, trees, fields, ponds, grasses, and the description of farm work itself is all meditative. Tolstoy's writing is definitely better here than in War & Peace. Conceiving of such an expensive social story as this and writing it so beautifully shows how good he is. I care about all the main characters, they feel like real people.

This book is a breath of fresh air compared to War & Peace. Tolstoy's writing has room to breathe without his constantly having to write about the wars in 1805 and 1812 in exhausting detail. I feel like I'm finally seeing what a remarkable writer he is. Don't get me wrong, there was good writing in War & Peace, good scenes... this is just better.